December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Cybercash snake oil merchant
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've located a new snake oil merchant, by the name of cybank. Their url is http://www.cybank.net, and they're claiming things like "public key encryption has been broken." Well, yes... if you use a too-short key length. -Allen

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KWTX (fwd)
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Subject: KWTX Vincent Miller / April 25, 1996 International Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL) Update Letter --------------------excerpt------------------------------------ The Onslaught Against American Liberties Escalates The US Justice Department is currently suing radio station KWTX in Texas over what they term "malicious disregard for the truth in reporting on Waco". If convicted the station will be both civilly and criminally liable for any alleged harm caused to property or government agents. This is of course ironic. In a sea of federal propaganda, and self-serving FBI-ATF press releases, the small radio and TV stations (and the Internet) were the Only source of real information about what actually happened at Waco. Even before this case has been heard the judge revealed his bias by stating that he thought the conduct of the station was "outrageous." Source: CBS Evening News with Dan Rather (Apr 19th). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ISIL, 1800 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 415-864-0952, fax 415-864-7506 This organization gives permission to reprint provided that proper credit is given. --------------------------------------------------------------------

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FYB_oss
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

5-12-96. NYPaper: "Who's Reading Your E-Mail? Maybe the Boss. More Companies Say Messages Are Their Property." Reports on various spying policies and employee rights. Quotes PRZ demurring: "You don't check your constitutional rights at the door." Notes Apple's snooping not. And, scare-escrowing, it asks, "what happens if an employee encrypts important company documents, and then dies [or is fired or extorts]. How will the company get to vital information." FYB_oss

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Re: Notes from the SF Physical Cypherpunks meeting
by Tom Weinstein 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

sameer(a)c2.org wrote: > > > c2.org: 90% of all connections are 40-bit RC2. > > The number is 94.5%, and it's RC4, not RC2. RC2 is not in any > SSLv2 products. The domestic version of Netscape has always done RC2. The export version of Netscape 3.0 now does 40-bit RC2 in SSL v2 mode. -- One tag to rule them all, One tag to find them; One tag | Tom Weinstein to bring them all, and in the source tree bind them. | tomw(a)netscape.com

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Re: Notes from the SF Physical Cypherpunks meeting
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'd like to thank Martin Minow for his summary of what happened at yesterday's Bay Area Cypherpunks meeting (note that it was Bay Area, held at Stanford, not "SF"). Clarifications and corrections are starting to come in, which is fine. But these clarifications and corrections should not dissuade Martin or anyone else from doing such summaries. This meeting was somwhat languid, I think because of the outdoor (and warm!) location at Tresidder Union at Stanford University...normally our meetings have been held in the cool corporate environs of Cygnus, Silicon Graphics, or Sun, but Stanford is the likely meeting place for upcoming gatherings. (For one thing, an outdoor gathering at Stanford makes it unnecessary for a corporate type to be there. We are also too big a group--about 20-40, typically--to meet in a coffee shop or pizza joint.) For whatever reason, only a handful of such summaries have ever been done in the three and a half years our group and other groups have been having physical meetings. (I did a couple, but not for the past couple of years.) Anyway, well done! --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: Notes from the SF Physical Cypherpunks meeting
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I would also like to thank martin for his notes. I was unable to attend the meeting and the notes are the best I can do. A small correction and some pointers: At 9:29 AM 5/12/96 -0700, Martin Minow wrote: >KEYCOS Started in TimeShare, early 1970's. Ran customers (competitors) The correct spellings are KeyKOS and Tymshare. That may help people searching for other information. URLs for KeyKOS information are: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~KeyKOS/ http://www.agorics.com/agorics/allkey.html Also, a system being built on similar ideas is described at: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~eros ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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: Why I Pay Too Much in Taxes
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Robin Powell wrote: >>>>>> Black Unicorn <unicorn(a)schloss.li> writes: > > On Sun, 12 May 1996, Mixmaster wrote: > >> if you spend $50k. Or do it yourself for $1k. Start by reading > >> everything from Scope (www.britnet.co.uk/scope) The books you find > > ^^^^^ > >> there cover everything you need to know in perfect detail. > > > Woops. What dwindling credibility you had in my view is now gone. > > Poof and -PLOINK-. > > > (I suggest cypherpunks so interested pursue other options). > >Any particular reason why this statement lost that person's >credibility for you that you'd like to share with us? Have someone >say, "Man, that site sucks!" is of very little use without knowing >what the problem is so we can avoid it in the future. The reason should be obvious from the earlier discussion. Mr. Unicorn is in the deluxe tax planning business. He is worried that his costomers will stop paying $50-100k for his services if they find out that they just need to spend $100 in the book store for even better advice. X -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMZdmjVtwWVJrMFYlAQG/7Qf/Znhd2nJlWsKCsgQ0GYBbxcYJLqHL+4tw Dmco49A17P3wbukKxMxY/5qkNEFZTBfLZXsH+pmkWNncv+5OYrMqjusV1OnAB8Ab 3eDWrNH3i7ga6yf1AHPg54nwOBFXDgMNG3U76tQwSb9NWF7YCMah+3TEtBlNi5/9 nSnq7fLKQjc3wT37DwaZHxbOOSloEPuJKD3WTxdCvfkL4lu9HcAFN2oBjag3XDu/ ikpxNJzRsYwzpCOgMX4cXxDY3E5cHKrxdi1XRj1cfgIR//C1kqnV9VgWpfbm/qBh PT8GFdjLT/r9y1t4TUhjJC7GPWhIbFDwjsTFD/bATWwsnfQ8pTTHPQ== =XDO+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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R U Bugged How To Debugging Video
by SpyKing 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

