December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

LE Risks with No Crypto
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Did anyone notice the fun little bit in the story of the bust of the Viper Militia in Arizona? The state employee that BATF sent to infiltrate the group almost "assumed room temperature" because an ally of the Militia working for AT&T pulled his long distance phone records. The infiltrator was questioned rather closely about some of his phone calls to official numbers. He managed to persuade them that he wasn't a Fed. Too bad AT&T doesn't use an encrypted open books system to store is records so that "bad guys" can't abuse those records and put our heroic law enforcement personnel at risk. This is a perfect illustration of the fact that technology puts the government most at risk because it will always be the juiciest target. "Worth the powder to blow it up with." DCF

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Re: Net and Terrorism.
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:58 AM 7/2/96, snow wrote: >T.C. May wrote: > >Can anything be done? To stop the likely effects of lots more >surface-to-air missiles, lots more nerve gas available on the black market, >and so on? > >In a word, "no." >/* > I disagree. Terrorism, political terrorism is fear. There are ways to >protect military targets that are quite cost effective, unfortunately they >are politically unpopular. (What just happend in Saudi is on my mind. >STUPID military commanders getting the same pie in the face time and time >again. There is NOTHING so unchanging as the military mind set.) Well, attacks on military targets are almost, by definition, not "terrorism." (I'll spare the list a debate about the semantics; U.S. journalists tend to refer to anything done to "us" as "terrorism," whether the target is military or civilian.) The focus of my comments was really on civilian or non-military targets. (Including destruction of government buildings, maybe. I'm not sure whether the Oklahoma City bombing and the recent Phoenix/Viper Militia case is "terrorism" in a formal sense, or counter-government action, but my point is that such things are likely to be happen.) >Civilian targets are harder to protect, but certain steps can be >taken to lessen chances of a sucessful attack. Sure, any particular "soft target" can be hardened to some extent. But not all of them, and even harder sites can be reached. This is left as an exercise for the reader. (Hint: The Japanese cult's Sarin gas attack on the subways...there are tens of thousands of comparable targets in the U.S. alone. Look around, and ask what it would take to harden each one. A minor cryptographic connection is that hardening N of M sites makes the remaining M - N sites all the more tempting.) >Another method, and this would be very unpopular (and >hypocritical of the US) would be simply to announce that we (the Country) >are going to hold the _manufacturing_ nation responcible for the use of >weapons of mass destruction. So if Soviet Nerve Gas is used, we gas a >city in the Soviet Union. MAD carried to a lower level. You are essentially making my point, that the biggest danger of the current responses to terrorism is that nations will turn to national terrorism and police state tactics. >A third option is quite simply to buy as much of it as possible. No, wouldn't work. As with the "War on (Some) Drugs," all this does is raise the price a bit, actually making it a more tempting market for many to get into. (And various CBW agents are incredibly cheap to make, with the precursors available in common products. How ya gonna buy up all the peach pits, for example? Or "buy up" all the fertilizer and fuel oil?) --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 Net and Terrorism
by John Deters 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:44 PM 6/30/96 -0700, you wrote: >in reality. it seems to me no nation-state has ever experimented with >trying to take away the root causes of violence and discontent. But here in the U.S., we ARE trying to take them away via the educational system. About the only thing we can effectively do is to provide more educational opportunities that denounce violence, racism, hate crimes, etc. However, you cannot eliminate discontent without eliminating greed; which is simply not possible. Even so, there are a couple of problems with even attempting "to take away the root causes", not the least of which is the Constitutionally protected right to free speech. I am allowed to teach my kid to hate anyone for any reason. I can blame this or that group for this set of troubles, and that the best way to deal with this is not only to scare them away, but to kill as many of them as possible. It may be morally repugnant, but it is protected speech. The countries that sponsor terrorists have not been noted for their successful educational systems. And they certainly are not going to listen to Western discussions on how best to solve their "problems". Do you still not accept that we have a world that contains people who exist in conditions that foster and breed terrorists? If not, look at some more concrete examples. Have you ever met an Islamic fundamentalist? How about a Christian fundamentalist? There really is no difference between them, other than the specific quotations that exit their pre-programmed mouths. When religion enteres the picture, no amount of logic will convince the true believers that they are acting destructively. Even moderately regligious Christians (the people to whom I have been most exposed) have very strong beliefs that X is the word of God, and therefore not subject to question. When this is some destructive (yet not obvious as such) statement, such as "Go forth and multiply", no amount of education or logic