December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Why I dislike Java. (was Re: "Scruffies" vs. "Neats")
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:03 AM 5/3/96 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >... The problem I have is >that I expect that increasingly pages will arise for which information >can only be extracted with the use of Java. Some flunky from some desk >will will come up and scream "what do you mean I can't get a copy of >Foo Corporation's merger press release because we won't run some >program! Thats bullshit! Do you know how much money the risk arb desk >pulls in, you twit! This must never happen again! Fix it immediately!" Unfortunately the market decided that function and price were more important than security. (I know, I spent 10 years developing and trying to sell an OS with strong security features.) The only thing I can suggest to you is, spend the bucks, desk real estate, confusion etc. and have two machines; a secure/reliable one and an insecure/unreliable one. Make sure OS manufacturers like Apple and Microsoft know that you want to be able to disable the build in Java they have announced. You may be able to develop a way of transferring the clipboard between the machines so the dancing Java displayed economic numbers can be easily and safely transferred to the secure machine's analysis program. Regards - Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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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Re: Sen. Patrick Leahy's PGP key now avail.
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:36 PM 5/2/96, Will Rodger wrote: >Wanna write the good Senator on the occasion of his newest bill? His pub >key's out there. (URL is http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-commands.html#submit/ >) Why does anyone need his public key to communicate with Senator Leahy? If it's for sender-anonymity, this does not do it, though other tools (remailers) do. Unless the information is "secret," why bother? It adds extra time at his office's end (you don't think Leahy types in his password to PGP do you?), and it accomplishes little. >From a personal viewpoint, I'm glad my key is no longer very accessible. I used to get PGP-encrypted messages which had no earthly reason to be encrypted, except that people apparently wanted to practice their PGP skills. (For those who sent me items that had a reason to be encrypted, you know who you are and you know this comment does not apply to you.) --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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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An interesting front end for the replay remailer
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

These folks' politics don't make much sense to me (but I gather that they really, really don't like Jehova's Witnesses); it's their setting up an "alternative" front end for the replay remailer that caught my interest. http://www.nano.no/~telemark/anon.html One could say that this makes a case for PGP-signing web pages, but on the other hand, the remailers don't and shouldn't care about content, so who cares if someone "misappropriates" a remailer. What are they "taking" anyway? -rich

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WhoWhere is a Fucked-Up Operation
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:29 PM 5/3/96, Patrick May wrote: >Rich Graves writes: > > For a good demonstration of why WhoWhere? is not necessarily the greatest > > thing since spice racks, look up "Louis Freeh," "Fuck You," "Asshole," > > "System Privileged User," and "Stephen Hawking." I keep telling them that > > they'd better remove this last, but they don't consider it a priority. > > If you want further evidence of their technical skills, look up >my name. I'm responsible for the corp(a)spe.com account. WhoWhere has >therefore decided that I am responsible for every "corp" account in >their database and has attached my name to each and every one. I >informed them of this several weeks ago but they are evidently not >interested in cleaning up their service. > > Being both socially and technically challenged, perhaps they want >your Fucking Statist input on obtaining a government grant for a >clue-free business. I agree with my namesake that WhoWhere is one incredibly fucked-up operation. I tried to add an entry for myself, and my entry has (after several days) not made it. (I tried to be truthful, including such things as "felon" for what I do...perhasp their Thought Police considered my entry a joke, suggesting that they must be applying their own judgment to entries.) I then figured that some of their "automatically generated" entries for "Timothy C. May" needed correction. Not suprisingly, the system asked for a password, so I was unable to correct their defective entries for me. Fuck em. Then burn the body. --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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: The Decense Project
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"rjc(a)clark.net" "Ray Cromwell" 10-FEB-1996 23:32:12.32 >The first piece of the Decense software is designed to provide "penet" like >double-blind anonymous transactions for the http protocol. It is written >as a cgi-bin script which provides a seamless mapping between anonymous >ids and remote web servers. Servers running Decense can be chained like >anonymous remailers to increase site level security. [...] >http://<decense.server.host>/<cgi-bin-dir>/decense/<anonid>/<relative url> I had one idea that you might want to keep in mind. Most web robots (e.g., Altavista's) try to avoid cgi scripts. Since I would assume that one would wish these to be indexed (information being available doesn't do much good if nobody can find it), this could be a problem. Setting up as to fool the web robots (especially making sure that the Decense urls aren't in the site's robots.txt file) into thinking this is a normal page with an appropriate link would appear to be a good idea. Now, of course the site running Decense would probably not like too much traffic (the reason for most sites not running anonymizing proxies, which should be combined with Decense), I would suggest that the system be set up to receive ecash from the web sites linked (or from the user, although that would remove the web robot access unless you could verify that it was a known indexing robot.) The MarkTwain pickiness on merchants may be a problem on this, depending on what links are available. One idea on getting around this would be to go through the European bank offering ecash; I don't know if their setup is compatible with the MarkTwain ecash, however. Lucky Green? Indeed, setting this up in a European country with good anti-censorship laws would be preferable in any event; the Scandinavian countries might work well. The greater tolerance for some such material in Europe is why I would think that the European bank might be more flexible. (I would be curious if a U.S. business could get a merchant agreement with the European bank; Lucky Green?). -Allen

