December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Judo -> Aikido...
by Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- On Sep 15, Dan Geer apparently wrote -------------------------------------- > i recall Tzu also saying that you need to use > the enemy's momentum to your advantage, the > principle of judo if you will. in parallel, This has nothing to do with cypherpunks, but I just could not resist seeing a reference to a martial art that I still love to practice. Dan most likely refers to Aikido (and not Judo) here. A martial art that uses the momentum/force of the "partner" to disarm h{im,er} and change the "attack" to a victory in your advantage... > revolutionaries of many stripes have found > that "heightening the contrast" is necessary > if you mean for real change to occur. --- and thus sprach: Dan Geer <geer(a)world.std.com> ---------------------------- Ciao, Unicorn. -- ======= _ __,;;;/ TimeWaster ================================================ ,;( )_, )~\| A Truly Wise Man Never Plays PGP: 64 07 5D 4C 3F 81 22 73 ;; // `--; Leapfrog With A Unicorn... 52 9D 87 08 51 AA 35 F0 ==='= ;\ = | ==== Youth is not a time in life, it's a State of Mind! ========

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Re: Netscape gives in to key escrow
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

With the assumption that this is not a troll, and giving the writer some slack on account of the non-native-English-language origin, I'll respond to a few of his or her points: At 10:45 AM 12/1/95, JR(a)ns.cnb.uam.es wrote: >With regard to all this waving about Netscape giving in to key scrow... Key _escrow_, though "scrow" is perhaps just as accurate as the improperly-named "key escrow" (hint: escrow is something done voluntarily, not the situation here with GAK). >First one question, and then some considerations. The question: > >- How much of Netscape stock is in the hands of Netscape? I mean in the hands >of the people that work in/for the Company? And how much is in outsiders whose >only interest is earning as much as possible? A small fraction of the shares are now for sale. The exact numbers can be gotten from the Netscape offering prospectus (ironically, I tried to hunt for it in Infoseek, but Netscape claimed it was busy the 10 or so times I tried to run Infoseek on "Netscape"...no conspiracy, just crowding, even at 1:45 a.m. PST). In particular, the billion dollars' worth of Netscape stock (and/or options) that Jim Clark holds is mostly not on the open market (and won't be for years). Having said this, I think all of the shareholders, either of issued shares or as-yet-unissued shares, are interested in maximizing share value. Not surprising. Importantly--and maybe this is the real point JR is making--we on the Cypherpunks list are probably *not* interested in Netscape's stock price. But who cares? Our role is not to maximize Netscape stock price, but to talk about what is "right" and what is not right. And GAK is definitely not right, to the vast majority of us. >That is, my friends, the key point. When Netscape began selling shares, and >before and after that, they were (and still are) widely criticized in this >list. They were "criticized" not because they went public with their stock but because of their security mistakes, made more important by their sudden prominence. The Net/Web is being built up of beams, struts, and bricks, and it's important to point out flaws that make the beams buckle and structures collapse. ... >So, now we have that most of Netscape is owned by people that either don't >care but for money, or fundamental activists. And then, those people have to >take decisions. ??? I don't get the point you're making. Sure, most of Netscape stock that is publically traded is owned by investors. On the other hand, most of the stock that is not yet issued or is tied up in unexercised stock options is in a sense owned by people who care how well the stock does. >And then they are faced with confronting their government who tells them what >to do if they don't want to have problems. And who probably offers some hidden >compensations to get their support (maybe tax reliefs?). And who menaces with >countermeasures if they don't agree. Well, this is the point, isn't it? I doubt there are such things as "tax reliefs" for Netscape--these things are done pretty much out in the open in the U.S., and any special tax treatment would be widely noticed--but there may indeed have been "discussions" with senior management at Netscape. Several of us have already speculated in broad terms on this. Look, I don't impute personal malice to Jim Clark. I do, however, believe in "institutional evil," in the sense that a GAK regiment which says, for example, that anyone who keeps a diary must "escrow" copies of it with the local police is an "evil" idea, counter to the Western notions of liberty and justice. Thus, for whatever reason Jim Clark came out in support of GAK, we must criticize it. And take positive steps to counter it (which I think we are doing). >What did you expect Netscape to do? The guys with the money and the control >won't face all the small shareholders and tell them they are going to be >"evil" against the gov. and the priests and the religious organizations, >and that they will face gov. restrictions, give up political and economic >advantages, etc.. to satisfy a bunch of cypher >punks that are continuously >complaining publicly against the company and don't even buy shares. First, a viable strategy is to simply do nothing. Ignore the goverment's protestations, drag one's feet, shrug, etc. Jim Clark could simply have said nothing. (Recall that Bill Gates came out recently saying that strong encryption is inevitable...Clark could have either said nothing, or said something similar to what Gates said.) Second, the issue is not "satisfying" a "bunch of cypherpunks." If Netscape truly pushes for GAK, and people reject GAK and Netscape, then this will surely hurt shareholder value. (Frankly, I expect one or more stories to appear in the next few days about the budding "Friends Don't Let Friends Use Netscape" and "Just Say No to Netscape" movements. Whether this will hurt the stock is unclear.) >Sitting back and complaining won't help crypto, freedom or anything for that >matter at all. > >That said, before blaming more on Netscape and asking a starting company >whose major aset is still shareholders instead of sales, we should think >better about the correct strategy. > >Now, who's gonna offer some constructive ideas for a change? I say that the ideas being discussed are in fact "constructive" ideas. I won't reiterate them all here, but they clearly involve concrete action (e.g., modifying server software to issue warnings to Netscape users, or encouragement of alternatives to Netscape). What more are you expecting? Have you been reading what people are actually discussing doing and actually already doing? --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Crypto-Grams #1-#4, from Americans for Tax Reform
by Syniker＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To: syniker(a)aol.com CC: louis unfreeh@fbi.org,myfriend@staffsol.com.au Subject: Go Directly To Jail ... ======================= print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo"16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc` Someone at work today told me that if these couple lines were sent in an email to someone overseas, that we might go to jail for it??? Well, Looie -- you are in washington, and John, you are in Australia -- does that now mean we all three will have to go to jail together????? Please confirm. Kissy Poos to you both... syniker.

