December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: rhetorical trickery
by tomservo＠access.digex.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- An entity self-representing as "Vladimir Z. Nuri" writes: >sure, a government agent could insist, "well, don't be a bonehead. >it's obviously his diary, and surely contains all his crimes against >children". A standard attitude among LEOs is: "if you're not guilty of something, what are you hiding?" Skilled ones use this lever to get suspects to allow searches of their property on the flimsiest of pretenses. >ah yes, just as, obviously, even before trial, "the man is a criminal" "Innocent until proven guilty" is at best an abstraction to most police. Given the amount of time they have per case, on average, they're more interested in slorking up whatever evidence they can against a suspect and making a bust. Didn't Ed Meese say something along the lines of, "if they weren't criminals, they wouldn't be involved with the police"? ObCrypto: Having a fair amount of encrypted stuff around makes any given piece stand out less. A couple dozen PGP-encrypted files with names like "1994 1040 Schedule A" and "Business Contact List, 1Q 1995" is a hell of a lot less suspicious than a single encrypted file called "detonate.pgp." :^) Furthermore, if they don't believe me and I choose not to give them the plaintext, isn't that my Fifth Amendment right? Or has that been waived in cyberspace for our convenience? Scott -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMUNUZuvEnOI8TfM9AQEzjwL/RC1kBe/R8aKru9z0PRFI8wwb+/qhMx8d UFrZ/VA36xDDKY48muwVA+rF+e0tIn3n006DvEBcwMNJ4LfQ15KaVssXjOlDoE0R mAp8umb/K6uK0bZ9+M4/qZe8e6by0VkW =CBfe -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: rhetorical trickery
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri[ please, will people stop sending me responses like the above? do you understand how the American legal system works? a person cannot be prosecuted without evidence. evidence cannot be illegally obtained. a person is not required to testify against oneself. these are all basic long-established cornerstones of our legal system. ................................................................................... Please, please, when Nuri-logical makes a public post, will people stop copying him in their responses? At least, not until you have read about the Clipper chip, the V-chip, key escrow, ITAR, the CDA, who those "four horsemen" are, etc., and understood how the American legal system works? Personally, I am really amazed at all the times when people point out basic liberties to the NSA or the law enforcement agencies, and somebody says, well yes BUT so-and-so hypothetical situation might arise. Why is there such deep fear about citizens? I'd say that some people there are high up on the list of creating a paranoia about life in the U.S. today. I t is almost as if some people have a public "prosecute you" wish. .. Blanc

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No Subject
by JonWienke＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

d 96-03-10 11:44:01 EST, you write: >Jim Bell wrote: > >> 2804. Unlawful use of encryption to obstruct justice >> Whoever willfully endeavors (by means of encryption) to (obstruct, >> impede, or prevent) the communication of (information in furtherance >> to a felony) (which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States), >> to an investigative or law enforcement officer shall... > >I think the following is a tad better: > >Whoever willfully endeavors (by means of encryption) to (obstruct, >impede, or prevent) the communication of information (in furtherance >to a felony (which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States)), >to an investigative (or law enforcement) officer shall... I prefer this: 2804. [Deleted] Top that! Jonathan Wienke

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How to get test messages to test your mail filters
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sending test messages to mailing lists of 500-1000 people just to test your mail filters is rude, and it's been happening a lot lately. On the other hand, building interesting mail filters is a reasonable cypherpunk topic - issues like reputation servers, email privacy, etc. are relevant technology, though this isn't mailpunx. So if you want to send us all a test message, it'd be nice if there were some description of the cool stuff you're implementing :-) On the other hand, if you just need someone other than yourself to send you mail, one useful technique is to send email to bogususer(a)wellknownmachine.com, for some value of wellknownmachine. Since most machines don't have a user named "bogususer", it'll bounce, unless of course it's running OS/2, which assumes that email for any address on the machine is targeted at the real user (or unless it's running an email system that doesn't implement bouncing...) At 01:40 AM 3/9/96 -0800, Bryan Koschmann <bryank(a)comtch.iea.com> wrote: >just a test to see if my filter works..sorry3 for any inconvenience > Gate|<eepeR (!-=Gate|<eepeR ruLeZ=-!) #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 # "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened # to halt the growth of Internet use. [...] Government control of news media # generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and # social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who # exceed the permissable." - US government statement on China...

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re: PA
by A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim rote: >(By the way, I also figured out the anonymous markets for assassinations >bit, too, in 1988, and discussed it in detail then with Eric Drexler, Marc >Stiegler, Mark Miller, Robin Hanson, and others. Long enough ago that I have forgotten the citation, I read an even older SF story about explosive necklaces worn by politicians. If their electronic agreement percentage (and think this was in the sixties folks) dropped too low, a vacancy occured. Warmly, Padgett ps if you have strong principles, and stick by them, sooner or later you will manage to offend everyone.

