December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

unsuscribe
by ryans＠worldchat.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

unsuscribe

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Re: RFD: Developing Nations and crypto (based on excertp from Edupag
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:48 AM 6/26/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: > Sadly, most developing countries (Third World, LDCs, whatever) have > repressive governments of various stripes...few are libertarian. Several > have embraced computer technology, but primarily as an instrument of social > control. This is true, but basically back to front. Certain common forms of repressive economic policy cause poverty. From time to time political convulsions change this policy for a long period. If the period is several decades, development follows. In the past, popular support for these repressive policies was vast and overwhelming, and once in place they could only be changed by fairly murderous dictatorships, for example South Korea and Chile. Popular support for these policies is still substantial, but has steadily diminished. In my opinion this diminishing support is largely the result of improved international communications. When people in poor countries discover that their social order is radically different from that in similar rich countries, they are apt to vote for institutions similar to those in the rich country -- the JR Ewing affect. In short, the third world it has become considerably easier to create liberty without the need to massacre real, suspected, and imaginary communists. >Singapore is an example of a country that jumped from former colonial >status, surrounded by relatively poor (GNP) countries, to the "Information >Age." And what is the result? What our own Sandy Sandfort dubbed >"Disneyland with a Death Penalty." No spitting, no cursing, no long hair, >no "Wall Street Journal," no pornography, no Internet free access, no >dissension. And smartcards track the movements of all Citizen-Units. Not an >encouraging example. > >As for the comment that "they aren't bogged down in older ways of doing >business, communicating, etc." Well, some of these "older ways" include: > >- concepts about the ownership of property and transfers of title > >- contracts, and the ability to make and enforce them > >- understanding of the Uniform Commercial Code (the descendent of the "Law >Merchant" which Western societies have embraced for centuries) > >- a stable middle class, solid educational facilities, and a tradition of >business and technical achievement > >(These are all things which are missing in many Third World countries, for >whatever reasons. Even in many Second World countries, such as the former >U.S.S.R., and these lacks are making the development of modern economic >systems problematic.) > >Certainly some small nations--perhaps island nations--can essentially jump >directly to an "information based economy." The Cayman Islands and several >other examples come to mind. > >I find it harder to believe that a _large_ nation is likely to make such a >transition. > >--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." > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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PC-ness of nym.alias.net
by Rich 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Fri, 28 Jun 1996, Anonymous wrote: > I would appreciate any information members may have regarding the > security/safety of the new nym server nym.alias.net (in "alpha" state) who > posted here about 3 weeks ago. Nym.alias.net reportedly is the same > machine as anon.lcs.mit.edu. > > Specifically, is the individual running the nym _known_ to cypherpunks, or > is this an unknown about whom I should have serious doubts. I could tell you who it is, but then I'd have to kill you. So let's just stick to publicly available information. According to the root DNS servers, which as we know are controlled by a ZOG defense contractor, alias.net is an alias for alpha.jpunix.com, and anon.lcs.mit.edu is indeed the same as nym.alias.net. alias2-dom is said to get name service from Sameer and company, but that could be a trap. Obviously, they've infiltrated pretty deep, but thanks to you, we know to be careful. Then again, this could just be FUD from another Fucking Statist. Who knows? Somewhat more seriously, wouldn't it be nice if the various remailers signed each other's keys? - -rich -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQBVAwUBMdScnJNcNyVVy0jxAQEwFQH/ZXv+9Nj5ZDjk5FpA33T+kw68H39p/SuW Ab/hRfGGkZX97PIa50C7UVu4YROYE9RYcn7kalsZgFKOsJKAq3JKIw== =1CQg -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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www hacking?
by AwakenToMe＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I havent seen much in lines of this being a problem yet..although I was reading through practical unix security (newest edition) and it made mention of the danger of hacking WWW. Forgive my ignorance on this.. but what dangers are there? I could see someone attacking the main server and do damage in that sense..but Im a little outdated in this as far as what is attacked. The only thing Ive ever had to worry about was unix, now theres oh-so much more. If someone could tell me the dangers of someone attacking someones site..etc..on the WWW, I would much appreciate it! Thanks Adam

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Re: mocking paranoia
by Cerridwyn Llewyellyn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:58 AM 6/29/96 nelson(a)crynwr.com wrote: >Earlier, someone mocked someone else for being paranoid. Sorry, but >this is a mistake. By definition, you have a non-empty threat model >when you set out to encrypt; therefore you must be paranoid to use >encryption. Or else they really *could* be out to get you, but >sometimes it's not possible to tell, and you have to assume that they >are. heh... "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you."

