December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Twenty Bank Robbers -- Game theory:)
by Steve Reid 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Twenty cypherpunks robbed a bank. They took 20 million bucks. Here's > how they plan to split the money: they stay in line, and the first guy > suggests how to split the money. Then they vote on his suggestion. If > 50% or more vote for his proposal, his suggestion is adopted. > Otherwise they kill the first robber and now it is the turn of guy #2 > to make another splitting proposal. Same voting rules apply. I don't know the final outcome, but I do have a couple of observations... - The person at the front of the line, making the suggestion, will always vote for his own proposal, if only to save his own life. This is obvious. - The second-to-last person is in an interesting position. If everyone before him is dead and he gets to the front of the line, he will decide that he gets _all_ of the money for himself. If there's only two people left, his own Yes vote for his own proposal makes 50% and he automatically gets all the money. This is the best possible deal for him. So, I think the second-to-last person will vote No to every proposal except his own, in an effort to force this situation. Now that I think about it, solving this 'game theory' scenario has some parallels to cryptanalysis (disclaimer: I am not a cryptanalyst). By pointing out the above properties, I've removed a couple of 'bits' from the 'search space'. ===================================================================== | Steve Reid - SysAdmin & Pres, EDM Web (http://www.edmweb.com/) | | Email: steve(a)edmweb.com Home Page: http://www.edmweb.com/steve/ | | PGP (2048/9F317269) Fingerprint: 11C89D1CD67287E68C09EC52443F8830 | | -- Disclaimer: JMHO, YMMV, TANSTAAFL, IANAL. -- | ===================================================================:)