will convince them that Zero Population Growth is a good thing. I'm sure you can multiply this into all sorts of destructive behavior preached locally, such as the Southern Baptist preachers who refuse to denounce the maltreatment of blacks or the burning of black churches. There is no force of law that can alter this behavior. My point here is that this behavior is explicitly protected by the Bill of Rights. So, do you not accept that we have the environment right here that can breed violence and discontent? For the most part, I see kids today being educated with much less "hatred" than even my age group was brought up with (I'm 34). We're moving in the right direction by incorporating diversity in education, entertainment and the workplace, but we can never hope to erase it all. And if even one person retains the seed of violence, they can employ the "warfare of the weak" -- terrorism. >or that they are worth the money. terrorists invariably have a >patricular pathological psychological profile that sees the world >in terms of "martyrs vs. villians" with the villians in the government, >and the villians taking away or abusing respectable citizens. So your point here is one of *agreement* that human nature will produce psychological profiles of people who commit acts of terror. >the "problem" of terrorism will be solved when we take the view >that insanity and violence is *not* >a natural aspect of human behavior (as TCM tends to suggest), Even in spite of your argument above? Violence is here. It's been present since recorded history. We've gotten pretty good at it, actually. I think the record speaks pretty clearly that violence continues to be a part of human behavior, despite any efforts made to stop it. >and that >there are specific environmental conditions that breed it. like >malaria, if you take away the swamplike breeding grounds, you will >largely remove it. such a thing is a radical hypothesis, but one that >nonetheless has never really been tested in practice. As I said above, we can reduce some of the breeding grounds, but we can not eradicate them all. And if one were to conduct a study correlating racist attitudes with education with numbers of acts of terror, we might find a direct correlation. The U.S. has a level of tolerance for diversity that I only recently came to appreciate. We hosted a foreign exchange student from Scotland (hardly culture shock to him), but he surprised me when he commented on how surprised he was that different groups of people were mixed together -- black kids hanging out with white kids, catholics and protestants being friends, the sort of thing that I take for granted every day. He expected the subtle racism of home. And lets just say that Great Britain's culture is probably closer to ours than any other country. I am more than willing to agree with you that elimination of hatred and prejudice will go farther than any law enforcement measures to reduce terrorist acts. However, my point, and I believe this is Tim's point, too, is that it will *never* eliminate these acts, and that there must be other ways of dealing with the problems that occur. >>I'm not advocating such "terrorism," by the way, merely telling it like it is. >ah yes, the standard amusing TCM disclaimer. hmmm, your signature suggests >otherwise. This personal attack was completely unwarranted. Are you suggesting that Tim is a sponsor of terrorist attacks, or that he approves of the repeatedly demonstrated governmental penchant for violating our privacy whenever convenient? There was no point to making this statement, other than to foster discontent. >>(Remember, terrorism is just warfare carried on by other means, with >>apolgies to Von Clausewitz.) >disagree. the purpose of warfare has traditionally been to seize I completely disagree with you here. Terror has all the same purposes as general-purpose warfare: it's simply being carried out by a smaller group, without the resources available to an entire government. Look at the Irish Question: they want independance from a government they deem undesirable. Look at the arabian terrorist bombings of Americans in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, etc.: they want to drive the U.S. Army out. Likewise, the bombing of the Murrah building in OK was a "military" target: it housed the agencies that some small group percieved to be responsible for the attack on Waco. Even the church building burnings happening across the southern U.S. appear to have a specific objective: to frighten the victims; and if the victims left the area, the terrorists would have accomplished their objectives. No hidden purposes here: these are all military actions being carried out by groups that are simply not in a position to negotiate. It is "warfare by the weak". You may think that you hold every answer to terrorism in your hand, that hugs and kisses before bedtime will make the evil monsters under the bed go away. The point of Tim's essay was that, yes, the net can be used by the evil monsters, and yes, the evil monsters are here, and no, the evil monsters are not going away any time soon. Why did you feel it necessary to try to slam his fairly well-researched and quite obvious conclusion? John -- J. Deters >From Senator C. Burns' Pro-CODE bill, which I support and you can find at: http://www.senate.gov/member/mt/burns/general/billtext.htm " (2) Miniaturization, disturbed computing, and reduced transmission costs make communication via electronic networks a reality." +---------------------------------------------------------+ | NET: jad(a)dsddhc.com (work) jad(a)pclink.com (home) | | PSTN: 1 612 375 3116 (work) 1 612 894 8507 (home) | | ICBM: 44^58'33"N by 93^16'42"W Elev. ~=290m (work) | | PGP Key ID: 768 / 15FFA875 | +---------------------------------------------------------+