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Re: PGP API & PGP 3.0
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Derek Atkins (warlord(a)mit.edu) writes: > The PGP Library is currently under development. I have a draft API > document, but it is not complete (I still need to finish documenting > the key management functions). I'd like to get it to a state where I > can "publically" release it soon -- then again I've been saying that > for a while. Yeah... I was thinking a few months ago that it would be fun to set up an idea-futures claim regarding which would appear in a usable fashion first (if ever): PGP 3.0 and it's library or the GNU Hurd... jim

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Re: Why Leahy is No Friend of Ours
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"tcmay(a)got.net" 3-MAY-1996 19:48:00.78 >Leahy is no friend of ours. Recall that he chaired the hearings on the >FBI's "Digital Telephony" massive wiretap proposal, and co-sponsored the >legislation (with former FBI agent Don Edwards). Fascinating. I'd still say to use PGP when sending mail when possible in order to give the NSA more to worry about in traffic analysis. However, it does look like Leahy isn't exactly a governmental type to whom I wish to send an encouraging message. This may explain the problems with his initial bill on cryptography export. >The implications for the Internet and for increasingly popular "Internet >phone" systems are interesting. As I understand the DT language, such >systems would have to be made compliant with wiretap requests, or face the >$10K/day penalties. This could force many ISPs, in the U.S. of course, to >take steps to immediately restrict certain programs, or even >[speculatively] force them to become compliant by some form of key escrow, >where they would keep a copy of a key for presentation to law enforcement. >[More speculation by me: the combination of the Wiretap Act, the >Anti-Terrorism Act, and the still-ongoing work on key escrow (TIS is still >pushing their system, Lotus hasn't backed down, Denning still says it's >needed, etc.) could mean that ISPs move to restrict use of crypto in >various ways, possibly mandating escrowed encryption. Why do you think I enquired about encryption in the Internet Phone software in Netscape? Deployment of such as soon as possible - with the encrypted version being the default, or even automatic - would be a decided help. >Several of us (Black Unicorn, Duncan Frissell, me, etc.) may point out the >practical difficulties involved in such enforcement, and the longterm dim >prospects for success. But the fact is that ISPs are a kind of "choke >point" for halting certain things. I have a feeling I know what my ISP will >say if he gets a court order and a $10,000 per day penalty faces him. Those >who access the Net directly, through their own companies and/or by having >boxes hanging directly on the Net, will be less vulnerable to this kind of >pressure. But the Netcoms, PSI, Earthlinks, AOLs, and such will likely run >into trouble the first time a court order is presented to make certain >Internet phone conversations tappable.... One question is whether the ISP will be able to detect whether someone is violating such a law. -Allen

