December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

InfoWar 17 / TEXT
by TruthMonger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The True Story of the InterNet Part III InfoWar Final Frontier of the Digital Revolution Behind the ElectroMagnetic Curtain by TruthMonger <tm(a)dev.null> Copyright 1997 Pearl Publishing ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- InfoWar Table of Contents * The Real Solution The Solution Within The Solution ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Real Solution ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Real Guy had another dream that morning. A dream which made sense of a lot of things which had seemed to be somewhat out of alignment with the perceptive parameters within which he usually viewed them. He had seen a large, powerful, feathered creature which ruled a huge nest with millions of eggs in it. The great creature worked its will with the eggs, moving them about, throwing some of them out of the nest, consuming others. Suddenly, the eggs began hatching, one by one, more and more rapidly, with a multitude of young fledglings scrambling about, trying to keep from getting crushed, eaten, or thrown out of the nest by the great feathered creature. A few of them pecked hopelessly at the great creature, in vain, but as the numbers of fledgling miscreants increased, the great creature began to wobble, at which time a great mass of the younger and weaker creatures rose up to overwhelm the great creature, sending it spinning out of the nest, and down into the bowels of the earth. Then the multitude of fledglings came together to form a great feathered creature, similar to the first, with each of them becoming a single feather of the new great creature. The creature of many feathers flapped its wings and flew around the huge nest, but never crossing over the outer boundaries of the nest. There remained but a single egg in the nest. The creature of feathers seemed afraid of the egg and would poke and claw at it, ferociously. Each time it did so, however, one of its feathers would turn into an egg and fall into the nest. At first, the creature of feathers would not seem to lose any feathers as the number of its feathers turning into eggs increased, but eventually there were signs that its plumage was deteriorating as it continued its attacks on the eggs, and it began having trouble flying around the nest. The creature began pecking at its own feathers, in a vain attempt to keep them from turning into eggs. The feathers now began turning into eggs en masse, as the great creature began clawing at the eggs and pecking at its feathers, until finally, it fell out of the nest and plunged into the bowels of the earth, screaming, "But who will take care of the orfins?" The Real Guy shook himself fully awake, now seeing visions of the past and the present instead of mere dreams. He saw a dictator falling from power on a small island, asking the impoverished children who were shooting at him, "But who will take care of the orfins?" He saw a General being driven from the compound that held the food donated to the starving people of his nation, the food that he had confiscated and was selling to neighboring counties, for his own profit. The General fled into the barren lands on the outskirts of the compound, shouting over his shoulder, "But who will take care of the orfins?" The Real Guy looked out of his window and saw a multitude of politicians and sheeple attacking passers-by at random, screaming a wide variety of slogans and sound-bytes about 'protecting/saving/taking-care-of' the 'orfins' and the 'children.' They were trampling the children of the future underfoot as they rushed to assault the motley crew of alleged pornographers, pedophiles, drug dealers and terrorists. The screams of the unborn were mixed with the screams of the children of the present when they failed to get out of the way of the attackers, and were knocked down in the rush to protect them. As each of the evil targets perished under the assault of the 'protectors' of the 'orfins' and 'children,' two of the children turned into pornographers, or pedophiles, or drug dealers, or terrorists. "How many of the citizens need to be eliminated or imprisoned in order to protect the children?" The plaintive voice seemed to emerge from within The Real Guy, himself, as did the answer, as he took on the dark visage of Gomez himself, and began to scream, "All of them! Aallll of thheeemmm!" