December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Imminent Death of Usenet Predicted
by Jordan Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From jf_avon(a)citenet.net Sat Feb 3 11:04:01 1996 >Soon I hope >that there will be as much chance of children 'stumbling upon' >X-rated JPEGs as they can today image satellite-delivered porno in >their heads without a dish. I guess that children do not see the depicted event as as traumatic as you personnally do... But guess what, maybe some peoples do not mind their kids seeing theses pictures. <NOT-CRYPTO> Hey, I tried to explain this, but you missed it: I *don't personally care* about whether kids see porno. I *know* that a *huge* percentage of the population in this country does (sorry for being USA-centric, but we have [at least for now] the largest net population, so you can see how this will go ...). Therefore, I'd like to see a way for the default be that kids (dare I say everyone!) don't *automatically stumble upon* it in the open network. I'm all for parents giving access to their kids to whatver they feel is right, and I'm all for adults making that choice as well; but I think that if the majority of the people in a community don't want the default behavior to be "click here for tits!" then it's up to us, as technologists, to provide easy-to-use mechanisms for those who do want to see them to not infringe on those who don't. If you want porno on your TV, you can rent it, you can pay-per-view it, you can get a sattelite dish, or whatever. But most people don't want it by default to be on channel 7. Last time: I *personally* am not one of them, but it's important to see what the majority thinks on this issue. </NOT-CRYPTO> Phones are *NOT* private devices. Again, you missed my point. People *think* they are, and if you compare "private" calls to "tapped" calls, you'll see that the expectation of privacy is not so misplaced. Yes, if your communications are important to you or you are a potential target of investigation, you should know it's not private. But it's not like any significant number of phone calls are tapped, by the government or otherwise. And it's not likely to happen, either, because NONE CARES WHAT YOU SAY TO YOUR FRIEND ON THE PHONE. You can tap a phone for 10$ worth of Radio Shack hardware. And I'm sure you do this, what, 18,000 times per hour? I'm like so sure that you listen to all your neighbors phone calls. >And don't forget: if you have privacy, you don't need anonymity. >Swiss banks provide the ultimate example. I would like other peoples to comment on this one, but I think that swiss banks *did* also provide anonymity. (number accounts) You can get a numbered account at a Swiss bank by showing up at the branch, introducing yourself to the branch manager, proving to him who you are, and signing some papers. They will keep your name out of any transactions you make, but they *know you* ... this is not anonymity; this is merely privacy. Another good example is John Perry's PGP'd mailing list. No chance of anyone "stumbling upon" the content, since it's all PGP'd. But it's not anonymous, and for good reasons. So what if all mailing lists were like this? What if alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.oral was like this? What if all our mail programs and news readers were able to cope easily with this? I think this is the question that efforts like IPSec are trying to answer: we'd all be *way* better off. What if looking at a JPEG were like buying beer? The default is that a 12 year old isn't going to fool the guy at 7-11, but if their parents buy a beer and give it to 'em, what the heck? Consuming alcohol is not regulated; *purchasing* it is. Don't forget: the fact that "porno on the net" (for instance) is an issue *at all* is a *failure* of technology. It would be a non-issue if USENET wasn't essentially a technology vacuum. /jordan

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Re: Sometimes ya just gotta nuke em
by Jordan Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

#if !defined(perry) From tcmay(a)got.net Fri Feb 2 21:32:22 1996 A land invasion of Japan would've likely cost half a million American lives, and perhaps a million or more Japanese citizen lives, according to comprehensive studies I think are on the mark. Sorry to inject a little scholarly research on this topic, but I would urge those of you who are interested in how this mythology was created and disseminated to do an AltaVista serach for Alperovitz; he's potentially the leading scholar on this subject. I've read his book, and Tim probably ought to as well ... If you read nothing else on this topic, I urge you to check out an interview with him at http://www2.ari.net/home/bsabath/950711.html #endif /jordan

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[CONSPIRACYPUNKS] RC2 Source Code - Legal Warning from RSADSI
by anon-remailer＠utopia.hacktic.nl 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It is becoming obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that RC4 and now RC2 have been deliberately released by RSA Data Security. Consider that neither of these ciphers would be used in any freely available software systems if licensing fees had to be paid to RSA. Now that the algorithms are public knowledge, many developers will include them in their products if for no other reason than to tweak RSA's nose. The warning notices and claims of dire consequences from RSA are clearly designed to spread FUD among deep-pocket users of such products. Rather than risk any legal exposure, medium and large companies who wish to use products containing RC2 and RC4 will obtain licenses from RSA. RSA has traded the entirety of a small pie for a significant portion of a much larger pastry. Quite brilliant marketing when one thinks about it.

