December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Netscrape's Cookies
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ready the article about the COOKIE.TXT file that Netscape creates. Apparently my copy has yet to modify it since it was installed... so much for 'hacking' it (I decided to try and leave it write-protected for now). I'm curious if anyone knows which sites use/modify it. Also wondering why Netscape seems to touch/modify the certification key files every time it runs. 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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OECD international crypto policy
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

gnu(a)toad.com (John Gilmore) wrote: >It would be interesting to see notes from other >participants in the same OECD meeting(s). Another >1-hour meeting was scheduled in Canberra on Feb 9. >Anyone know what happened there? The Feb 9 session of the "Group of Experts" Mr. Gilmore mentions was restricted to official OECD delegations. See: http://www.nla.gov.au/gii/programl.html Papers of the open conference on Feb 7 and 8 were promised posting on the Web concurrently but none have yet appeared at: http://www.nla.gov.au/gii/papers.html Cryptographers Quisquater, Denning and Diffie (and others at the Paris December sessions) were scheduled for Feb 7 and 8. Professor Denning was listed to give "The Future of Cryptography" discussed on cypherpunks a while back. Perhaps a public-spirited participant will share the fruits of the open and restricted events, as with the Paris gathering.

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Debrauschie (SP?) wavelets
by tien＠well.sf.ca.us 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Perhaps a dumb question, but is this kind of analysis relevant to crypto? (I read an article about it in Discover) Lee Tien

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Re: CDA Yes Votes; Collection
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 04:12 AM 2/17/96 GMT, John C. Randolph wrote: >"Kevin S. Van Horn" <vanhorn(a)hks.net> writes: >I also consider myself a hard-line libertarian, and I'm not going to second >guess Truman on the use of the bomb. His duty was to save American and >allied lives. He had no duty whatsoever to limit the destruction that >was visited upon the japanese mainland, particularly in view of the >fact that Japan's war against the United States of America began in an >unprovoked, suprise attack. > >Japan suffered for allowing their government to run amok. So did Germany. >Germans who were paying attention during the thirties fled their country, >and those who were unfortunate enough to be trapped, and yet still loved >freedom, became members of an anti-NAZI underground. > >Japan, Germany, Italy, and other countries like Iraq, where people place >obedience to their leaders above their own moral responsiblity, will >suffer mass destruction. Think of it as evolution in action. >-jcr On the other hand, there may be an alternative... Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com Klaatu Burada Nikto -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMSVt+PqHVDBboB2dAQFlpAP9GKNp2zRKHK1l8es1h4mp3YNEo1cQt0+e Y6NwwavHCdtsGy4/xV0i3QVclmlx3Ffm+b6HMFpv/YPbWyQ+BUOz1GIMzAr7TzDB SxQqZaH9Ezkv9dDExCfwZmGNIoXLGOzYjusWq3dsLpilf01mLNGLxlS8QK4XNg8H RuHr91Axn20= =TH0l -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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China
by deepthroat＠alpha.c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Even if the Chinese make this work for a few years and the US does the same, it doesn't matter in the long run. People can run short lived remailers out of accounts that don't belong to them. They can buy service over an encrypted link from a seller outside of China. They can use steganography. Given this, how can a Chinese or other represive government crack down? They can't turn off all the computers. They can try to allow access to only 'aproved' sites. They can arrest people. But will the war on encryption be as easily won as the war on drugs? Drugs are physical things; they emit odors, require bulky transport, guards, etc. Binary code doesn't emit a smell. You can't train a dog to find PGP. Yes they can crack down, but all that will do is make the information economy move underground and offshore. In time, those states that declare war on encryption will become police states. Police states can kill a lot of people, but they tend not to last more than a few generations. Jon Lasser wrote: | Not if it's just a proof-of-concept for US implementation of the same. | | The US version might be ostensibly only "anti-indecency" or | "anti-cryptography," but I'm betting that if the Chinese are successful, | many other nations follow. | | It's the naval blockade to JPB's Independant Cyberspace. And I think JPB | is... a little overoptimistic this time... but I still don't like the | blockade.

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Credit cards - Privacy - Unique Situation
by rickt＠psisa.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Being a British guy recently moved to the USA, I may be in a unique situation in being able to protect my privacy, and I was wondering if fellow cypherpunks may be able to give me some hints in being to "protect" myself... Since my SSN is barely a month old, since I don't yet have a credit card over here, since I won't (yet?) be in many of those beloved databases, what steps can I take to "hide" myself before it's too late? Too all intents and purposes, I have metamorphed from a newborn US baby into an adult, overnight. Thus I have an SSN, I pay tax (etc), but I'm not on anyone's direct mailing lists. Are there certain things I can do and say to absolve myself from being assimilated into the thousands of pointless and harmful databases out there in the USA? When and where and why do I have to give my SSN to seemingly so many? HELP! Thanks, /rickt ________________________________ Rick Tait rickt(a)psa.pencom.com

