December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Bad news from Judge Richey
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: tcmay(a)got.net (Timothy C. May) >At 3:28 AM 3/26/96, jim bell wrote: >>I realize that this may appear to be a rather disrespectful tactic, but have >>you considered reminding the judge that if you are not allowed to profit by >>exporting encryption that the government doesn't want to see exported, >>you'll just have to make money in some other way, and this may lead you to >>talk to Jim Bell about implementing a program using encryption that doesn't >>_need_ to be exported...legally anyway. >Whoahh! Hold on there, Jimbo! You're crossing the line. >You're coming perilously close to actually calling for the killing of a >federal judge. My recollection is that a couple of folks have been arrested >and charged for calling for the killing of judges. Umm... one would guess that a federal judge would be against the whole Assasination Politics idea, whether or not he himself became a target. I doubt that pointing AP out would do any good... but one can point out to a judge that, say, a mugger might mug him next without being threatening. -Allen

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Re: Note: Problems Confronting the Asset Concealer [Part 1 of 2 ofVolume I]
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A very interesting essay, although I haven't had time to read over it in full (3 papers and an oral presentation due). I do have one question, and it concerns the introduction. You state that you are leaving out material that is currently in use - i.e., some of the most useful material. Why? I know that you don't currently have a fully anonymous nym... but if that was the reason, why not just release it under a fully anonymous nym? Mistrust of the remailers, or what? -Allen

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Re: So, what crypto legislation (if any) is necessary?
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have been doing some thinking about the whole key escrow retrieval matter. There are a couple of situations in which I can see real reasons for doing voluntary key escrow of sensitive material: A. You're afraid of losing the key. B. Your organization is afraid that you'll lose the key or be unavailable. The second can be handled internally via key sharing; if all the people you share the key with have as much to lose by the information getting out as you do, then they should be trustworthy and as hard to subpoena as you are. Encrypting the shared section with another, appropriate key should take care of the cop-stealing problem (i.e., they break into the machine). The first is more of a problem. If where you've entrusted your keys is known, then the cops can come in and strong-arm/subpoena your keys away. Thus, the basic protection mechanism should be denying them that knowledge. (Another protection mechanism is key sharing between key escrow organizations.) In other words, anonymous remailers with stable nyms for the key escrow organizations, together with fully anonymous digital cash. One problem in this is how the organization's reputation originally is established so people will deal with them so they can get a reputation.... etcetera. The basic method of doing so appears to be to post a digital cash bond. (I don't know the mathematics well enough to tell whether one could post verifiable digital cash with it still not being usable without a decryption step. If one can't, that's a real problem... but I suspect that one can.) The encryption on such a bond should be put into the hands of a group of above-ground "judges" via secret sharing, who would be a group of people chosen by the key escrow organization in hopes of their being trusted to resolve any disputes. Of course, digital receipts would be a big help here... -Allen

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A new law in the making?
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 00:24:08 -0500 (EST) > From: "Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+(a)CMU.EDU> > Subject: FC: CDA Court Challenge: Update #4 > > The court wasn't happy with Boe's response. It gave Shea and the > government until April 17 to decide to include the entire record of > the Philly lawsuit -- and said that if they don't, the court would > appoint its *own* computer expert to demo the Net and blocking > software on April 30. This is a great idea if carried a little farther. Require courts in cases using technical or otherwise special evidence to appoint an indipendant expert to compare compare with the defence and prosecution experts. > litigators who do their homework." (Of course, Taylor conveniently has > deluded himself into believing the CDA is constitutional.) Are *any* of the current legal actions involved using either the 9th or 10th Amendment in their case? > We're back in court on 4/12, 4/15, and possibly 4/26. Good luck! Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Re: unsubscrive * Peter.Posch@koeln.netsurf.de
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:59 AM 4/4/96, Peter N. Posch wrote: >unsubscrive * Peter.Posch(a)koeln.netsurf.de For the nth fucking time: How to subscribe to the Cypherpunks mailing list: send a message to "majordomo(a)toad.com" with the body message "subscribe cypherpunks". To unsubscribe, send the message "unsubscribe cypherpunks" to the same address. For help, send "help cypherpunks". Don't send these requests to the Cypherpunks list itself. And be aware that the list generates between 40 and 100 messages a day.

