December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re:US calls for measures against Internet porn
by Mark Neely 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> WASHINGTON DC (Reuter) - The US called Sunday for improved >management of the Internet to prevent people seeing pornographic >material on the world computer network. Perhaps it is a result of many self-interested parties who have hyped the Internet to the hilt, but it never ceases to amaze me how people think that as soon as you connect a PC to the Internet, suddenly, all this information and computer wizardry _leaps_ down the phone line and _jumps_ out of your screen. It can be clearly demonstrated (even to US politicians) that the Internet is not a passive media - users must go out and find what they are looking for (especially pornography). You cannot "stumble" upon pornography, as you might by, say, channel surfing on cable. You can't tell me that someone who fires up their Web browser and points it to http://www.playboy.com, or clicks yes to a request that they acknowledge that they are over 18/21/majority and agree to access adult material doesn't know what they are getting themselves into... Mark ___ Mark Neely - accessnt(a)ozemail.com.au Lawyer, Professional Cynic Author: Australian Beginner's Guide to the Internet Work-in-Progress: Australian Business Guide to the Internet WWW: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~accessnt

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Foiling Traffic Analysis
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:35 AM 1/2/96, Jon Lasser wrote: >The potential for traffic analysis is the danger here. If an "FBI >International Data Laundering Expert" testifies in court that said data >came from a site known to be frequented solely by so-and-sos, all the >strong crypto in the world won't stop the average jury from convicting you. > >Carl Ellison (among others, I'm sure) has suggested various means of >foiling traffic analysis among a group of trusted conspirators, using a >token-ring-like routing scheme. I'm not completely convinced that it's >robust enough, but a variation on it is probably adaptable. How does this differ from Dining Cryptographers approaches? --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers (fwd)
by Steve Gibbons 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In Article: <m0tXAsV-00090IC(a)pacifier.com>, jim bell <jimbell(a)pacifier.com> wrote: # It seems to me that phone line costs are turning into a floor price for # Internet access, when they shouldn't really be. The main asset telephone # companies have, right now, is in RIGHTS OF WAY. Put an ISP in a business # park that allows you to run your own dedicated copper pairs, and you've # bypassed $25/month/line business phone line charges. # At some point, individual urban and suburban blocks could easily be # "guerilla re-wired" for ISP access without serious trenching, etc. The # phoneco would still be involved, but in a far lower-profit mode, as the # supplier of a single T1 to a multi-block area. I had a similar thought about a month ago. In particular, I was thinking that skyrise office buildings would be a great market for ISPs to target. Rent a closet in the basement/top floor close to the telco demarc. Run lots of UTP to the cients through the existing conduit, ceiling acces, air ducts, or whatever and boom, lots of clients, low overhead, telco bills cut to 1/2 of the competitions'. Up-front costs might (or might not be) higher, since the wire installation would now be the burden of the ISP. ObCrypto: Wiring overhead could be reduced if the building network was moved away from a star configuration to something closer to a backbone with multiple physical subnets (say, per floor.) How do you keep your next door neighbor from sniffing your traffic on the same subnet? Encrypt it, silly... For performance reasons, truly local traffic could be in the clear, but traffic between the clients' routers and the ISP's would run through something that could keep up with the ISP's max throughput on the ISP's outside interface. You might read "Firewall with encrypted tunnels" for "router" in the paragraph above. If you do, then you have the infrastructure for supporting "secure" trans-Internet traffic. Of course we're not talking about $25.00/mo. service with a $50.00 setup anymore, but low-ish priced, "secure" 56Kb/s, fractional T1, T1, and even T3 seem to be where corporate America/Earth wants to go. FWIW, (and if anyone winds up doing something like this, I want a "finders fee" ;-) ) -- Steve(a)AZTech.Net