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GNU_kum
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

2-3-96. FinTim: "World's financial police to cast money laundering net wider." The plan needs to address issues raised by cybercash. These technologies pose a threat but answers should not be dated as soon as published. Officials want developers of new technologies to consider their criminal potential before launch, to avoid clampdown afterwards. Possible safeguards against the misuse of electronic purses may include limiting their maximum value or restricting use to closed systems. "Communist to capitalist." [Book review] China's Rise, Russia's Fall, by Peter Nolan. Nolan says China's leaders had the self-confidence to chart their own evolutionary approach, largely preserving state institutions at a central and regional level, and fostered entrepreneurship through intelligent government planning. Russia's ruling class were hoodwinked by a phalanx of mainly US and UK advisers urging a "shock therapy" of destroying existing economic and political power-bases. The result has been a deep tragedy. 2-3-96. EcoMist: "Why is the Internet so slow; what can be done about it?" At present there is no answer, only a few expedients to limit traffic on congested routes, say, with "caches". However, Web site owners object to providers caching their wares, because it robs them of valuable information about their viewers -- the sort that advertisers demand. The caches have, in effect copied these pages without their owners' permission, and are showing them to others without their owners' knowledge. But faced with an Internet meltdown copyright violation may be the least of their worries. GNU_kum (for the three)

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Re: PGP "official" logo?
by David Lesher 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

EFF is promoting a new symbol of free speech -- the blue ribbon. Can/should a PGP logo incorporate that somehow? -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz(a)nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

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Sometimes ya just gotta nuke em--and nuke em again
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:25 PM 2/3/96, Jordan Hayes wrote: >Sorry to inject a little scholarly research on this topic, but I >would urge those of you who are interested in how this mythology >was created and disseminated to do an AltaVista serach for Alperovitz; >he's potentially the leading scholar on this subject. I've read >his book, and Tim probably ought to as well ... I have responded privately to Jordan Hayes on this issue. Reasonable people can disagree on historical events, and historical motives, and certainly the "decision to drop the bomb" has long been a contentious one. I regret that Jordan Hayes believes a condescending tone, implying others are not as scholarly as he, is the way to make a point. (I've also received several long articles from people who seemed outraged that I was belittling the dropping of the bomb. I wasn't belittling it. Far from it. The Japs surrendered after the second bomb, so it was obviously not a trivial matter to them.) --Tim May Boycott espionage-enabled software! 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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free speach and the government
by Stephan Mohr 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, I feel that I agree with the people on the right of free speech for i.e. the neo-nazi stuff or other political, ideological and/or religious ideas. But there is still something that leaves me uneasy: imagine there would be a way to easily make a powerful poison, easily applicated to your town's water-reservoir, or a very easy way to build some strong explosive device. etc. Actually, I think that stuff like this does exist already. But the idea that one day I just put 'easy made deadly poison for millions' into my webcrawler and whoop there it is on my screen or on the screen of any other fool, doesn't sound to right to me. I would like things like this to be better put aside and locked up. Well, maybe my imagination isn't strong enough to make my point. But do you fighter for free speech, in principle, think that nothing, really nothing, shouldn't be prevented of being published? And by being published, I mean published in the net, not at loompanics (who knows loompanics?). I know, of course, that by accepting that there is something that shouldn't be available on the net, we would need something to decide what and how to ban. So I wonder what would be a more 'net'-like way of handling this type of thing and how to prevent that some 'strong-armed' governments take the net over. I do not see tokay's governments being prepared for the net (at least not the German one). But I see them trying to put the 'old' laws onto the net. Not because they are mean, but because they don't know any better. So, I think it would be nice to have something to offer to them. I do not think though that they will accept the totally right of free speech (yet). There is something that is closely related to the right of free speech but not the same and that is the right of privacy. And I think there is a big danger of the issue of free (public) speech been taken over to the right of privacy. Governments may, by arguing to control the public net, start to prohibit the use of strong cryptography. It seems important to me to separate this two issues. Maybe it will be necessary to agree to some kind of (hopefully self organized) control of the public net. But it is totally unacceptable to allow whatever organization to look into someone's private life. Comments and hints to information on these topics very much welcome Stephan