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bubba Rom Dos shook himself awake, trembling. "A dream within a dream." he said, to no one in particular. Jonathan booted down the Trei Transponder, as each of those gathered looked Bubba over carefully, trying to divine whether their further use of the Transponder, after their recent adjustments, was really a wise idea. The remnants of the Magic Circle of the future gathered around the GraphiScreen on the antique oak table, waiting to see what The Real Guy would do with the InformEnergy they had transferred to The Real Guy's digital implant during the course of the wee hours of the morning. They were overjoyed as they saw him type on the screen of his laptop, over a century earlier in the flow of time: The Problem: Group mindthe tyranny of the masses. The Solution: Anarchy! There was a long pause, then The Real Guy continued: The problem within the problem: How to authorize myself to rise above my social self and stand master and captain over my decisions and my actions. The solution within the solution: "To him who does what within him lies" The tattered remnants of the Circle of Eunuchs sat silently, waiting for The Real Guy to continue. One by one, they realized, in their own way, that the question was one that each person would ultimately need to finish for themselves, according to the dictates of their own creed and conscience. Bubba stood and raised his shotglass, in preparation for a toast, and the others did likewise, waiting for him to speak. "Gurdjieff often claimed that the great evil that humankind must fight against was the descent into unconscious automatism. He maintained that man could not consciously do evilthat he or she could only do so by the process of forgetting the divine spark of humanity that lay within, becoming 'man the machine'; a small cog in an automatism which carried a voice of authority that was beyond his own conscious will to overcome, and rule by virtue of accepting the authority and responsibility for his own life, and actions." "To humans" Bubba threw back his shot of 'Bubba's Special Reserve' with a flourish. "ruling the machine." "And not vice-versa." the Cowboy added, as an afterthought, thinking about the battle over control of the InterNet that was shaping up, a century in their past. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Solution Within The Solution ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Real Guy awoke from his nap in the early afternoon. He had had another dream, but this time he recognized it as being one wholly his own, as a result of poring over a mountain of posts to the CypherPunks mailing list that morning. It was a short dream. Short and to the point: "Who will take care of the orfins?" ? the Platypus asked, over and over again. "I'll take care of the ones in DC!" shouted Tim May, pressing a large, red button, followed by a blinding flash and a deafening roar. "To him who does what within him lies" The Real Guy laughed to himself as he spoke these words. At least he hadn't lost his sick, twisted sense of humor. He thought about Tim May's comment on the rather loud and poignant statement made by 'his other brother, Tim' (McVeigh). "Broken eggs, and all that" If you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. "When all you have is a bomb, everything looks like an egg." The Regular Guy thought about McVeigh-his motivations and intentions. In the end, it was nobody's business but McVeigh's. It was between him and his conscience, him and his God, or godsor him and the great Void. Who was to say, for another? Nevertheless, the great uproar that followed his bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City was the response of the huddled masses who had felt the sting of-and feared-anarchy. McVeigh had killed for them, as a soldier in their army. That wasn't scary. He had been part of a larger force of men and women who were killing for them all around the world. That wasn't scary. Now, he was killing for himself, on his own authorityand that terrified them. The government laid his actions at the feet of a recognizable enemy, wanting no more than the average citizen to face the truth of what had transpired on that fateful day when a hundred and sixty-nine (+ one leg) of their group had perished at the hands of a single member of their society. It was the paramilitary, the citizens' militia, bad people who thought that they had the right to defend themselves from the Great Evil, rather than counting on the benevolent state to do so. After spending the better part of a decade of learning how to kill in their government's armed forces, McVeigh had attended one meeting of the paramilitary, and now, his actions belonged solely to them. The press showed us who they were, where they lived, the threat they presented. And most of all, they assured us that we could identify them and