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Re: The problem of playing politics with our constitutional rights
by phelix＠vallnet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 18 Sep 1997 22:49:04 -0500, fnorky(a)geocities.com (Douglas L. Peterson) wrote: > >On Mon, 15 Sep 1997 10:40:30 -0700, you wrote: > >>At 10:09 AM 9/15/97 -0700, sameer wrote: >>>> >>>> Writing the code is no longer enough. The code must be usable by the >>>> sheeple to work. How do we do that? >>> >>> Sell code. >>> >>Marketing. >> >>It's not enough to have a great product -- you must also have great >>marketing. In the case of memewar, you need to get people to want to use >>something, enough to change their habits, even slightly. The less they need >>to change, relative to the benefit they get, the better. >> >>PGP/Eudora is a wonderful example of this. All that is needed to use it is >>one extra step (after install) -- typing your passphrase to sign a message >>before it is sent. Otherwise, it works the same as it always has. As a side >>effect, you can right-click to encrypt any file you can see in Explorer. >>Simple, quick, and usable even by the brain-dead, once you've convinced >>them TO use it. (And I forgot to bring my key file to work, so my Eudora >>here is useless for those purposes. Bother.) > >Too bad I use Agent. PGP is not out for it. > There are some third party programs that make using PGP with Agent easy. I use PGPeep( http://kakadu.rz.uni-passau.de/~w4hoff01/pgpeep/ ). With it, all I have to do to decrypt a message or verify a signature is hit CTRL+ALT+Enter. It's not as good as having true integration, but at least I don't have to copy to the clipboard each time. -- Phelix

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Re: Netscape, Corporations, and GAK Support
by carolann＠censored.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I know I may be asking for this a second time, But just what is James Clark's E-Mail Address? Thanks! Happy Holidays! Carol Anne -- Member Internet Society - Certified BETSI Programmer - Webmistress *********************************************************************** Carol Anne Braddock (cab8) carolann(a)censored.org 206.42.112.96 My Homepage The Cyberdoc *********************************************************************** ------------------ PGP.ZIP Part [017/713] ------------------- M8H,),S$8G>&.WP(8IRA`-M['+`Q%&_C"">5-F%LX@<_Q$;*P'',Q$Z/AA[8M MF=O0H+*%(-S%&>S%+FS&<LS%3(Q&#W1"<]2%`H^;,]^1C$'HBN8PX$4SYAU^ MPGD<Q0ZLA0D+,`MCT!LA**4M[-JPAK9F?40!AJ,CW"'%DR#:'9?Q)3[%<DQ` ------------------------------------------------------------- for next chunk to export --> http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/export/

