December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Why does the state still stand:
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"blancw(a)accessone.com" "blanc" 15-MAY-1996 03:52:18.03 >. What if someone, hired on one occasion but fired at another, decides = >in anger to "turn coat" and report everyone to the IRS (or other fine = >government agency)? Well, full anonymnity should stop this one from being a problem, although one should still consider topics such as forensic stylometry - if someone squeals and starts keeping messages (plus any earlier kept innocently), it may be possible to figure out who's who from these. I'm currently checking into forensic stylometry; I can see the possibility of programs to run stylometry on one's own email/posting, with suggestions for alternative vocabulary, etcetera when you fall into too much of a pattern. A related problem is that of government agents signing on. Both of the above are made more acute by the possibility that some information, if revealed, might enable the government to disrupt activities - even if it doesn't enable prosecution. Making sure that the participants have a strong stake in behaving properly - e.g., shares in the outcome, ecash deposits, and - most importantly in dissuading governmental intervention - reputation riding on it. The last is most important in dissuading governmental intervetion because of the reserves of wealth the government is likely to have for some time; they can afford to pay (using your and my tax dollars) for the short-term costs to a subject. Paying for longer-term costs (e.g., the loss of the ability to work due to reputational diminishment) is not as practical, and is usually only done for very important cases (e.g., the Witness Protection Program). An additional aspect of the last is that if someone has a poor (or no) reputation, you shouldn't trust them with much damaging information or responsibility. If government agents keep blowing various covers, none of their covers will have much reputation capital. >. What if a company does not pay as expected - other than adopting = >Assassination Politics, what method could an employee use towards = >getting their expected remuneration for work done? A combination of escrow agencies and reputation capital appears to work here. It does have the problem for escrow agencies that they will either have to be above-board - and thus subject to governmental pressure - or anonymous - and thus not particularly trustworthy until they've built up reputation capital. But how do they build up reputation capital in the first place? Hmm.... what one needs is a way to transfer reputation from a public, identifiable source to a new pseudonymous source. Some cryptographic thought on this idea has been had; I will leave it up to the experts to discuss it. >. Wouldn't everyone need to have two jobs (or source of regularly = >accepted cash), in order to be able to pay for services where suppliers = >do not accept virtual cash transactions? (TCM has mentioned before about = >the need to pay for some things in tiny quantities - like quarters for a = >phone call, etc.) Intersections between the virtual and regularly accepted cash economies are an interesting subject; Sasha has written about this before on here. Essentially, money-changing is likely to be a significant enough source of profit that someone will be willing to do it. Now, regularly accepted cash will have the limit that the IRS et al will want to know its source. Thus, one should probably use as little of it as possible, and that only in untraceable ways - investments et al should be done via virtual cash. There is the problem of that one has a certain minimal reasonable spending, for the source of which the IRS is likely to look. -Allen

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Re: Rural Datafication (Was Re: Edited Edupage, 9 May 1996)
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"tcmay(a)got.net" 15-MAY-1996 02:31:15.60 >A consequence is that many customers leapfrog right over local cable and go >directly for satellite dishes. While the local community cable systems and >their government partners could (and did) keep out other cable competitors, >this became less and less possible with satellite dishes. Zoning laws were >used to limit BUDs (Big Ugly Dishes, the big 8-foot and larger C-band >dishes). But as the Ku-band dishes (mentioned favorably in my 1988 Crypto >Anarchist Manifesto, interestingly enough) became available, even the most >restrictive zoning ordinances became unenforceable....dishes could be in >attics, on balconies, even covered with fake boulders! The courts are also (sensibly) seeing zoning laws attempting to outlaw such small dishes as being completely ridiculous. >In my own case, I skipped cable and installed a DSS dish...150 or more >channels, at least 20 movies on at any given time (not even counting the >Pay Per View movies, of which there are at least 30-40), financial news, >CNN, etc. Plus, a digital output connector for (Real Soon Now, they claim) >a PageSat-type Usenet and Web page feed, using phone links for the back >link. I submit this as an example of where the free market is providing a >better solution than "community access cable" did. In fact, the >socialization of cable held cable back. I've gone even farther than that - I don't bother with having a TV, I just get my info from the net. There is the problem with the satellite net links that it tends to concentrate data production & distribution into relatively few hands, from which it can easier be taken by government and other forces. Larger corporation, despite the influence their size gives them, can be easier to pressure than the small ones. Look at Compuserve in Germany, for instance - they were having pressure from Christian Coalition types, etcetera, and used the German investigation as an excuse. On the other hand, this is also a very good argument against rural subsidies being necessary - if people want net access and are educated and smart enough to afford it (and thus be able to use it properly), they can get it even if they're in the wilds of Montana. -Allen