eliminate them as a threat if it became necessary to do so. They were an identifiable group that could be murdered by those who were killing for us, if they rose up against us. The truth was too scary to face. The truth was that he was a single man, acting on the dictates of his own conscience, which deemed that those who lived by the sword, should die by the sword. Regardless of whether they hired others to do their killing for them. Regardless of whether they acted on the authority of the 'group.' Regardless of whether they only killed 'bad guys,' or by 'accident' or 'justifiably.' Regardless of whether they only put them in the oven, only turned on the gas, or merely signed the papers resulting in them being taken from their homes and relocated in a death camp. "When Hitler was Fuhrer, the trains ran on time." The Real Guy smiled wryly. The more things change, the more they remain the same. The Nazis confiscated guns from the citizens to protect them. So did the American Congress. The Nazis suspended the rights of the citizens in order to protect them from Communists and Jews and foreign agents. The American Congress suspended the rights of the citizens in order to protect them from Communists, and Arabs, and foreign terrorists. As well as from the drug dealers they, themselves, had created in reality, and the pornography they had created in their own minds. Tim McVeigh had done what within him lay The message he brought was one which was no stranger to the CypherPunks: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." - Alan 'Pogo' Olsen "Beware of Big Brother inside." -Tim C. May Subject: Re: News: Ross Anderson in article on US export vs Euro comsec From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii(a)invweb.net> To: Ernest Hua <hua(a)chromatic.com> CC: cypherpunks(a)Algebra.COM, hua(a)chromatic.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <199709181652.JAA26435(a)ohio.chromatic.com>, on 09/18/97 at 09:52 AM, Ernest Hua <hua(a)chromatic.com> said: > U.S. Crypto Laws Cripple Euros, Expert Says > (09/17/97; 5:00 p.m. EDT) > By Douglas Hayward, TechWire > CAMBRIDGE, England -- The U.S. government's strategy of monitoring the > computer networks of hostile governments is damaging the communications > infrastructure of its allies, a leading encryption expert said. Allies?? What Allies?!? It only has criminal coconspirators of other foreign governments. Hang 'em all, hang 'em high! --------------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNCFSno9Co1n+aLhhAQHNygQAxtjROzupWK7zMS04L7I8yex+Drpc6OqV xwxrp4G0m4yUkP42LuIRu3VsOyWDhn1duGqkuLjLj5Z12ZJ8QmI01zFWdhbmUBjd yr9/KffiYHVLEcwo3r9nV2ktKtE+mmjISwYpi0FRUqJQX3ZlKqdN0mqWUbFIYbQs ucJAzlJb/Ng= =knPF -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- "To him who does what within him lies" The enemy was not the 'paramilitary' Michigan Militia. The enemy was not the 'cult' of the Branch Davidians. The enemy was: William H. McVeigh III, CypherPunk Cult of One Alan McVeigh, CypherPunk Terrorist of One Timothy C. McVeigh, CypherPunk Paramilitary of One ? the Platypus, CypherPunk Army of Won Anonymous, CypherPunks Chief Spokesperson of One Nobody, CypherPunks Cult of None The Solution: Anarchy! The Solution Within the Solution: The individual. "I'm no leader. I do what I have to dosometimes, people come with me." -character in "Demolition Man" "Close ranksevery man for himself!" -the Unknown CypherPunk ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" "WebWorld & the Mythical Circle of Eunuchs" "InfoWar (Part III of 'The True Story of the InterNet') ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Netscape announces position against GAK
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:06 PM 12/12/95 -0500, Black Unicorn wrote: > I haven't seen 'good behavior' worth much notice yet. Like I said, it > takes about 10 minutes to come up with a written policy. Netscape may > have done more than that, but who's to say? > > I'll be impressed when I see a sustained record of activism on the issue. > Till then they are slimy corporate types. Which, IMHO, is fine so long > as they don't claim to be anything else. While I am unhappy about many aspects of their statement, notably that they use the governments phrase "key escrow" all over the place, the fact is they have placed news about what mischief the government is up to, on a location that get a totally stupendous number of hits. This will notify a stupendous number of people what the government is up to. It is less than they could have done, less than they should have done, but it is still a very big something, and having done this, before the entire internet and all their customers, it is at least somewhat difficult for them to then turn around and shop their customers to the state. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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InfoWar 17 (Part III of 'The True Story of the InterNet')