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Re: Twenty Bank Robbers -- CLARIFICATION
by David E. Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: ichudov(a)algebra.com, cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Thu Jul 25 20:12:45 1996 > > I forgot to say what the GOALS are. The goals of every individual > cypherpunk are (in from highest to lowest priority): > > 1. Stay alive > 2. Get as much money as possible > 3. Keep as many cypherpunks alive as possible, all other things being > equal. Well, the existence of "3" changes the problem entirely, as does a system of prioritization. Under these rules, Robber 1 would propose an even split, eleven ways, and it would probably be accepted. That keeps a majority alive, and a majority get some money (~2M each). Without that, I'd tend to concur with the other answers (19 & 20 each get $10M). If we have to actually give a damn about each other... :) dave - ---- David E. Smith POB 324 Cape Girardeau MO USA 63702 dsmith(a)prairienet.org http://www.prairienet.org/~dsmith send mail of 'send pgp-key' subject for my PGP public key "I'm only a social smoker, just a few packs a day really" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Automagically signed with Pronto Secure for Windows. iQEVAwUBMfgbozVTwUKWHSsJAQE+jQf+OwCOcoyX9nyMO1ihLr/Jzzqr4c+FXDLl xWsAGKtr9Qr7afzCxeYRMjN5w5wGhSpXcNLa9oXgPlGRV0L2tH9vPvLifHWzzv7K nvOQIC8mBK6O7rbHY8koD6E32D1BQE6SiTRVo3b3L7HOceCIxeT40RvEQfhDKj7B RFaWehB4s1Aw1IdMh2rnIFpwY/vLDRx8/q8vXy6mAugOJmAvdoaeGQfbrKLIWSE0 D3X8F3O7fjQ3dda9oEE3xVhsJoRwuQ/Hcbk2eqrIomeLWSqeQO/OQl/vNHkNMAmX MrkdHNYlXZRhtwHS3mKfcli+iekFLKzXRpyhurUN8g3Ni14Q8I6BSQ== =eaX7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: CD Prices and Inflation
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:14 AM 7/26/96, jim bell wrote: >At 05:06 AM 7/26/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >>So, while I "wish" CD prices were even lower, I'm paying a lot less in >>"real dollars" for more music today than I was paying 15 years ago or 30 >>years ago. > >I think you're trying to hide a 5-year effect by immersing it in 30 years of >change. Yes, we've had inflation, but the large spurt of post-Vietnam >inflation was basically over by about 1983, when the CD was introduced. At No, I'm not "trying" to hide anything. What I said is what I meant: CDs today offer more music/dollar than LPs did in 1967. And, in 1975. And, in 1983. (In 1983 I bought my last "audiophile" LP, a direct-to-disk half-speed-mastered album that cost me something like $12.) The complaint that CD prices have not fallen faster than some would like, since 1983, is a different kettle of fish from what my point was, that CD prices in 1983 or in 1996 are a better "deal" than LPs were in the period I described. As for prices not dropping, if customers stopped buying, prices would drop very rapidly. That they are not, and that "mega-stores" are sprouting up all over place tells us that CD sales are exploding. Finally, and most convincingly, nothing in U.S. law prevents Jim Bell or anyone else from setting up his own CD company and undercutting the prices of the Biggies. Hey, if you think you can supply CDs to customers for a lot less money, go for it! --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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Cyber Rights Non! -- French Net-Censorship
by declan＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 20:38:22 -0500 To: fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu From: declan(a)well.com (Declan McCullagh) Subject: FC: Cyber Rights Non! -- French Net-Censorship Sender: owner-fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu Attached is a portion of the lead article from today's HotWired on the French government's net-censorship. I'm pleased to say I just received word from a French correspondent that the French "Conseil Constitutionnel" has blocked the part of the law creating "Le Conseil SupÈrieur de la TÈlÈmatique" to decide what should be blocked online. (From what I've been able to gather, that court reviews laws to ensure they're constitutional. On June 27, the Conseil heard arguments from senators that the law violated articles of the French constitution.) I have more on other international net-censorship attempts at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Global/Dispatches/ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/international/ -Declan ----------------------------------- Read the full article at: http://www.netizen.com/netizen/ HotWired The Netizen Cyber Rights Non! by Jerome Thorel Paris, 24 July Early last month, at a time of day when typical netsurfers are just hitting their mouse-clicking stride - around 3:30 in the morning - the French Senate voted on the final version of the new Telecommunications Regulation Act. A little-remarked section of the act, introduced as an amendment a few days before, represents the French legislature's first plunge into the digital ocean. It creates a kind of administrative oversight of Internet speech, Web sites, and online services. The law's effect is to create a council - le Conseil SupÈrieur de la TÈlÈmatique (CST) - to dictate or arbitrate guidelines regarding Internet content. It turned out, however, that the move by Telecommunications Minister FranÁois Fillon, sponsor of the French Telecom Act, was a little hasty. France had been shaken this spring by two investigations into pedophilia and Holocaust revisionism (both considered crimes in France) on the Internet. For months, Fillon had promised French Internet service providers that they would no longer bear responsibility for the content they transmit. The law does settle that question. But no one imagined that this guarantee would include as its condition the creation of the CST. To be safe from indictment, ISPs will be obliged to follow CST's guidelines - a policy typical of France's strong tradition of centralized administration. [...] The French Net-regulation bill became law on 7 June - the same week that US federal judges declared the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional.... [...] Jerome Thorel, a Paris-based freelance reporter, writes frequently about technology and society. Andy Oram, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, contributed to this article. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- fight-censorship is archived at http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/