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sooner or later
by Wei Dai 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Many of us believe that a crypto ban is inevitable. The only question for us is whether it'll happen sooner or later. Seen in this perspective, all that industry and civil liberties lobbies can do is delay the ban. But is this necessarily a good thing? Here are some reasons to believe that an ealier ban might be preferable to cypherpunks. 1. An earlier ban will do less damage to existing infrastructure. 2. A ban can not and will not stop crypto. It will force people to work around it, but ultimately it will not achieve its goal. We might as well start working around it sooner. 3. A ban will eventually be lifted, because of the impracticality of GAK, abuses, wide-spread security problems caused by added complexity or hackers stealing the master keys, ineffectiveness, sympathetic courts etc. The sooner it comes into effect, the sooner it goes away. 4. A ban will focus public attention on crypto, especially if it creates some of the problems mentioned above. This will accelerate deployment of crypto after the ban is lifted. In summary, the government is obligated to try and eventually fail to ban crypto. We might as well let them get it over with. I'm not suggesting that the professional lobbists stop their efforts (they shouldn't, if only for appearances sake), but it might be time for the rest of us to focus our attention on more important matters.

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RE: Netscape gives in to key escrow
by Pete Loshin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

JR wrote: >With regard to all this waving about Netscape giving in to key scrow... > >First one question, and then some considerations. The question: > >- How much of Netscape stock is in the hands of Netscape? I mean in the hands The original IPO was for 5 million shares. The vast majority of the stock is not on the market yet. It's owned/controlled by Clark et al, and presumably a healthy share for the VC's (though I have no knowledge of their participation). -Pete Loshin pete(a)loshin.com

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Re: A "Warning Banner" for Netscape Navigator? Good idea! Re: A "Warning Banner" for Netscape Navigator? Good idea!
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- tcmay(a)got.net (Timothy C. May) wrote: >Oh, I don't have their home page enabled. What I meant, but perhaps wasn't >clear about in my post, is that the commercials pop up in Yahoo, Infoseek, >Deja News, Excite, and so forth. (OK, so it is inaccurate to say "Netscape" >puts them in.) > >Some of the ads are intertwined with the command boxes of the particular >service, and thus may be hard to excise, but others seem to be separate. > >Any ideas? > >--Tim May A while back, someone on comp.infosystems.www.* posted patches to CERN httpd allowing the proxy server to filter out url's based on regexp matching. Thus you could update a regexp file as new ads appeared. It should be fairly easy to implement something similar under Netscape 2.x using plug-ins. Anyone interested in collaborating? Wilhelm Busch -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBML/FZIiUi5SQtQ3tAQHeAAgAmtp2fF9/UzHpDIz0pOXQqZ/0U+1/vMjR jenuLn17jkgQQXAl6e617ZKMJ4h+vV8QBOh78CPaK7omV9oJyNfDRQweDBWtiFRl uEzyeUoYwGoXxkUH5ANM8AW3GaBSiQ4TCDnwZlAsJ1pYYGRgJhMtdEwPnNVAXW+l l0uODlH+ENi8hGwsM683j7gGws0cc4JcH7Ou2U9zmLZ2gHrdQsWWdw70PjhdlK7e 26aY7EGfI9pTH69mHKV60Qxj2FmSCt1v6MeHjUwRupajCNTGcnsw3FllvRJc7lug cYPApS2ychZSszUwBqoBMvJpAUSpWk+x/RfQTDeo0wsCSvwc66mhWA== =DnEr -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Getting a copy of the Jim Clark speech
by Frank Stuart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>If he has not clarified his position by tomorrow evening, I will set up some >web pages explaining the situation and decrying Netscape's apparent >position on key escrow (GAK). I have the quotes that L. McCarthy posted, >and Jeff Weinstein's response. I have not been able to get the article off >the server yet (possible all the cypherpunks downloading it?). Any other >documents I should include? I'm working on an "obnoxify" program to convert normal html documents into documents that look normal to non-netscape browsers, but are too painful to read with netscape (</BLINK>, <FONT SIZE=1>, etc.). I think tomorrow evening would be a good time to decide whether or not to distribute it. | (Douglas) Hofstadter's Law: Frank Stuart | It always takes longer than you expect, even fstuart(a)vetmed.auburn.edu | when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

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CPunks in the news: St. Jude
by Jim Gillogly 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Today's (1 Dec 95) LA Times has a writeup on female "hackers", and gives several sympathetic column-inches to St. Jude Milhon, a charter Cypherpunk. Evidently she has a new book coming out (Girls with Modems?). Jim Gillogly Sterday, 11 Foreyule S.R. 1995, 17:11

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