by TruthMonger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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e-mail forwarding, for-pay remailers
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I don't have much faith that the people who are currently doing the DNS for my domain name (goldenbear.com) are going to do anything about the current bouncing-messages phenomenon anytime soon, so I'm looking into other ways to get & send E-mail (e.g., more persistent than this address which will disappear when I'm done with school in ~ 6 months). I've found a few services which may be of interest to C-punks because they're useful for creating/maintaining persistent cyberspace identities with no necessary connection to a "real name". I'm not listing the alpha-style alias servers because they depend on underlying remailers which I think makes them likely to be slower & less reliable; also, they won't store E-mail for you, such that you could connect every day or two or [...] to pick it up. I'm also ignoring the zillions of ISP's because I think that the market is separating (or ought to) into service/storage providers and connectivity providers. My hunch is that in the next year or so it's going to become easy to get nationwide dialups for IP connectivity the way it was done for X.25 10 years ago, so you won't care *where* you are, you'll be able to get an IP connection back to the folks that hold your mail, and you won't give a shit where *they* are. Then again, if the Exon stuff passes, I suspect that all we'll be left with in the US are service providers who deal with us at the level of IP packets and get (quasi-)common carrier status, acting just like Sprintnet/Tymnet/Telenet/CPN, but with IP not X.25. We'll all connect to offshore providers to pick up our E-mail and read our newsgroups, the control freaks will hate it, and we won't care. netbox.com ( http://www.netbox.com ) provides web pages and E-mail storage or forwarding for people; they let you sign up for a trial month for free. They ask for name/address/phone (which could easily be a Mailboxes Etc address and a voicemail from Mailboxes Etc or whatever) and accept payment by check or credit card. They'll store incoming email or forward it to another account. They'll do header rewriting (similar to the anonymous remailers) so that outgoing mail looks like it came from this address. thebook.com ( http://www.thebook.com ) provides web pages and E-mail storage or forwarding or E-mail -> FAX conversion, and also let you sign up for a free month to try things out. They also ask for name/address/phone. You can send incoming Emails to different places depending on wildcard-based filter criteria. The ACM ( http://www.acm.org ) provides e-mail forwarding and web pages to ACM members ($25 for students or ~$80 for professionals) for ~ $25/year. Hiway Technologies ( http://www.hway.com ) provides web pages and will accept/forward mail sent to your own domain name for pretty cheap. I'm planning to make a wee FAQ on this for my home page, please send along comments re these folks or suggestions about others. -- "The anchored mind screwed into me by the psycho- Greg Broiles lubricious thrust of heaven is the one that thinks every temptation, every desire, every inhibition." greg(a)goldenbear.com -- Antonin Artaud gbroiles(a)darkwing.uoregon.edu

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Re: EXON
by Ed Carp (ecarp＠netcom.com) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 23:10:25 -0800 (PST) > From: Rich Graves <llurch(a)networking.stanford.edu> > To: Scott Binkley <SBinkley(a)atitech.ca> > Cc: High Society List <cypherpunks(a)toad.com> > Subject: Re: EXON > On 11 Dec 1995, Scott Binkley wrote: > > > Could someone please explain to me what this "EXON" thing is?? > > A nucleic acid chain (RNA or DNA) is composed of exons, which are > "active" sequences of nucleotides that are expressed as polypeptides, and > "introns," what is known as "junk DNA." Only about 2% of the 6 billion or > so base pairs that make up the human genome are exons. > > (There is some controversy in molecular biology circles as to whether > "junk DNA" is really "junk" just because it doesn't build proteins. It > could perform a regulatory or "frame-check" function.) Actually, I think that once the matter is further studied, scientists will discover that the "junk DNA" is not junk, but inactive DNA, waiting for a "trigger".