R-U Bugged? "How-To" De-Bugging Video Are you a target of electronic surveillance? Do you suspect someone is invading your privacy? The first "Do-it-Yourself" De-Bugging video available to the general public... Over 100,000 bugs were planted in the US last year...Could you find one in your home or office? This video will teach you how! Simple step-by-step instructions...Produced by an expert with 25 years in the business... Guaranteed to help safeguard your privacy Demonstrations of sophisticated and inexpensive commercially available bugging devices and how to find them... If you're serious about privacy, you can't afford to miss this video... Mention electronic eavesdropping, wiretaps or "bugging" and most people think of the police or secret agents...Who, you might ask would want to bug an office, a boardroom, a research lab or for that matter, someone's bedroom? The answer: More people than you might ever imagine, according to experts. With the cost of eavesdropping electronics falling sharply each year, it has become very easy for a jealous spouse, business competitor, or disgruntled employee to eavesdrop on just about anyone. Experts estimate that last year, over 100,000 bugs were planted in businesses alone! No one knows exactly how many were planted by jealous lovers, spouses, or worse by stalkers, but it should be at the very least an equal amount...Very few of these eavesdropping targets ever knew they were being spied on. Is there any way to know if one's home or business has been bugged? Yes. You can bring in a professional "sweeper", TSCM Expert", "De-Bugger". With his electronic equipment, he can find and deactivate those bugging devices. That will cost you $500 to $1000. to start! The average home or business can cost thousands of dollars... But what if you've been bugged and you can't afford an expert? That's where a brand new do-it yourself video comes into the picture. Titled "R-U-Bugged" this video was produced for the non-technical person by an expert with over 25 years of international experience in electronic countermeasures. It fully explains eavesdropping devices, how they work and how to find them... It shows simple step by step "how to" basics that anyone can understand. If you think that bugging equipment is only found in the latest adventure of 007, you're mistaken...This video shows how common and inexpensive equipment, readily available at almost any electronics store, can compromise your privacy... "R-U-Bugged" is available and in stock for $59.95 + $5.95 shipping & handling. Foreign orders please add $14.95 S & H . Playing time: 90 minutes Send or Money Order to: Codex Publishing 286 Spring Street New York, NY 10013 Tel: 212-989-9898 Sorry, No C.O.D.'s or credit cards... Check out our WEB SITE - The Codex Privacy Page URL: http://www.thecodex.com Home of The Codex Surveillance & Privacy Newsletter DataScan - Diagnostic TEMPEST Evaluation System Technical Surveillance CounterMeasures (TSCM) Forensic Audio Restoration & Audio Tape Enhancement -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.7.1 mQCNAzDgc7MAAAEEAK1gzGapvWKn287T8QPYphpIzF6+uHAyf/shVPbrGD/f5v8i sgMOSC5x05w9xyijpzx2ua5i4eXXzjiq257y7oJy60TEFWRHYqGJtZRpqlh9DKjD 0EA5dVitmEgKNot3rmcF9amBxUP2RwIq2nzHfgiLGB3obqeKYp0MXw7qZrH7AAUR tB5TcHlLaW5nIDxzcHlraW5nQG5vdmFsaW5rLmNvbT4==UBv6 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Administration letter vs ACTA petition
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"rre(a)weber.ucsd.edu" 12-MAY-1996 23:22:09.31 From: Phil Agre <pagre(a)weber.ucsd.edu> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help(a)weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 21:13:48 -0400 From: "Thomas A. Kalil" <KALIL_T(a)a1.eop.gov> To: Multiple recipients of list <com-priv(a)lists.psi.com> Subject: Administration opposes ACTA petition May 8, 1996 The Honorable Reed Hundt Chairman Federal Communication Commission Room 814 1919 M Street, N.W. Washington D.C. 20554 Re: RM 8775 Dear Chairman Hundt: This letter addresses the petition for rulemaking filed before the Commission by America's Carriers Telecommunication Association (ACTA) in March 1996. ACTA asks the Commission to: (1) order Internet software providers to "immediately stop their unauthorized provisioning of telecommunications software"; 2) confirm the Commission's authority over interstate and international telecommunications services offered over the Internet; and 3) institute rules to govern the use of the Internet for providing telecommunications services. On behalf of the Administration, NTIA strongly urges the Commission to deny the ACTA Petition. The Petition not only mischaracterizes the existing law, but also reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the