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Re: the "unsubscrive" meme keeps on going.
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:28 PM 4/4/96, bryce(a)digicash.com wrote: >> unsubscrive * Peter.Posch(a)koeln.netsurf.de > > >I suspect that this meme propagates (especially among >non-native-English-speakers) via the list itself. Peter >Posch probably saw one of the previous "unsubscrives" and is >hoping it will work for him. Perhaps the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ A good insight. Reminds me of the "cargo cults." (If you don't know the story, here's a brief version: Pacific Islanders saw Americans bringing riches and technological gew-gaws to their islands in WWII. Then they left, leaving cargo crates and whatnot behind. The Islanders believed if they fashioned radio headsets out of coconuts and radios out of old logs that they could bring the Great Birds from the Sky back. (*) This has since gotten currency--through anthropologists, Ayn Rand, Richard Feynman, and others--as a short-hand description for people engaging in magical thinking that the _trappings_ of something will sympathetically bring on the real thing. Some might say Java is a cargo cult...hmmmhhh, Java is a Pacific island....hmmmhhh.) (* Note: In this age of hypersensitivity, sometimes called political correctness, there are likely to be lurkers who suddenly jump up at this characterization of "native peoples" and decry my characterization of them as "savages" (even though I have not used this word nor this attitude toward them). And some will claim that if more American learned Bahasa Indonesia there would not be this cultural imperialism that is repressing all people of color. Hey, I don't repress no coloreds!) --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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Re: .sig followup
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:32 PM 4/4/96, Rich Graves wrote: > >CDAmeisters as an "invasion," but I really don't buy this stuff about >Cyberspace (a word only Barlow can say with a straight face) being a new ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >"place." It's just a communications medium, no more and no less real than >anything else. I think it would be better to stress that the online *is* This is not true. I use the word "cyberspace" with a straight face. It has long seemed perfectly descriptive to me. This doesn't mean I buy Barlow's "let's just declare independence" schtick. --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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Re: Why pay???
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:44 PM 4/4/96, kreidl(a)newrock.com wrote: >> >>Thanks for your interest in Cypherpunks Lite. >> >>I provide a moderated version of the Cypherpunks list called >>"Cypherpunks Lite". A one year subscription costs US$20 and is >Why would I pay if I can get it for free this way?????? You are of course free not to subscribe. A solution I think 98% of us would subscribe to, so to speak. Personally, I take the full Cypherpunks feed. Others may take Eric Blossom's for-a-fee filtered list, still others may take the variously-priced filtered lists by others. As it should be. (Goldwater and Heinlein got it slightly wrong when they said "There ain't no such as a free lunch." While true in many ways, TANSTAAFL ignorest the great willingness of people to donate time, effort, articles, etc. In fact, I've put many thousands of hours into the Cypherpunks list, for which I've received not a single centime of compensation. And I have no problem with this, provided it remains voluntary.) --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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Re: Fascinating troll with forged newgroups
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:00 AM 4/4/96 -0800, you wrote: >Looks like the Nazis forged newgroup messages for rec.fag-bashing, >rec.org.kkk, and 100 RFD'd groups in order to get their little messages >across. > >How entertaining. What a marvelous new form of net.vandalism they've >discovered. Or is this not new? Oh, no, this sort of thing is not new. It happened more before the Great Renaming, but it's not new. The other possibility is it's troll trying to make it _look_ like the Nazis did it.

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Re:Why pay???
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:44 PM 4/4/96, kreidl(a)newrock.com is rumored to have typed: > [...regarding CPLite subscriptions...] > > Why would I pay if I can get it for free this way?????? Because then useless noise (such as the message you posted) would automagically get filtered out. Some people do not have the time to filter the noise from signal on mailing lists and this service caters to their needs. jim

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