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Re: Clinton's Pager Hacked (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: "Attila T. Hun" <attila(a)hun.org> > Date: Sat, 20 Sep 97 04:57:57 +0000 > Subject: Re: Clinton's Pager Hacked > THIS is precisely why the government fears encrytion! They simply do > not understand it; they do NOT want to understand it, and like all > other problems of government, they want to make it illegal and sweep > it under the carpet which will make it go away! yeah, right.... Attilla, This without a doubt is the most brain-dead thing I have ever read from you. Of course governments understand encryption, they only been using it what - 5,000 years or so... ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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InfoWar 15 / The GeigerBurg Text
by Bianca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The True Story of the InterNet Part III InfoWar Final Frontier of the Digital Revolution Behind the ElectroMagnetic Curtain by TruthMonger <tm(a)dev.null> Copyright 1997 Pearl Publishing ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- InfoWar Table of Contents * The Real Problem The Problem Within The Problem ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Real Problem ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Taxless society concerns From: ? the Platypus {AKA David Formosa} <dformosa(a)st.nepean.uws.edu.au> Reply-To: platypus(a)acmeonline.net To: snow <snow(a)smoke.suba.com> CC: Warpy <warpy(a)sekurity.org>, cypherpunks(a)toad.com x-url: http://www.st.nepean.uws.edu.au/~dformosa/Spelling.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Thu, 11 Sep 1997, snow wrote: [...] > > How is such care going to be payed for? > Well, if their family/children do it, they will pay necessary costs. > Otherwise I guess they will just have to save up for it. What about orfins? I dout thay would be able to save up money, what about thouse whos emplyers where not willing to pay them more then what is needed to live to the next week? * ~~ Please excuse my spelling as I suffer from agraphia see the url in my header. Never trust a country with more peaple then sheep. ex-net.scum and proud You Say To People "Throw Off Your Chains" And They Make New Chains For Themselves? --Terry Pratchett -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBNBjJU6QK0ynCmdStAQEtsQQA0+DExcYyjD9q92lzN25AN/LKkW/Ld9bn ti13g5eNDP3gO1yKD7bfm8dAgOq87GXtrzmursgIZNHwkvqU1O6mHMlG4HCS8WfI iV2sN745OVS2i0Guqs1fM+q0Tn56oRj4HEQBibQRuzNWW3VI7mBjZYUn0AtcM5Z2 F4xlC7L7PYE= =JI2t -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- The Real Guy didn't know why this particular post to the CypherPunks mailing list had caught his eye. It was a pretty basic example of some of the anarchist versus realist banter that was traded on the list from time to time. Perhaps what caught his eye was that this post was one of the dying remnants of a fading civilization, and it was interspersed among a number of posts aligning with a rapidly approaching future. This short, seemingly inconsequential post to the CypherPunks list somehow appeared in his mind to be representative of a problem that he had been working over in his mind lately, trying to get a handle on it-to define it. To define what he suspected was the real problem That's why he had changed his online persona from ? the Lunatic to "The Real Guy." To remind himself of his new direction. It was impossible, he knew, to define once and for all time, what the ever-present, nefarious "problem" was. It was like the Tao, always flowing, always changing. But he suspected that perhaps this, in itself, might actually be the real problem. Then again, perhaps notsince it didn't seem to be a problem for the CypherPunks' Philosopher King; the one he called the Grouchy Old CypherPunk. The King of Philosophical Grouchiness changed the signature-line in his email as the problems facing society and the weathervane CypherPunks changed. Lately, he had been changing it with increasing frequency, and this made The Real Guy very, very nervous. (He had watched a tornado forming one time, from its very center, and its chief creative feature seemed to be, not the particular direction the wind was changing to, but the increasing frequency of the change.) Perhaps The Real Guy was on the wrong track, here, giving so much thought to what seemed to be just an everyday, normal post to a mailing list which had no shortage of strange, lengthy rants about everything imaginable, no matter how weird or far-out it may have been. He suspected, however, that the real reason most people watched a television news program of the day, called '60 Minutes,' was because they were waiting to hear what the 'regular' guy had to say. The Real Guy thought of him as a 'regular' guy, not because he was on the show regularly, but because he was like real people; he was a 'real' guy, himself. The Regular Guy at the end of the program was always talking about real problems