way in which the Internet operates and of the services now making use of the Internet. ACTA requests that the Commission stop firms such as the Respondents from selling software that enables "a computer with Internet access to be used as a long distance telephone, carrying voice transmissions, at virtually no charge for the call" [ACTA Petition at i]. ACTA asserts that such firms are common carrier providers of telecommunications services that should not be allowed to operate without first obtaining a certificate from the Commission [ACTA Petition at 6-7]. That argument is wrong. The Respondents provide their customers with goods, not services. Although the software that those firms sell does enable individuals to originate voice communications, all of the actions needed to initiate such communications are performed by the software users, rather than the vendors. At no time do the Respondents engage in the "transmission" of information, which, according to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, is the sine qua non of both a telecommunications service and a telecommunications carrier. [See Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56, 3(a) amending Section 153 of the Communications Act of 1934 to add new definitions of "telecommunications," "telecommunications service," and "telecommunications carrier."] In that critical sense, the Respondents are no more providing telecommunications services than are the vendors of the telephone handsets, fax machines, and other customer premises equipment that make communications possible. ACTA also asks the Commission for a declaratory ruling "confirming its authority over interstate and international telecommunications services using the Internet." [ACTA Petition at 6. While ACTA claims the Commission has jurisdiction to regulate the Internet pursuant to Section 1 of the Communications Act, citing United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., 392 U.S. 157 (1968), ACTA also acknowledges that such jurisdiction is limited to actions ancillary to the effective performance of its specific responsibilities under other parts of the Act. Id. at 5,7-8. ACTA suggests that unregulated growth of the Internet presents "unfair competition" to Title II regulated interexchange carriers that "could, if left unchecked, eventually create serious economic hardship on all existing participants in the long distance marketplace" and could be "detrimental to the health of the nation's telecommunications industry and the maintenance of the nation's telecommunications infrastructure." Id. at 4, 5. Voice telephony via the Internet, however, is still a limited and cumbersome capability: both parties to the call need computers and must have compatible software. Moreover, there is no assurance that a call placed will be completed or not interrupted. While the technology involved may improve rapidly, presently there is no credible evidence to justify Commission regulation of the Internet.] In fact, as the Federal Networking Council pointed out in comments filed on May 4, there are no telecommunications services currently being offered via the Internet. The services that now involve the Internet are more likely to be "enhanced," or information services over which the Commission has disclaimed jurisdiction under the Communications Act. The Commission decision in the 1980's not to regulate enhanced services was a wise one that has conferred substantial benefits on American consumers. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 in no way requires a change in that decision. The Internet now connects more than 10 million computers, tens of millions of users, and is growing at a rate of 10-15 percent a month. This growth has created opportunities for entrepreneurs to develop new services and applications such as videoconferencing, multicasting, electronic payments, networked virtual reality, and intelligent agents. Perhaps more importantly, it creates a growing number of opportunities for consumers to identify new communication and information needs and to meet those needs. The Commission should not risk stifling the growth and use of this vibrant technology in order to prevent some undemonstrated harm to long distance service providers. If Internet-based services eventually develop to an extent that raises concerns about harm to consumers or the public interest, the Commission would have ample time to more fully address the issue. Now is not that time. NTIA, therefore, urges the Commission to reject the ACTA petition without delay. Larry Irving Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information cc: The Honorable James H. Quello The Honorable Rachelle B. Chong The Honorable Susan Ness