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The End of Science
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Natalie Angier, the sharp-witted science reporter for The New York Times, reviews "The End of Science," by John Horgan, a senior writer at Scientific American, in the June 30 NYT Book Review. She writes: In this intellectually bracing, sweepingly reported, often brilliant and sometimes bullying book, John Horgan makes the powerful case that the best and most exciting scientific discoveries are behind us. He argues that many scientists today, particularly those he interviewed for this book, are "gripped by a profound unease." Part of that malaise results from all the sociopolitical irritants we've heard about: the dwindling financial resources, the vicious competition, the strident antipathy of animal rights activists, religious fundamentalists, technophobes and the like. But a far more important source of despair, Mr. Horgan insists, is that scientists are beginning to sense that "the great era of scientific discovery is over." The big truths, the primordial truths, the pure truths about "the universe and our place in it" have already been mapped out. Science has been so spectacularly successful at describing the principal features of the universe, on a scale from quarks to the superstructure of galaxies, that the entire enterprise may well end up the paradoxical victim of its own prosperity. "Further research may yield no more great revelations or revolutions," he writes, "but only incremental, diminishing returns." While Angier does not agree with his thesis that the major problems of science have been solved, she commends his incisive critique of scientists who cannot give up the dream of omniscience, many of whom he has interviewed for the book -- Stephen Jay Gould, Roger Penrose, Steven Weinberg, Daniel Dennett, Stuart Kauffman, Marvin Minsky, John Wheeler, Frank Tipler and others. She summarizes Horgan's view of detumescent science: Where does that leave contemporary scientists? They can either pursue small, manageable and vaguely boring science (sequencing the complete complement of human DNA may fall into this category), or they can turn to what Mr. Horgan calls "ironic science." Such science is "speculative, postempirical," resembling literary criticism "in that it offers points of view, opinions, which are, at best, interesting." Ironic science is provocative, he says, but it fails to converge on the truth. " It cannot achieve empirically verifiable surprises that force scientists to make substantial revisions in their basic description of reality," he writes. ---------- For those without access to NYT, the full review is available at: http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~jya/theend.txt (11 kb) Or, we will E-mail a copy. Send a blank message to <jya(a)pipeline.com> with the subject THE_end

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Open Gates?
by kdf＠gigo.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Please respond via netmail, as I have only limited access to the list.] Does anyone have a _current_ list of open mail-to-news gates? As far as I can tell, the only one is: group.name(a)pubnews.demon.co.uk Thanks for any help. -- : Fidonet: John Erland 1:203/8055.12 .. speaking for only myself. : Internet: kdf(a)gigo.com

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Re: Cookies anyone?
by Yanni 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Rather than bring down my system by experimenting, I thought I'd ask > the list, "What happens if I delete this file?" you loose any cool stuff that cool sites give you. we are using them (along with searchArgs) for a client to allow a "buddie" to follow you around the site....when you come back, the buddy tells you how long you have been gone, etc...a really cool fun harmless application of cookies that makes the user experience much more fun and personal... > and "What happens if > I delete (edit) the cookies?" if you don't keep the format, navigator will probably remove that line when it starts up. if you keep the format, and have edited the cookie, the site on the other end might not know what to do with the cookie when it gets it again...(depends on how good the error checking, etc is...) > This may have been discussed before, but until now I never checked > for cookies. either way, contrary to popular belief, cookies really aren't a security risk because they don't contain any information that you don't already know. if a site gives you a cookie with your password in it ( especially in clear text ), then they (the cgi programmers) are idiots and should be shot on the spot. regards, -jon Jon (no h) S. Stevens yanni(a)clearink.com ClearInk WebMagus http://www.clearink.com/ finger pgp(a)sparc.clearink.com for pgp pub key We are hiring! Check out... http://www.clearink.com/clearink/home/job.html

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rsync and md4
by Andrew Tridgell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've recently released a package called rsync that uses a checksum search to provide very efficient file update over a slow link. (see ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/rsync if you are interested) Now I'd like to calculate some probabilities of failure of the algorithm. The fundamental thing I need to know to do the calculation is the probability of a random piece of data of length n having the same md4 checksum as another given piece of data of the same length. A first guess might be 2^-128 but I know that this sort of thing is rarely that simple. Is md4 that good? Note that I am not interested in "attacks" on md4 as such as the source of the random data is just another file provided by the same user, so it won't have been specially designed to defeat md4. If the probability is within a few orders of magnitude of 2^-128 then can I also be sure that if I only use the first b bits of a md4 checksum it will be within a few orders of magnitude of 2^-b ? There is an option in rsync to use a shorter checksum by truncating md4. This saves some bytes on the link at the risk of lowering the confidence. Why md4? I chose md4 because it seemed to be the fastest of the reputedly strong, publicly available checksum algorithms. Suggestions for alternative algorithms are welcome. Cheers, Andrew

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Re: anonymous mailing lists
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) > A nice, albeit quite expensive, way of pretection from traffic analysis > is to create a mailing list (or a newsgroup) and forward all messages to > all users of that mailing list or newsgroup. Of course, since messages > are encrypted, only the recipients will be able to decrypt them. This was discussed here several years ago, under the name "anonymous message pools". Myron Cuperman, the operator of the extropia remailer implemented one, although I don't know if it is still running (I haven't gotten any mail from it for years). It was basically just a mailing list specifically for this purpose, that you would use as your anonymous return address. Of course a problem is that there may not be enough people signed up to provide much privacy protection. Hal

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