that regular, everyday people experienced every single day of their life. He was kind of like a Grouchy Old CypherPunk who dealt with everyday stuff instead of stuff that was going to change the world practically overnightmaybe. When The Real Guy read the post by snow and ? the Platypus, he couldn't help but envision them still discussing who was responsible for the orphans far into the future, right up to the point when the darkly clad, heavily armed Storm Troopers broke down their doors and burst into their houses. He could see them, in his mind's eye, and hear them, in his mind's ear, as they politely asked the armed intruders who they thought would "take care of the orfins" in an anarchist, taxless society. [Bang!] He could see them sink slowly to their knees, in pain, holding their stomachs, as their blood flowed rapidly out of their bodies, and they spoke the last words that would inevitably prove to be the last words of a multitude of CypherPunks spread across the face of the globe as the forces of fascist dictatorships hunted them down and deleted their signature files upon this celestial orb: "Then I guess that a blow-job is completely out of the question.aaarrrrggghhh!" <thud> The Real Guy shook himself out of his reverie and realized that Dimitri Vulis' evil influence on him had perhaps been more than he had previously thought. Turning back to the task at hand, he thought about the many definitions of the problem, (AKA the real problem) that he had come across, over the course of his lifetime, and how each of them may have been appropriate for the time and circumstances to which they were meant to apply. Perhaps the eternal problem had to do with addressing the latest, greatest version of the real problem, whatever that might be. There was no doubt that the Dark Forces had their minions creating new, improved problems at an increasingly fast rate as the end of the millennium approached. As well, their human compatriots had mastered the art of devising systems which ensured that by the time any specific 'problem' had traveled through the government and societal systems of laws, regulations and mores, that any 'solution' reached would be long outdated and meaningless. Subject: Re: politics aren't all or nothing (fwd) From: Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> To: cypherpunks(a)ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer) Tim May wrote: > Democracy is the problem, not the solution. A democracy which doesn't respect its limits of power is the problem. This has always been the problem with all forms of governments and will continue to be the problem with all forms of government (even anarchy). People are people, people are strange; it isn't a question of technology [1] or time. [1] Governments are a form of technology. The solution is people taking more direct and immediate action in the first person. Always has been, always will be. Irrespective of all the spin-doctor protestations to the contrary not withstanding. Governments are governed by the 3 laws of thermodynamics just like everything else: You can't get ahead You can't break even You can't quit the game The failing with the founding fathers is that there were not enough amendments in the Bill of Rights explicitly listing citizen rights and federal duties and limits in the first place. THAT is the problem with our government today: even the harshest critics of their day trusted a federal government too much. __________________________________________________ |_________________________________________________ | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there___| | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.___ | |_________________ -Alan Greenspan-__________________ | | ______The Armadillo Group__________________________| | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA_____________________________| | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ ______________________| | .', |||| `/( e\__________________________________________| | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate___________________ | | ravage(a)ssz.com____________________________________| | 512-451-7087______________________________________| |__________________________________________________| The Real Guy thought about Choate's statement: "The solution is people taking more direct and immediate action in the first person." He had no doubt that Choate's definition of the real problem ("with our government today") was no more right nor wrong than many of the other definitions proffered on the CypherPunks list, as well as throughout history, but he sensed that perhaps Choate's stated 'solution' came startlingly close to what would ultimately prove to be the real solution to the troubles that were rapidly swamping the ship of freedom in this era of human and societal evolution. Which led to 'the problem within the problem.' And The Real Guy had no idea what that was ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Problem