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Dole Backs Crypto Export
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Financial Times, May 3, 1996, p. 7. Dole backs removal of software export ban By Louise Kehoe in San Francisco Senator Bob Dole, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, yesterday threw his support behind proposed legislation to remove US export restrictions on computer software used to encode Internet messages. The new Security and Freedom through Encryption bill introduced yesterday by several Republican senators and congressmen, also rejects a controversial Clinton administration proposal to enable law enforcement agencies to unlock encoded electronic messages. For Senator Dole, the encryption bill provides an opportunity to seek support from Silicon Valley high-tech leaders many of whom backed Mr Bill Clinton in 1992, and to boost his election campaign efforts in California. "The administration's misguided proposal on encryption amounts to a pair of cement shoes for Silicon Valley," said Senator Dole. "It seems to me that a new pair of track shoes might be a better answer. The administration's big brother proposal will literally destroy America's computer industry," he said. Encryption software is currently classified as "munitions" and exports are strictly limited by the US state department. US and other western intelligence and law enforcement agencies are opposed to the commercial use of the most powerful encryption methods which they argue could be used to mask criminal or terrorist activities by effectively preventing wire-taps. However, US software companies maintain that the current export restrictions threaten US pre-eminence in the world software market. A study by the Computer Systems Policy Project, a computer industry group, estimated that within four years the US economy would lose $60bn in revenues and roughly 216,000 jobs as a result of encryption export controls. Moreover, current regulations, which allow export only of "weak" encryption, are unacceptable because such encoding has been demonstrated to be ineffective. Last year, for example students in France were able to break encryption which is used in the export version of Netscape Communication's popular Internet browser software. The limited availability of strong encryption software is also blocking the progress of electronic commerce on the Internet, US computer experts argue, because companies and individuals are reluctant to make electronic payments over the Internet without assurance of security. -----

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No Subject
by nmunro＠technews.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

subsribe neil munro

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Re: CryptoAnarchy: What's wrong with this picture?
by liberty＠gate.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- [I must *try* to quit rising to all this bloody bait, but:] Michael Loomis wrote: >[..."unfairness is kept within reasonable bounds"..."reasonable > sized government"...] I'm sure that we all agree on the meaning of the term, "reasonable." >Consumption taxation would, of course, >include a tax on the amount of information coming into your computer. I >don't think that the government will have any problem determining the >quantity of the information & since it will be encrypted anyway, I don't >see the privacy worries. This would give a whole new meaning to the term "mailbomb," no? JMR Regards, Jim Ray <liberty(a)gate.net> "The FAA, FBI, Customs, CIA, Justice, DEA and the IRS were all involved in Mena. They won't say how they were involved, but they will tell you there is nothing there." -- Bill Plante, CBS News Correspondent, & Michael Singer, Producer, CBS News, New York. in Tuesday, May 3, 1994's Wall Street Journal letters to the editor section. _______________________________________________________________________ PGP key Fingerprint 51 5D A2 C3 92 2C 56 BE 53 2D 9C A1 B3 50 C9 C8 Public Key id. # E9BD6D35 -- http://www.shopmiami.com/prs/jimray _______________________________________________________________________ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Freedom isn't Freeh. iQCVAwUBMYoTt21lp8bpvW01AQE4WQP+KQyztz4V6jfYvboOrDhLLuItlTzkLmIv 6TfM3/7O+fLoNcyKXGOEmgc5y7j0/IiiXJJtMsDCsfH/ONpyEAY1GRnfREgMv9HW OezSVVhYd/xoKg6pouAaWgZ2cD3RlH8SeE7LqCkeZhAXdcXHiNIAK8mAv78Eln0y KjzImXWG9dw= =ieam -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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