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Re: Edited Edupage, 9 May 1996
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:11 PM 5/15/96 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >As long as this is now CypherCesspit and not CypherPunks, I might as >well play the game. I've been trolled too. >Perhaps its this sort of thing, and the fact that the literacy rate >was higher BEFORE public education, that lead me to believe that we >don't need any more "assistance" from the friendly neighborhood >government. We need less, a lot less, and as fast as possible. Since I am basically conservative (small c, original meaning), I always look for ways to ease into change. In the case of public schools (and specifically in California), I see that the top 10% can stand proudly next to the best of the private schools, and the bottom 10% are cesspools. We should start by issuing education vouchers to the parents of students in the bottom 10% of the schools for the state aid their districts would have otherwise gotten. We can monitor indicators such as the juvenile crime rate and standardized tests to see how the experiment is progressing. If the experiment is wildly successful, it will be extended quickly by popular demand. If it is mildly successful, it should be extended to more schools, but more slowly (perhaps the lowest 25% next), and monitored. In any case, when it reaches the top 10%, it ain't broke, schools, they will have had time to adapt to the change in funding. I should note that if I were sending my children to primary/secondary school today, I would still send them to the local public schools in Los Gatos. >Do you prefer using the U.S. Postal Service, or Federal Express when >you absolutely positively have to get the package there? Actually I use the USPS. They deliver to places I have to send things that FX does not (Some rural parts of the USA). However, since I am not sending life-saving medicine, I really don't "absolutely positively have to get the package there". ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Frantz | The CDA means | Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 | lost jobs and | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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[NOISE] Re: Edited Edupage, 9 May 1996
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hmmm... this is getting fun. Now I have something to take out my frustration at 3Com shipping me a broken 100baseTX hub... Perry writes: > Food is of paramount importance to society. Why do we have no > government run feeding stations to replace these evil supermarkets, > then? I guess that farm subsidies, school lunches and the infamous "government cheese" are all figments of our imagination... > Heat is of paramount importance to society -- in New England you can't > survive the winter without it. Why, then, do we not have government > operated and financed oil companies to replace the evil private ones. Are you aware of the fact that it is next to impossible to disconnect gas/electricity for poor customers during the winter in these areas? Have you ever wondered why the services rep asks you questions regarding your income when you sign up for phone or electrical/gas services? > Communications are of primary importance to society. Would you swap > our phone system for the phone system in Greece, or even the one in > France, which are publically subsidized and run by the government? Gee, I seem to remember when the only phone system of any consequence in the US was the Bell System. A heavily regulated monopoly with the government overseeing almost all aspects of the services offered. > Do you prefer using the U.S. Postal Service, or Federal Express when > you absolutely positively have to get the package there? Can FedEx send a 1 oz. letter to anywhere in the world for 32 cents? A classic example of cherry-picking among private companies. > If you had a choice, would you go to a V.A."hospital" or see a private > physician? A private physician who must adhere to governement standards and who could not practice medicine without the permission of the government? [okay, you sort of have a point on this one but you were really shooting blanks on the other issues.] > Actually, I believe most people on this list argue for no government > or so little that its decisions hardly matter. Yes, but you should give better examples. This is not an issue which is easily argued using the "sound bites" you are trying to give us. jim

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RE: Java & signed applets
by Gregg Weissman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well,that day is not all that far off, when there is trusted h/w, or trusted components, on the desktop. This will be the usual two-edged sword .... ---------- From: Lyal Collins[SMTP:lyalc@ozemail.com.au] Sent: Thursday, May 16, 1996 8:02 AM To: E. ALLEN SMITH Cc: Cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: Java & signed applets Signing anything is somewaht a waste of time, unless the verification siftware is highly trusted, and there is good intergity/authenticity control of the root public key(s). So, in geneal - ho hum - until trusted hardware is available on the desktop. lyal -- All mistakes in this message belong to me - you should not use them!

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Pointer to CFV for comp.security.pgp.*
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please do not redistribute the actual CFV. I'm sure the group will pass; this just FYI, in case there's anyone here interested in a forum for discussing cryptography. See article <832200127.21555(a)uunet.uu.net> in news.announce.newgroups. -rich

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Zimmermann v. Viacrypt
by Mark Voorhees 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There is a story @ http://infolawalert.com/stories/051796a.html describing how Phil Zimmermann is trying to retrieve all the rights to PGP from ViaCrypt in order to jump start his new venture, PGP, Inc. He's taking a sell out or get sued approach with ViaCrypt, which until recently has not had much success marketing PGP. Mark ** Mark Voorhees ** Information Law Alert ** mark(a)infolawalert.com ** http://infolawalert.com ** + 1 718 369 0906 ** + 1 718 369 3250 (fax) ************************* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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Re: SEVERE undercapacity, we need more remailer servers FAST
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"jamesd(a)echeque.com" 16-MAY-1996 00:44:57.85 >What do I need to do to support a remailer that posts to non binary >newsgroups? (I do not have root control on a unix machine other than my >employers machine, for which I am unlikely to receive approval to use >in this fashion.) Well, there are some mail-to-news gateways; I believe someone posted on them a while back. You could write to the operators and ask them for a copy of the software. I would suggest only accepting messages from mixmaster remailers; this would reduce the likelihood of successful lawsuits against you for the logs, since they won't give any information. -Allen

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Re: RSAREF for Mac?
by timd＠consensus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:26 PM 5/14/96, Jay Haines wrote: >It seems that I have seen this question asked before, but as I had no need for >the answer at that time, I trashed it. So, without further ado: > >Can anyone point in the direction of RSAREF for the Macintosh? Sorry for the delay. RSAREF for Mac is the same as any other RSAREF; RSAREF is distributed as fairly portable C source. For a recent project, I just added the sorce files to a Metrowerks project and built and it worked fine. It compiles without errors or warnings on all the Mac platforms I've tried thus far (it does generate "possible unintended assignment" warnings (for assignments inside of if statements) if you've got that turned on). If you're having problems, feel free to drop me a note. - Tim Tim Dierks -- timd(a)consensus.com -- www.consensus.com Head of Thing-u-ma-jig Engineering, Consensus Development

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Re: Why does the state still stand:
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"jf_avon(a)citenet.net" 15-MAY-1996 19:11:14.65 >But here, I think that AP would be the single most important factor >ruling the socio-economical behavior of individuals or entities in >the world. It already works that way in many countries of the >world, especially in south america. In many places, you don't screw >around too much or you get killed. As a friend of mine who lived in >the jungle told me "if a guy fools around with you wife, you just >shut up and take it, but if a guy fools around with your girlfriend, >you have the sorcerer mix you a beverage... One of my friend had >one and he died within ten days..." However, this is depending on being able to target the people involved. Anonymnity kind of prevents that, if it's enough to avoid governmental intervention. -Allen

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