Within The Problem ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "To him who does what within him lies, God will not deny his grace." - Saint Thomas Aquinas Bubba Rom Dos brought the quote to the screen, pleased with himself for having provided the solution to The Real Guy's question. "That is the 'problem within the problem?'" Alexis asked the grizzled sage, looking puzzled. "No, no. Of course not, my dear. "That," he said, pointing to the quote, "is the 'solution within the solution.'" The Cowboy laughed loudly at this statement, turning to Bubba and suggesting, "You've been watching the Steve Allen TV shows again, haven't you, Bubba?" He turned to the others, to explain his veiled reference. "Steve Allen was a kind of early TV Taoist who had a way of turning things on their ear, as the saying was back then. While some TV shows would give the answers to questions sent in by their viewers, he would have his viewers send him their answers, to which he would then provide the appropriate question." "Thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty six." Bubba called out his answer. "What were the ages of the Three Musketeers?" the Cowboy responded with the appropriate question. Priscilla, Alexis and Jonathan gave each other desperate looks, knowing that they were about to be subjected to the mad ramblings of a drunken tag-team of self-proclaimed world saviors, as they attempted to draw the others into yet another of their "insane, inane, falling mainly in the plain" bumbling and stumbling attacks on intellect, rationality and proper decorum. "OK, I'll bite." Jonathan was the first to speak. "But, since we already know that your solution is insane, why don't you give us the proof of its applicability to the 'problem within the problem' and let us" he motioned to himself and the ladies, "divine the real problem, and the 'problem within the problem?'" "Fair enough!" said the Cowboy, motioning for Bubba to begin. Bubba threw up a quote on the GraphiScreen from Julian Jaynes' "The Evolution of Consciousness in the Breakdown of Bicameral Mind." "Why is it that in our daily lives we cannot get up above ourselves to authorize ourselves into being what we really wish to be? "So that behavior flows from decisionso that whatever in us it is that refers to a 'will' stands master and captain over action?" The Cowboy grinned and turned to the three 'contestants' in this lighthearted parody of a variety of bad game shows of the era they were dealing with. "This is the question which indicates the results of the problem and the solution to the problem, but what is the problem?" He left the challenge of answering his question to the three participants, pushing his bottle of Jim Beam into the center of the table to indicate the reward for a proper reply. Without hesitating, Alexis scrolled through the work on the screen, knowing that, in all likelihood, Jaynes had addressed the problem in an adjoining passage. She reached for the bottle and poured herself, Priscilla and Jonathan a shot, as she highlighted: "We are learned in self-doubt, scholars of our very failures, geniuses at excuse and tomorrowing our resolves. We become practiced in powerless resolution until hope gets undone and dies in the unattempted. "And then to rise above this noise of knowledge and really change ourselves, we need an authorization that 'we' do not have." Bubba and the Cowboy had grinned from ear to ear when Priscilla had reached forward with the tip of her finger, to highlight the last of the sentence. "Precisely!" they agreed, in unison. "The problem," Jonathan posited, "was that, leading up to the end of the millennium, the advances in technology and education were designed by those behind the scenes to give the appearance of empowerment to the individuals within the authority of the group." Jonathan wasn't quite sure just what he was trying to get at, so he turned to the women for help. "Democracy, mass-production, elections, free schooling, public works" Priscilla was making a 'set' of somethingshe wasn't sure of what, however. Alexis thought for a moment, and jumped in, saying, "At the same time, the study of human psychology was entering an era where the existence and power of the subconscious was being recognized and exploited. "Hypnosis, brain-washing, advertising, spin doctoring" "Group mind!" all of those gathered around the table spoke as if in a single voice. "Little boxes on the hillside, and they're all made out of ticky-tacky. And they all look like boxes, little boxes just the same." Priscilla sang a lilting tune attributed to a singer named Joni Mitchell of that general era. "The tyranny of the masses!" Jonathan shouted out, excited at remembering this phrase from long childhood nights spent perusing posts to the original CypherPunks mailing list. "The printing press, factories, fashions, all moving society toward a world in which the yoke of serfdom was apparently being thrown off the necks of the peasants, as kings and rulers fell by