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Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers
by Mark Grant, M.A. (Oxon) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 2 Jan 1996, Jay Holovacs wrote: > Commercial satallites have land based corporate owners. Remember the > success that Alabama had a few years ago pulling the plug on a New York > based softporn tv satellite distribution system. They simply went after the > assets of the satellite companies and got quick cooperation. About ten years ago a group I was involved with were thinking about putting something into space as a publicity stunt. One company we talked to claimed they could put 1 kg into orbit on one of their sounding rockets for about $ 30,000 (that's a 1 kg satellite, not $ 30,000 per kg). How small can you build a "data haven" satellite ? Looking a few years into the future, you could probably stick a stripped-down Linux laptop with solar cells and a stripped-down satellite telephone as a Net link on top of a slightly larger rocket and charge for on-orbit storage using ecash... Using remailers it should be pretty-much untraceable. Mark

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Re: 2047 bit keys in PGP
by netdog＠dog.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I really don't see the point of using a key larger than 2048 bits. Any larger >key would actually be harder to factor than brute forcing the IDEA keyspace. >Very little security would be gained from using a key larger than 3000 bits. >Of course, one can always argue that improved factoring methods would require >that an RSA public key be longer than 3000 bits to have equal security to >IDEA. However, I doubt that factoring methods will improve that much. nobody will ever need more than 640K or RAM? i wouldn't underestimate the ability of technology to grow at a pace that is beyond our wildest dreams-especially with this network serving as a virtual office/lab. of course, ymmv. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> the Forest will always be there...and anybody who is Friendly with Bears can find it. - A. A. Milne

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Re: Compuserve *hasn't* banned newsgroups
by David R. Rorabaugh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >>I pointed my copy of Free Agent at CPCNET's open news server >>(198.70.185.5) and grabbed a list of groups sure enough, there were >>the seasoned citizens in all their glory. And I was checking out >>those binaries via CompuServe. I suspect that CompuServe doesn't care much what goes over their network (they will claim "common carrier" status) as much as they care about what they themselves provide. The groups in question ARE gone from CompuServe's news servers. - -- David R. Rorabaugh Systems Operations Specialist Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin, L.L.P. The opinions expressed are my own. - -- - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMOlXuioZzwIn1bdtAQGgAgF9GOa8Sl3mu6wDt70k6Ij3ZBAfi0j+9i1f bxC/+g1qecXUCL//wPwiTToTjyLouUaW =vXmL -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:07 PM 1/1/96 -0500, David Mandl wrote: >I agree. It's not a good idea to assume that there's going to be some kind >of widespread opposition movement when the big Net Crackdown comes. Most >people will either obey the law, be unaffected by it, or violate it in very >insignificant ways ("net jaywalking"). When printing was introduced in the west, the big print crackdown was successful, but there was great resistance, and the crackdown on the printed word required great and continuing violence over a long period, and was never entirely effective. A net crackdown will be substantially less effective than the print crackdown was, and the level of violence is likely to be greater. There is of course a tradeoff: An highly ineffectual net crackdown will not provoke large scale resistance. They can probably force the stuff on alt.pictures.erotica.children to be published in a more discreet manner. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers (fwd)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:47 PM 1/2/96 -0600, you wrote: > >Forwarded message: > >> Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 18:43:31 +0000 (GMT) >> From: "Mark Grant, M.A. (Oxon)" <mark(a)unicorn.com> >> Subject: Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers >> >> About ten years ago a group I was involved with were thinking about >> putting something into space as a publicity stunt. One company we talked >> to claimed they could put 1 kg into orbit on one of their sounding rockets >> for about $ 30,000 (that's a 1 kg satellite, not $ 30,000 per kg). How >> small can you build a "data haven" satellite ? >> >> Looking a few years into the future, you could probably stick a >> stripped-down Linux laptop with solar cells and a stripped-down satellite >> telephone as a Net link on top of a slightly larger rocket and charge for >> on-orbit storage using ecash... Using remailers it should be pretty-much >> untraceable. >> > >Actualy, both the Pacific Coast Rocketry group and the Experimental >Spacecraft Association are working on putting the first amateur payload in >LEO. ESA wants to put a telescope with real-time downlink up as their >payload. PCR wants to put some kind of transponder up. > >Under current technology a group of about 30 dedicated amateurs (with >suitable skills) could put a 25kg payload in orbit for under 1/4 million. >It would consist of surplus and amateur built equipment. > >Tripolli puts out a magazine called High Performance Rocketry which you may >be able to find at your local newstand (in Austin you get it at the Central >Market Bookstop). It usually carries at least a couple of adds for material >that PCR and a couple of smaller groups are putting out to help fund their >project. I would say it will be less than 3 years before this dream occurs >unless the DOT (the people who regulate all space shots now) decides not to >give them a permit. As I understand the physics, the whole process could be made FAR FAR FAR more efficient if the rocket was boosted to about 40000 feet with a subsonic airplane, a' la' X-15 and such. It's above 75% of the earth's atmosphere (dramatically reduced drag), is already going 600 mph in the correct direction, and is 8 miles closer to the ultimate goal 250 miles up). This might not sound like much of an advantage, but if you've ever worked out the mathematics of the Saturn V (or space shuttle, etc), the VAST majority of the fuel was used up in the first 20,000 feet, maybe even the first 5000 feet. It would be even better if the first stage could be an air-breathing supersonic ramjet, but that's not my field of expertise. In addition, the existence of relatively low-cost GPS receivers would make achieving an accurate orbit vastly cheaper than with the inertial guidance systems historically used. Sure, cheap accelerometers are being sold by Analog Devices and Murata Erie sells cheap vibrational gyros (not to mention fiber gyros) but it would be hard to beat the accuracy you could get with GPS.