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Why does the state still stand:
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I intend to post this to a bunch of rant newsgroups. It is the common wisdom of cypherpunks: Any corrections or objections? ************************************************************************* Why does the state still stand? At 07:26 AM 5/5/96 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote: > Even though the population of those who regularly violate > federal tax laws is smaller (20 million?) the records show > that even for this population the odds of being convicted are > approximately the odds of being murdered. > > http://www.trac.syr.edu/tracirs/analysis/IRS019page.html Now if the state had to compel everyone to write a check for ten thousand dollars every quarter, or to make little trip to the IRS with a brown paper bag full of hundred dollar bills, there would be massive tax resistance, massive state violence to enforce taxes, and the many individual violent conflicts with the state would swiftly become collective armed revolution. The state can get away with this extraordinary and exorbitant tax rate, because for the most part it does not apply coercion directly to individual people. Instead it disrupts the large scale institutions that we have created to facilitate large scale cooperation. Now it is easy to coerce the transactions in physical marketplace, or a physical large scale factory or office, because the state can easily find the market place and see what people are doing in it, far easier than it can find individual people and see what each person is doing overall, and if people do not play by the state's rules it can easily send in the bad boys to close down the marketplace. Thus the state obstructs the large scale specialization of labor, and charges us a high price to participate in that specialization. The state can do this effectively because such specialization depends on large numbers of people regularly meeting face to face in recognizable physical places: company offices, stock exchanges, and the like. The state can extract this tax because it can send the bad boys into any such meeting place and close it down. It is this, rather than direct coercion of taxpayers that enables it to charge such savage and extraordinary taxes. Any attempt to directly coerce taxpayers on this scale would swiftly lead to rivers of blood. Electronic marketplaces are less easy to coerce. Note how states find themselves largely powerless before the international money market. This has caused a substantial retreat of the state in many countries throughout the world. The socialists complain because the World bank asks the Ukraine and Belarus to be slightly less socialist, but the international money market will not touch such governments with a ten foot pole, while it will roll over like a puppy for governments such as Estonia and Tunisia which really are dismantling socialism. The challenge then is to move the meetings that make specialization of labor possible to the net, thus making us less easy for the state to coerce. The anarcho socialists have one half of an important truth: In order to smash the state, we must first transform capitalism. Right now not much is happening. Ecash today is rather like email eight years ago. You had a bunch of email systems none of which would talk to each other and none of which were very easy to use and all of which cost too much. Most good groupware, for example source code control programs, is designed, perhaps intentionally, in ways that make it only useful for intranets, not for WANs. That is to say only useful inside the kind of corporations that presently exist. Also, to be useful in a post corporate economy, a source code control tool would need to have better view control, since the boss cannot simply announce. "OK, we are now in alpha, so we shall now have feature freeze on the product." Instead somebody has to announce "I have constructed and will maintain a feature frozen buildable source code view." We would be vastly further ahead on PGP 3.0 and on ecash if we had a tool like that. How then did we solve the email problem? The email problem was not a problem that big corporations were capable of solving. Whenever one network, such as Compuserv, negotiated with another network, such as AOL they could never agree about settlements. How much would compuserv charge AOL to deliver AOL customers mail to Compuserv customers, and how much would AOL charge Compuserve to deliver Compuserve customers mail to AOL customers. And how would it be metered, and what software standards would be used to enable the metering, and the lawyers would talk to the accountants, and the accountants to the software guys, and up and down the corporate hierarchy it would go, and back and forth between corporations. Eventually, on the internet, the custom and expectation grew up that you did not charge for delivering mail to your customers, largely due to the influence, and the moral and political outlook, of the IETF. Problem solved: Nothing to negotiate; Nothing to be metered. Turned out it was a moral and political problem, not a pricing problem. Now right now we are in the same pickle with electronic transactions as we once were with email. We have a bunch of proprietary systems with proprietary software and proprietary money that do not talk to each other. Worse, anonymous ecash is patented by Chaum. This is an algorithm for how people structure promises to pay, and is therefor even less well suited to be intellectual property than most software patents. As a result anyone who wants to make an agreement with Chaum to implement anonymous electronic cash faces a lot of cost and delay. Such agreements are difficult to make and implement. What we need in addition to our existing electronic cash mechanisms is a general mechanism for exchanging and transferring promises to pay, so that Betty can exchange a promise by John to pay in system X for a promise by Sam to pay in system Y. Such a system must make every man their own bank and their own credit agency, and must not be tied to any one proprietary institution that issues promises to pay. Now once we have that, it will cobble all the different ecash systems together, just as the internet cobbled all the email systems together, and we will start to make some real progress in moving the institutions that facilitate large scale specialization of labor to the net. Right now nothing much is happening, despite the fact that several big names have issued ecash systems. Now in order to create such a system we need a patent free public key system: (Rabin will be free from the DH patent in one year) and we need a satisfactory public key management system, one that can couple to standard databases. Lots of folk are twiddling their thumbs waiting for Phil Zimmermann to issue the PGP 3.0 key management system. Possibly someone will issue a PGP key management system that works with the Microsoft Crypt API. The Microsoft default key management system is crummy, and is limited to keys small enough for the NSA to break. So guys, that is the plan: We destroy the state through higher mathematics. We do this by replacing the current institutional mechanisms of corporations with cryptographic mechanisms. This will give more people the opportunity to evade and resist taxes. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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