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Re: Libertarians and crypto and such
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(I was alerted to the fact that my post came out strangely formatted, so I'm re-sending hoping it looks better this time). --------------------------- A note on the arguments disintegrating into granular accusations & counter accusations: Some of you ought to realize that no matter what category of political/philosophical inclinations a person has, or deems themselves to have, or is deemed to have by others, they as individuals are still going to have their own peculiar perspective, their own version, of these views. Meaning, that it is not 100% predictable that *all* libertarians will think & do the same as all other so-called "libertarians". "Democrats" or "Republicans" or even "wiccans" will have their own variations on the same themes and disagree among themselves over what the most correct policy for action could be/should be/shall be. These labels for philosophical & political stands are really only general indicators of an individual's conclusions about worldy events or the direction in which they tend to orient their sympathies; when the "rubber meets the road" and real action or some real support is required, it can be quite surprising to see their actual responses to events. Whether one person or a like-minded group is aligned philosophically correctly (suitable to one's own preferences) or not, is info that is useful only for determining trends; no matter what combination of beliefs a particular group concocts into a world-view, it is still required of the individual person that they deal effectively with whatever threats arise in *their own* immediate Present, regardless of what anyone else did in the History of Mankind or what "those other groups" extol as being The Right Thing for All (tm). Aren't one's own actions more important and telling than any group affiliations? The ideals which motivate one to seek the use of encryption are very significant to the need to justify the use of it. The most valid ideals will relate to the real world in which we all actually work and play. And The Truth Which Does Not Go Away is the indispensable Fact of the Matter that when the NSA proposes to open your personal files you are going to want to prevent it, no matter what political party or program you claim to support the rest of the time. .. Blanc .. Blanc

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Re: China -- the fragile glimmer of freedom
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:10 AM 2/16/96, Bryce wrote: ... >For people who spewed forth hundreds of articles of rants >when the toothless CDA outlawed lewdity and advice about >abortion, and for people who bravely and promptly took >action to protect the free speech of a <contempt>Holocaust >denier</contempt>, the cpunks have been noticeably silent >about this much more cruel and widespread repression. > >Perhaps you think that the compliant Chinese person is >satisfied with his or her role as lackey of his government? >Or is it that we and the Asians inhabit such different >worlds that we will have to make do without each other's >help? Well, where are the posts from outraged Cypherpunks living in the People's Republic of China? Some countries are so far gone, so deep in the muck of statism, that nothing their governments do is very surprising. Ranting about how bad things are in some country is not very meaningful. Supplying them with tools is more meaningful. However, given that I know of no list members living in the PRC, nor even any in soon-to-be-assimilated Hong Kong, I'm not sure what the point is. I don't know about others, but I think the focus should be on the folks who are salvageable, not the billion or so Chinese or the hundreds of millions of Islamic women awaiting their clitorectomies and bowing toward Mecca for guidance. Fact is that 90%+ of all list members are in the United States, and 97%+ are in the so-called "Western world." We have a chance to deploy strong crypto, the residents of Nepal and Singapore do not. (By mentioning Singapore, I will get insulting e-mail, as I did last time, furiously declaring Singapore to be a haven of freedom, free from the corrupt thoughts of decadent imperialist empires, and secure in the knowledge that Lee Kuan Yu (sp?) knows what is best for all of his children.) But if a branch of Cypherpunks wants to start up in Beijing, I'll send them some complimentary copies of my "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto" to pass out to local Party members! --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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Re: A Cyberspace Independence Refutation
by peter honeyman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> If the Feds pulled the plug on the backbone, I can see that there > are a lot of people who would drag UUCP and pathalias out of the > closet, and the UUCP Mapping Project would live again. i don't know whether to laugh or cry over the prospect. peter

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Re: Carrying the Bible an Offense?
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:31 PM 2/17/96 +0000, you wrote: >Is it not possible in the US jurisdictions to mount private >prosecutions? There is a common law right to do so in England. I'm not aware of a corresponding right in the US, and am pretty sure that none exists. The victim of a crime can likely sue civilly for whatever damages s/he suffered, and can sometimes also recover attorney's fees & punitive damages (e.g., RICO). But I'm not aware of any procedure by which a citizen could bring a real criminal prosecution, with the corresponding risk of incarceration for the defendant, court-appointed counsel for indigent defendants, and so forth. Some statutes (the ones which spring to mind immediately are environmental statutes) allow private citizens to sue to enforce compliance with the law, if the government has been given notice of the violation and has failed to bring its own action for enforcement; but I don't think that those are criminal prosecutions. (I think we're wandering away from anything on-topic for C-punks, so further comments from me on this thread, if any, will likely be in private mail.) -- "The anchored mind screwed into me by the psycho- | Greg Broiles lubricious thrust of heaven is the one that thinks | gbroiles(a)netbox.com every temptation, every desire, every inhibition." | -- Antonin Artaud |

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