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Re: CWD -- Jacking in from the "Keys to the Kingdom" Port
by David Rosoff 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 12.10 AM 7/3/96 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: >CyberWire Dispatch // Copyright (c) 1996 // >Install the programs and Junior can't access porn. No fuss, no muss, no >bother. "Parental empowerment" is the buzzword. Indeed, it was these >programs that helped sway the three-judge panel in Philly to knock down >the Communications Decency Act as unconstitutional. I've wondered .. could a creative child circumvent these filter programs using a URL-redirecter, like where you see something like http://www.one.site.com/cgi-bin/rd?http://www.porno-site.com/ or are they not URL-based? =============================================================================== David Rosoff (nihongo o sukoshi dekiru) ----------------> drosoff(a)arc.unm.edu For PGP key 0xD37692F9, finger drosoff(a)acoma.arc.unm.edu 0xD37692F9 Key fingerprint = 25 7D AA 01 85 41 43 89 50 5A 33 76 F1 F1 99 67 Do you know who's reading your email? ---> http://www.arc.unm.edu/~drosoff/pgp/ Anonymous ok, PGP ok. If it's not PGP-signed, you know that I didn't write it. === === === === === === === === === === === === === === === === === === === === "Truth is stranger than fiction, especially when truth is being defined by the O.J. Simpson Defense Team." -Dave Barry -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMdqkPhguzHDTdpL5AQG77QP7B6oJR9SOeJYyTP9fnad+Yn/fA/ZObaf3 szA2m9Sytxslfd/Juu19KfTTTjncE7dHMBnq6PuyouKD5jwkTnncnXNe7R2Tgjp8 SdVpyUUdFz++lLdBQ1WYos+eCU2QaGqsYe5+79MkHhFOk1XOhAH8zX5hG9kwuO+q 8C9/wuf6ZyU= =NfcF -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children [RitalinPunks]
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Something like 10% of ALL public school students in Tennessee are on Ritalin. Presumably, the percentages are similar in other states. I have trouble believing there are so many kids suddenly suffering from a disorder that wasn't even discovered until a few years ago. The following rant from a Ritalin user may be of interest (though not too relevant to cryptography): ************************************************************************* Occasionally I will see something about the practice of giving kids RITALIN for alleged attention-deficit disorder. I can't think of better evidence that the owners of the schools and the world are trying to destroy the kids in this country. I was big drug-taker. I've also had occasion to receive medication by prescription. I wil admit that I took a lot of amphetamines. Speed that is. I liked it and took it frequently, so I can attest that it has some very attractive char-acteristics that anyone taking it could not help but like at the time. It also has a gigantic letdown that is nearly intolerable. This discomfort leads ANYONE to do something to alleviate it. It's probably a matter of personal preference as to whether the discomfort of the letdown outweighs the positive feeling of the high. If not, people will keep taking speed. Now for reasons, I also had a prescription for ritalin. You know it's a controlled substance. The fact is it's an amphetamine derivative and imparts nearly the exact same experience, though not as sharp-edged. It has the high and the letdown. And people undoubtedly make the same kinds of decisions as is the case with amphetamines. They say that ritalin has a paradoxical effect on kids - meaning, I suppose, that the reasons that make it a controlled substance for adults doesn't apply to kids. Then they say in the same breath that ritalin treats disorders in the ability to concentrate or to pay attention, which are the exact things that speed and ritalin accomplish in adults. Both of these allow someone to focus exclusively on one task in an enjoyable state of mind and body and accomplish it. Any nervousness is just left over from the channeling of all the generated energy into one task. What is created is not only the false sense of security but the false ability to accomplish things. As time goes on, one aspect of the letdown is the now- understood knowledge that speed is generating false successes. This is a depressing realization that can have detrimental ramifications beyond anything to do with the drug. In college, say, false successes on exams are acceptable and desired because this is one occasion in which performance is measured. But when someone's life consists of false successes, false interactions, and false experiences - and the fact that these are false is well-realized - the result can be a very unhealthy individual self-conception whose validity is proved and reproved constantly as amphetamine use continues. I heard recently that now educators and other quacks find that ritalin enhances performance for everyone (I just said that), and they're thinking of prescribing it for that reason. This kind of poisoning of the self-concepts being developed by kids will create a generation of suicidal invalids. The idea is outrageous. This has gotten extremely long, and I wasn't planning on it. But this ritalin thing is so insidious and is so OBVIOUSLY meant to do harm that I have to write this long thing about it. The whole attention-deficit disorder is a fabrication that traitors use to pump kids full of controlled substances. Now i saw yesterday that kids not on ritalin are paying those who have it, stealing to get it, killing to get it, and on and on. Ritalin is speed, and the idea that educators, doctors, and other alleged public servants are colluding in this way to cripple kids into thinking they have no innate skills and no ability to function without a drug is one of the worst things I have come across in my entire life.