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[philosophy of censorship] Re: Imminent Death of Usenet Predicted
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jordan wrote to me today: >Hey, I tried to explain this, but you missed it: Apologies, I did miss part of your point. >I *know* that a *huge* percentage >of the population in this country does (sorry for being USA-centric, >but we have [at least for now] the largest net population, so you >can see how this will go ...). Should the absolute number of peoples 'wishing' something relevant? >Therefore, I'd like to see a way >for the default be that kids (dare I say everyone!) don't *automatically >stumble upon* it in the open network. I find the sentence a bit strong, here. >I think that if the >majority of the people in a community don't want the default behavior >to be "click here for tits!" They can subscribe to a net provider that restricts access to such newsgroups. If this restriction is circumvented by the kid, don't you think that the said kid will find ways to get whatever he/she wants no matter the laws? They also can choose the ultimate solution: not to be on the net. >then it's up to us, as technologists, >to provide easy-to-use mechanisms for those who do want to see them >to not infringe on those who don't. *THAT* is the thing I have most problems to. This sentence is boobie-trapped. Let's me state, for the book (or maybe hard drive), that I do not subscribe to this view of Man. I believe that selfishness is a virtue and that altruism is at best a psychological problem. Why is it that us, technologists, thoses who know and can, have a duty to thoses who cannot? This does not contradict good commercial practices. If there is a *demand* then, there is a market. Any producers does follow the demand very closely or he gets out of business. But govt intervention, rules, standards, etc are *all* enforced at the point of a gun (even if deeply hidden under a pile of red tape). This view implies that *because* you can produce, you have a duty to the one who cannot. It means that if you can produce, your duty is to become a cattle for the benefit of others. If you cannot produce, you have every rights. In today's political climate, the whiners, complainers and decryier are god. When is it that thoses who get sucked by the collectivists leeches will say : Enough! I am fed up to owe any drifter the best of my life! > <...> porno <...> you can rent it <...> But most people >don't want it by default to be on channel 7. >Last time: I *personally* >am not one of them, but it's important to see what the majority >thinks on this issue. I agree with you on this one: wouldn't it be wonderfull to have porno movies on channel 7 ... sigh... :-> Actually, just as I mentionned, every entities that seeked to control man used guilt to do so. And by the nature of guilt, sex and human mind, sex is *the* best thing to induce guilt. Since a large part of the population *are* controlled through the sex-guilt association, it is extremely handy to create the pseudo-justification the govt need for their actions. But as I said previously, the biggest threath to the govt is that peoples can now find each other and talk together. Previously, we had the means to talk but no means of finding each others. The Internet provides this. >Yes, if your communications >are important to you or you are a potential target of investigation, >you should know it's not private. But it's not like any significant >number of phone calls are tapped, by the government or otherwise. >And it's not likely to happen, either, because NONE CARES WHAT YOU >SAY TO YOUR FRIEND ON THE PHONE. Unless you discuss about how freedom of speech should go unbreached... > >And don't forget: if you have privacy, you don't need anonymity. > >Swiss banks provide the ultimate example. >You can get a numbered account at a Swiss bank by showing up at >the branch, introducing yourself to the branch manager, proving to >him who you are, and signing some papers. They will keep your name >out of any transactions you make, but they *know you* ... this is >not anonymity; this is merely privacy. No, for all it matters, it is anonymity. Because the swiss banks does not publish the name of accounts holders. The recent case of German police raiding homes of german citizens working in Lischtenstein(?) banks shows that, far all that matters, theses banks accounts are anonymous, i.e. there is no way for the german govt to know the name of the accounts holders. Their only way to gain knowledge is through the use or threath of physical violence. >Don't forget: the fact that "porno on the net" (for instance) is >an issue *at all* is a *failure* of technology. Sorry for my stupidity, but I *completely* fail to understand. Would you please explain what are your basis for stating so? > It would be a >non-issue if USENET wasn't essentially a technology vacuum. I find this a bit strong, but since I did not understand the previous statement, I will refrain from commenting. Regards to all CPunkers JFA Existence exists, Reality Is.

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Re: Sometines ya just gotta nuke em-and nuke em again
by paralax＠alpha.c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 15:54:04 -0800 )2-03-96 Timothy C. May wrote: > I regret that Jordan Hayes believes a condescending tone, implying others > are not as scholarly as he, is the way to make a point. > (I've also received several long articles from people who seemed outraged > that I was belittling the dropping of the bomb. I wasn't belittling it. Far > from it. The Japs surrendered after the second bomb, so it was obviously > not a trivial matter to them.) Mr. Hayes MAY have used a condescending tone but you have exposed your racist roots again. First you embarass yourself with you lack of knowledge, sensitivity and understanding about all things Jewish and now you insult an entire race with the use of the word "Jap". Stick to cypher related topics - - - - - - You're elevating the Ugly American to another level altogether. A. Paralax View

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Re: Noise and the Nature of Mailing Lists
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"tcmay(a)got.net" 31-JAN-1996 00:44:48.72 >However, and current subscribers will no doubt jump in and give their views, I hear that the current volume of messages is less than one per day, with--according to my sources--sometimes days between messages. (I also hear that the Extropians are devoting more of their energy to their magazine, which may also be a factor.) ------------ Actually, I'd guess that the recent problems with the mailing list software are the problem. I got signed off of there when I changed mailing addresses, and they haven't been able to put me back on. If it's that low-traffic, I may see about requesting it from them again. ------------ >And remember, it's a whole lot easier using filters and reading tools to reduce the volume of messages on an active group than it is to get an inactive group up to critical mass! ------------ One idea is to set up two lists, one of which has an automatic filter that forwards stuff to another list... I'm currently trying to set that up for another list I'm on. Something to keep in mind is that irrelevant discussion can chase people off... what's happened to the list I mentioned. -Allen

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