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Re: Produce 7 Hertz Frequency
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:18 PM 7/25/96 +0800, Jerome Tan wrote: >Does anyone know how to produce a 7 hertz frequency? Find an establishment that deals in peircing equiptment. Ask him to give you a "Prince Albert". This will give you the tone you seek. (You will also never lose your carkeys again.) You may need a tesla coil for repeated tones. Enjoy! --- |"Computers are Voodoo -- You just have to know where to stick the pins."| |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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Fireworks expected, missed at Senate crypto hearing
by declan＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 21:05:31 -0500 To: fight-censorship+(a)andrew.cmu.edu From: declan(a)well.com (Declan McCullagh) Subject: Fireworks expected, missed at Senate crypto hearing Sender: owner-fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Contrary to the Reuters report excerpted below, there weren't any fireworks at today's ProCODE crypto hearing before the full Senate Commerce committee -- at least during the first panel when the spooks testified. (I skipped out before the second, which had industry folks.) Just more of the same, though we heard less about child pornographers and more about terrorists. And Sen. Slate Gorton (R-Wash) jumped on the committee staff for leaning too far *away* from national security interests in their summary of the legislation. Most amusing point: Sen. Larry Pressler waved a copy of the floppy with the _Applied Cryptography_ source and couldn't remember what it was called. "Um, I can't export, um, this, um," he mumbled. "Cassette," he decided it was. (Even his committee staffers smirked at that.) The FBI's Louis Freeh kept mouthing the same tired old line: "No reasonable person can envision a lawless information superhighway. It was never meant to be that. We need cops there, as we need them elsewhere. The problem is the proliferation of unbreakable encryption." He said it's "not too late" to stop the spread. After the first panel ended, a gaggle of a half-dozen camera crews waylaid Freeh in the hallway outside. The FBI director fled down the stairs. The crews split into teams. Half took the elevator and half pursued on foot. Downstairs, Freeh shot through the security checkpoint into the safety of a waiting Chevy Suburban. Why were they dogging the guy? They didn't care about crypto -- they wanted a comment about the TWA flight, and Freeh wasn't talking. He didnt' mention it at all during the hearing... -Declan -------------------- Fireworks Expected at Encryption Hearing July 25, 1996 WASHINGTON (Reuter) - After sailing through two quiet subcommittee hearings, a bill to relax restrictions on computer encoding faces a much choppier ride before the full Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday. The committee will hear from some of the Clinton administration's big guns on crime and national security, including FBI Director Louis Freeh and William Crowell, deputy director of the National Security Agency. Software manufacturers and some in Congress argued at earlier hearings that current export restrictions on encryption programs -- which code and decode information -- cost American companies billions in lost sales overseas. [...] Senate bill 1726, the Promotion of Commerce Online in the Digital Era Act of 1996, would abolish most export restrictions and prohibit mandatory key escrow. Vice President Al Gore told reporters at a press conference July 12 that the proposal, known as the ``pro-code'' bill, is ``unacceptable.'' [...] Clinton administration officials have said they favor less radical reform. Officials are expected to reject the conclusions of a study released in May by the National Research Council. The council concluded that encryption export restrictions should be relaxed and rejected key escrow as unworkable. [...]

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Re: Produce 7 Hertz Frequency
by Paul S. Penrod 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Thu, 25 Jul 1996, Jerome Tan wrote: > Does anyone know how to produce a 7 hertz frequency? > > Well, you can pick up most any project book that deals with 555 IC timers and there is some kind of circuit there dealing with frequency counting or generating. The question really is how strong a signal do you want ? ...Paul

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Re: Apps: Unix for Windows 95
by AwakenToMe＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

unix doesnt have to be $$$$$$$$ you can pick up a shareware version of unix (all the power features in it) called linux. Info magic sells nice cd sets. Goto your local microcenter... or search the net for linux (warning..about 80 googleplex hits will come up hehehe)

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Re: Produce 7 Hertz Frequency
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:56 AM 7/26/96, Mike Duvos wrote: >I'm not sure what this gentleman's application is. If I wanted >a 7 hz signal, I would take my handy dandy programmable digital >signal generator, press the "sin" button, and punch in "7" on >the numeric keypad. > >Am I missing something here? What does "sin" have to do with the number 7? Oh, you must mean the movie "Se7en," in which the Se7en deadly sins were central to the plot. I get it. The seven deadly sins are the seven deadly hurts. (Cos I know about sin.) Ironic that the original message was from Jerome Tan, eh? Someone must've trigged this whole thread. I fear we're going in circles. "Kenneth, what is the frequency?" --Dan Rather 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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Unix under Windows 95
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

See: http://www.windows95.com/apps/unix.html For a collection of Unix software ported to Windows 95. The PERL 5.0 works better for me under 95 than under Unix (but I probably don't know Unix. Unix Plea: Could some Unix Guru out there give me (privately) a simple alias statement or whatever that would automatically forward mail for a named user(a)host.com to another email address somewhere in the world. DCF

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