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by Rick Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim writes about Ritalin: >I've been over visiting my friend to see some of this. The Ritalin-sodden >kid arrives like a zombie. When the Ritalin wears off, he's rambunctuous, >but all kids are. My friend Paul has had to discipline him a bit to keep >him from--as the psychobabbles would say--"acting out." This discipline >sets him straight, but it's not something his New Age "supermom" would ever >think of doing. Hence the kid throws temper tantrums, acts out, calls her >"You fucking asshole" (remember, he's only 8 or so), and so on. So she >cranks up his dose of Ritalin and he's zoned out for a while. Frankly, I >think telling the kid that if throws a tantrum he'll get punished for it is >a whole lot more normal--ever notice that a dog smacks her puppies when >they get out of line, or that a cat swats her kittens the same way? It >establishes the rules of the game. It sounds to me like the mom is abusing the drug -- Ritalin is tricky stuff and you can really mess up a kid by overdosing. That's child abuse, IMHO, not some benigh paddling. Alex, our 8 year old son, uses Ritalin. He doesn't need Ritalin to concentrate. He can get caught up in a building project for hours and create a masterpiece. He can focus so thoroughly you can't pry him loose. What Alex *can't* do is get comfortably through a day of grammar school. I sympathise -- I was the same way when I was that age. I had a tough time and I saw Alex having problems similar to mine. So I sic'ed the educational establishment on the problem. Alex ended up with a Ritalin prescription. At least for now. And it's been pretty effective. With Ritalin he finds it much easier to concentrate on drivel, an important skill to make it through school, or sports. The problem is that Ritalin isn't some useful, generically wholesome substance like milk or peanut butter -- you risk more than "acting out" if you're not incredibly careful. Sleep disorders at least. But I don't like the downside of doing nothing, so we're trying it out. I've *never* seen Alex zoned out on Ritalin. Rick.