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FOI_led
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For comparison to snooping on search site searchers. 1-3-96. WsJo: "Freedom of Information Act Gets Wider Use by Sleuths, Snoops and Senators." FOIA is a handy tool for companies, politicians and journalists to snoop on one another. Many people who file requests aren't aware that the requests themselves are made public. Those who really know the process make FOIA requests on other people's FOIA requests. "It's not like I tapped someone's phone or got them drunk. These are public documents." Journalists sometimes use FOIA to scoop their colleagues. A cottage industry provides information about other people seeking information. Lexis/Nexis carries synopses of FOIA requests. So rich is FOIA intelligence that some are learning to take countermeasures. For a $36 fee, FOI Services will file its own FOIA requests on behalf of people who wish to remain anonymous. FOI_led

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Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers (fwd)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:08 AM 1/3/96 -0600, you wrote: > >> As a ham, too (N7IJS) I recognize your implicit selection of 2m or 450 MHz. >> But I gently object to this, for reasons that I think will be obvious. > >I was thinking of the itenerant frequencies around 151 MHz, but the >bandwidth would be limited. I wasn't thinking of amateur frequencies, >but my fingers sometimes have a mind of their own ;) Interestingly enough, my primary objection was NOT really commercial encroachment on an existing amateur structure (though that is an important consideration!); rather, it was the fact that because we're talking really short-range communication (way less than a kilometer, in most cases) using frequencies below a gigahertz would be a counter-productive shame. Here, we WANT "line of sight"! And, of course, the bandwidth issue is inherently better: It would be FAR easier to get 100 MHz width at around 2.5 GHz than under 1 gig! >> First, technology has been marching on in the last 10-20 years, and >> communications frequencies of 2 GHz and more are technically do-able and >> comparatively empty. (and with modern IC technology, even easy) > >I'd love to see plans (or used commercial gear) able to do this - I've >got a point-to-point application that I'd love to set up ... I get a free (bingo-card) magazine industry magazine called "Microwaves and RF," which is sort of the EDN for the high-frequency communication crowd. You'd be amazed at the level of technical (chip) development there. Chip sets that do frequency synthesis/full RF/IF on surface mount chips. Jim Bell, N7IJS (BTW, I use Eudora, and I have PGP. Could somebody explain how to PGP-sign messages, ideally EASILY?)

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