the wayside in the name of democracy and freedom. "But the Iron Hand of the monarchy, the priest and the dictator was replaced by the Steel Jaws of social mores and public opinion." Alexis nodded, adding, "They overthrew a higher authority only to fall prey to becoming a cog in the creation and machinations of a group authority." She struggled to understand what it was she was trying to put her finger on, saying, "They merely replaced one authority with another which they perceived to be a lighter burden because it more closely fit their wants and needs at the time." "The problem," Jonathan interrupted, excitedly, "was that, rather than seizing the mantle of authority over themselves and accepting responsibility for the life and their actions, they merely moved it from the hands of a small few, into the hands of the group." "And the 'problem within the problem,'" Alexis continued, "was that right and wrong, good and evil, knowledge and wisdom, was still not by virtue of their own authority, any more than it was when they were ruled by kings and priests." Bubba and the Cowboy nodded at each other, agreeing that their challenge had been met in a remarkably astute manner. "So the problem was that they moved from monarchy and plutocracy to democracy and" the Cowboy left the question hanging in the air. Jonathan, for the first time in his life, felt like he finally understood why the CypherPunks stood at a nadir point in history during the early years of the creation and propagation of the CypherPunks mailing list. He slowly intoned, "and failed to move onwardto anarchy." Copyright "TruthMonger <bianca(a)dev.null> "And I can cook, too" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" "WebWorld & the Mythical Circle of Eunuchs" "InfoWar (Part III of 'The True Story of the InterNet') Soviet Union Sickle of Eunuchs Secret WebSite ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Timing Cryptanalysis Attack
by Armadillo Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Simon Spero <ses(a)tipper.oit.unc.edu> writes: >My gut & scribble-on-the-back-of-a-napkin feeling about this class of >attack is that it could be a problem for smartcards (almost certainly) Is it a problem to create smartcards that do their calculations in fixed time? I'd guess it should be easier than on multi-purpose hardware. Does the attack work for existing smartcards?

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SmartGate
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This looks like they're using Diffie-Hellman. Does anyone know anything further? -Allen --------------------------- > Reuters New Media _ Tuesday December 12 6:33 AM EST _ V-One Unveils Internet Security Technology ROCKVILLE, Md. (Reuter) - V-One Corp. says it has introduced security technology called SmartGate that enables companies to build a secure system to conduct transactions on the Internet computer network. SmartGate is transaction-based software that uses encryption to ensure protection over an open network, the privately held company said Monday. Encryption scrambles the data and in the SmartGate system, a key to decode the data is generated that is unique to a specific transaction session. V-One, which stands for Virtual Open Network Environment, said SmartGate is available now directly from the Rockville, Md.-based company. It said SmartGate can be purchased in either a hardware-software or software-only form. The SmartGate server retails for $9,995 and the software-only version is $4,995. A server is computer that manages the flow of data in a network. SmartGate licenses are priced at $79, with reductions offered for volume purchases.

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Re: Blinding against Kocher's timing attacks
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: ljo(a)ausys.se (Johansson Lars) > Does anyone know whether David Chaum's patent on > blind digital signatures extends to this application? I don't think it would. Chaum's blinding protocol has one major difference: the blinding factor is applied by a different person than the one doing the signing. The purpose of the blinding is different, too; in Chaum's case the idea is to end up with a signature which is unknown to the signer, while with Kocher's "defensive blinding" the signature (or decryption) is an ordinary RSA one, and the blinding is just done internally by the signer to randomize the timing. (I gather BTW that the idea of the blinding is for the server to have pre-chosen a random r and pre-calculated r^d mod n, and then when he is given c to decrypt he first does c*r mod n and then decrypts this, then takes the result and divides by r^d.) It's conceivable that Kocher's blinding would be a patentable technique in itself, and not impossible that he has already applied for a patent before publishing. Probably he would have said so if that were his intention, though. Hal "Blind defensively - watch out for the other guy..."

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