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Re: Technology- vs. Human-based Surveillance
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 8 Jul 96 at 9:20, Timothy C. May wrote: [..] > A human-based surveillance state is very expensive, even by the standards > of modern America and its bloated government. The recent example of the > DDR's "Staasi" provides an example. Hard to hide the extent of the > surveillance when so many people are involved. Very true, but many totalitarian countries don't try to hide it. Q: are surveillance tools (sophisticated analysys and search engines, miniature cameras and microphones and other electronics) under the same countrols as crypto? de facto controls or on paper only? It would seem that 'emerging democracies' in the East Bloc can obtain sophisticated Western tech to strengthen and hide surveillance systems (perhaps in ways that even J.Edgard Hoover would have found repulsive, if that was possible). I wonder if anyone has any stats about foreign countries or orgs purchasing such equipment. Yet another arg for liberal crypto-export rules, perhaps. Rob. --- No-frills sig. Befriend my mail filter by sending a message with the subject "send help" Key-ID: 5D3F2E99 1996/04/22 wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com (root@magneto) AB1F4831 1993/05/10 Deranged Mutant <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a message with the subject "send pgp-key" for a copy of my key.

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Re: What remains to be done.
by jfricker＠vertexgroup.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:09 PM 7/8/96 +0000, you wrote: >On 8 Jul 96 at 14:12, Ray Arachelian wrote: >[..] >> I'm constantly switching between NT and 95 and have them installed on the >> same drive. Would be cool to have some low level driver to encryption >> from the Master Boot Record for example to get around unfriendly OS's- but >> then NT won't respect the BIOS calls, 95 in 32 bit mode won't, Linux sure >> as hell wont, etc.... that was the whole idea of having a BIOS in the >> first place, but woe is us. > >BIOS was written for real mode... part of the problem. Another is the >not-made-here syndrome, and in a sense Linux, OS/2, NT and 95 are >different types of operating systems, so a shared BIOS is unfeasible. > >It would be nice to develop an encrypted filesystem that could be >ported across operating systems for those of us with multiple OS's. > >BTW, Linux 2.0 is making a nice step in that direction by adding >support for mounting a file (which contains a filesystem), >specifically to allow encrypted file systems as well as things like >testing out iso9660-fs before buring CD-ROMs, etc. In theory >something similar can be done with Win95/NT and OS/2, but it hasn't >been done the proper way (SecureDevice is really a hack in that >sense). > One of these days Microsoft will officially release NT's IFS SDK. A few "preliminary" and incomplete copies of a 1993 beta release do float around but for a mere $50K there's a company that will sell you the complete source for an IFS. It's a crime that Microsoft hasn't shipped this SDK yet as the Installable File System is one of the great powers of NT. So, if someone is interested in coughing up the $50K I know a couple NT programmers just chomping at the bit to build cool IFS's like PGPDrive, etc. --j

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RE: wordlists and al that bologna
by AwakenToMe＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 96-07-08 19:27:44 EDT, perry(a)piermont.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes: << Just so you understand this, most adults very quickly notice when they are in danger of looking foolish, and stop talking so as to prevent themselves from looking even worse. You have to be fairly stupid to keep ranting when you have nothing to back you up. I suggest learning this lesson now. If you are in fact an adult, my apologies to your parents -- tragic mental impairments strike even the best of homes. .pm >> In danger of looking foolish? Man.. you said it all. Young child?? Hardly. Nothing to back me up? Hardly a clue is what you have. 16 people so far asked me for the program. Obviously they had a use for it. for SOMEEEE reason that is beyond you to comprehend. If it doesnt work for you.. then it shoudlnt be for ANYONE. Wow.. you sound like some of the politicians I get to see logs of trying to regulate encryption..etc. I wonder if you are one of them!! My..wouldnt that be a funny coincidence. In a message dated 96-07-08 19:27:44 EDT, perry(a)piermont.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes: << If you are in fact an adult, my apologies to your parents -- tragic mental impairments strike even the best of homes. .pm >> As they say in your case... Sad But True

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children [RitalinPunks]
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:03 PM 7/8/96 -0700, anonymous-remailer(a)shell.portal.com wrote: >Something like 10% of ALL public school students in Tennessee are on >Ritalin. Presumably, the percentages are similar in other states. Imagine how much worse slave schools would be if you *weren't* drugged. DCF

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