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Re: Cut the mystical artist crap. (No crypto relevance here)
by tbyfield＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:10 AM 3/11/96, Anonymous wrote: >Was it Thoreau who said "Consistency is the hobgoblin of >simpletons"? No, it was Emerson. And that's not what he said. >What the compromises have to do with are that one lives in >a society with rules, mores, laws. One of those touch-shit >facts of life. You can do what you want, but when it involves You seem to be rather fond of consistency. ;) Ted

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Re: rhetorical trickery
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> all my respondents seem to be missing some basic points I have been > trying to make about law enforcement in the US. > > the law runs on proof, and evidence. a file with the name "diary.pgp" > is not incriminating. it is not evidence. no one could be prosecuted > as a criminal for having a diary. there is the presumption of innocence > unless there is evidence and proof to the contrary. A diary isn't illegal... but if you are suspected or even convicted of a crime, and there's reason to believe that a book or computer file is a diary and that you wrote about more crimes in the diary, then it's worth investigating. Just as if one is suspected of money laundering and it is known that that person has Swiss or Cayman Island bank accounts... having them doesn't mean one is guilty, but if there is other evidence that the crime took place then they are well within the realm of investigating. > furthermore, suppose > the "pedophile" is actually prosecuted successfully. does that mean > the diary was incriminating? no, it does not. in the CA case it happened [..] No. It's just another area of potential evidence. > that the pedophile was prosecuted without decrypting the diary. which > in fact argues in favor of the side that says, "cryptography is not > the end of law enforcement, and this case proves it." One can argue that, yes. In fact I remember some LE type who was pro-crypto who insisted the DT Bill was for lazy cops who didn't want to do the footwork necessary for an investigation. Another is when they cited the World Trade Ctr bombing... seems they already had a handle that it was in the works and did nothing anyway. DT or a crypto-ban or GAK would not have prevented that. [..] > now, a person might be successfully prosecuted for obstruction of > justice, or contempt of court, in refusing to hand over the > decrypted diary (but the other post I made about giving the federal > agents a key that decrypts the file to a cookie recipe handles this > quite nicely). And in some ways one has less rights when in contempt of court then when convicted of a felony.... [..] > please, will people stop sending me responses like the above? do you > understand how the American legal system works? a person cannot > be prosecuted without evidence. evidence cannot be illegally obtained. [..] Ideally, that is how the system works. But if they have a good reason to suspect something is evidence (and in the above pedaphile ase a file named "diary.pgp" would probably qualify) a warrant can be obtained. Note that just having PGP-encrypted files would not necessarily be evidence either. They pointed out a specific file with specific reasons why it should be examined. > a person is not required to testify against oneself. these are all > basic long-established cornerstones of our legal system. It's not clear in terms of court rulings whether handing over decryption keys is self-incrimination or not. From what I have heard, the courts do not view safe combinations as self-incriminating... > look, if someone WANTS to be put in jail for having encrypted files, > I'm sure you can probably figure out some way to pull it off. but > if you don't act like an idiot, such a thing is highly unlikely. it > clearly has not happened to date. Doesn't mean it won't... [..] > such deep fear around here about life in the US today? I'd say > that people here are high up on the list of creating the paranoia. > be careful what you fear, you might get it. Good point indeed. "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." (Flames for an FDR quote from raving anti-socialists will be bounced to /dev/null.) Rob. --- Send a blank message with the subject "send pgp-key" (not in quotes) to <WlkngOwl(a)unix.asb.com> for a copy of my PGP key.

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Bell, Detweiler, Ravings, and Whatnot
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:12 AM 3/10/96, jim bell wrote: >In short, the government is trying to head off "crypto-anarchy," which I >guess is Tim May's trademark. I suggest that we don't allow them to; it >will merely make the government's eventual end even bloodier. Not my "trademark," though it was my coinage (in 1987). I'm happy it's gaining usage, by people as diverse as David Friedman, Dorothy Denning, and various journalists. (By the way, I also figured out the anonymous markets for assassinations bit, too, in 1988, and discussed it in detail then with Eric Drexler, Marc Stiegler, Mark Miller, Robin Hanson, and others. Several of us on the Extropians list discussed the implications, countersteps that might be taken, etc., several years ago. I recall incisive comments by Robin Hanson, David Friedman, Hal Finney, Nick Szabo, and others. And on this list, the topic was discussed a bit later. The archives may be helpful...though I'm not sure I want to help Jim Bell figure out the holes in his logic!) Note to Jim: Your posts are getting longer and longer, often including huge chunks of previous posts. I doubt many of us are reading these "novellas"...I am responding to this part of your latest massive post because I detected my name being used. I urge you to try to limit your quoting to about a screenfull or so...this is what a lot of experience has said is the maximum amount of quoting people are willing to deal with in most cases. And your insulting comments about people whom you disagree with, or people whom you think are not taking your ideas seriously enough, are reminiscent of the ravings of the last victim here of late stage Detweiler's Syndrome. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" 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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To: s1018954
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mail to your "from" address bounces with message "insufficient permission." Care to check that?

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How would Leahy bill affect crypto over HAM radio?
by Mutant Rob 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Subject asks it. I'm not a HAM, but still curious. Wonder if anyone has brought this to Leahy's attention... Comments from the packet folx on the list? --Rob

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