December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Fingerprinting annoyance
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 15-MAY-1996 00:00:25.51 >On Tue, 14 May 1996, Timothy C. May wrote: >> At 3:22 PM 5/14/96, Matthew Williams wrote: >> >Although knowingly providing a fake social security number when one >> >has any expectation of gain is, I believe, a felony. >> >42 USC. sec. 408. >Note the key provisons, for gain, and when submitted to those entitled to >the number legally. But is "entitled to the number legally" meaning anyone who _must_ have the number legally (IRS & other government agencies, those dealing with the IRS, etcetera), or anyone who can require it as a condition of doing business? There is a difference between the two, at least according to the Social Security Number FAQ that I last read. -Allen

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Re: Fingerprinting annoyance
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 15-MAY-1996 19:40:34.88 >It means essentially the IRS and banks. Even banks have little recourse. >They make you sign a piece of paper that says you gave them the right SSN, >but practically speaking no one cares. >Equifax (a credit reporting agency) refuses to take bank records as >evidence of SSN's because they KNOW the banks don't care or enforce and >that people lie to or make mistakes to the bank on a daily basis. Fascinating. I would think the IRS would care - that's how they know how to tax interest. They don't put any pressure on the banks to get the right one? I seem to recall showing the bank a driver's license or some such with a SSN on it the last time I opened an interest-bearing account. As I recall, government branches are authorized to get SSNs - if they show you the privacy act paperwork. If they forget, I would suppose that lying to them is perfectly permissible. What about if they do? -Allen

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Re: Any DLL's that handle Public Key Encryption or Key Exchange?
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tall men in dark suits made draven(a)infi.net (Greg Morgan) write: >I'm in the process of writing a freeware IRC client in Visual Basic 3 and >wanted to encorporate a secure variant of DCC chat. Trouble is I can't find a >precompiled library that has either RSA or DH in it. This doesn't do me much >good as I don't even own a Windows C compiler... (is that a crime in some >countries? :) ) The next release of my encryption library (currently available as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/security/crypl110.zip) will contain a nice fast RSA implementation. It includes 16 and 32-bit DLL's. Actually the current version has support for it, but I took out the code because the key management routines weren't ready yet. There are two things worth noting, the first is that RSA itself isn't much use without a *lot* of key management code (which is what's holding up the RSA-enabled version). The second is that if you're in the US you're probably going to run into legal hassles using this code unless someone wants to do an alternative RSAREF implementation which you can plug in in place of the existing RSA code. Peter.

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Re: (Fwd) New Anonymous Remailer
by David E. Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > Do we se a problem here? No? Then read on... > > > You may be familiar with anon.penet.fi, which give you an > > anonymous account. > > > Our service allows YOU to choose what the return address will be! > > > Please write for more info. > > Well, well, well. Let's see: > Yes, we are familiar with anon.penet.fi... And all of the better > options available. Heh... it gets better. I very foolishly sent off for more info; among their requirements: you pay $5 a month for the service; you can't receive mail, only send it (which anyone can spoof for free!); you can't send to anyone in the domain of *.whitehouse.gov. Would somebody please just mailbomb or spam these hosers into oblivion, please? dave ---- David Smith Box 324 Cape Girardeau MO USA 63702 http://www.prairienet.org/~dsmith dsmith(a)prairienet.org Reality is only for those lacking in true imagination... Send mail w/'send pgp-key' in subject for PGP public key

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Re: The Crisis with Remailers
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:37 PM 5/15/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >A much richer ecology of remailers is sorely needed. A factor of at least >10 or 20 more (100-300 remailer sites), less reliance on specific sites, an >"everyone a remailer" capability (which has many elegant advantages!), more >traffic, temporarily instantiated sites, digital postage, greater ease of >use (especially with crypto and chaining), and such things as nominal >terminal remailers choosing to add their own hops (so as to lessen their >own target potential). Having some of these improvements will be a big >help. Perhaps what is needed is a non-profit, charitable 501c foundation to encourage anonymous communication. Those who support the idea could make tax deductible contributions which would be used for grants, public education etc. etc. to encourage anonymous communication. It could be called, "The Federalist Foundation" because the Federalist Papers were published anonymously. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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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No Subject
by di40349＠goodnet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

#!/bin/csh setenv PATH /bin:/usr/bin set username=`id | sed -e 's/).*//' -e 's/.*(//'` set homedir=~$username set tmpfile=$homedir/.mailtmp.$$ cat > $tmpfile if ( { egrep -q '^Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com' \ $tmpfile } ) then rm -f $tmpfile exit 67 endif (rm -f $tmpfile; exec /bin/mail -d $username) < $tmpfile |"IFS=' '&&exec csh /documents/.forward #covacks"

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Re: Java & signed applets
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:02 AM 5/16/96 -0700, Lyal Collins wrote: >Signing anything is somewaht a waste of time, unless the verification >siftware is highly trusted, and there is good intergity/authenticity >control of the root public key(s). >So, in geneal - ho hum - until trusted hardware is available on the >desktop. A bootable CD-ROM from a reliable source to verify signatures would be much safer than no signatures at all. Even just running the signature verification program from CD-ROM would make an attacker's problem more difficult. BTW - The problem is not trusted hardware. It is software that can isolate untrusted programs and protect itself. Anything with an A or B NCSC security rating would certainly be attractive. Trusted signature verification hardware accessed by a compromised system can't be trusted. (How do you know what was given to the hardware to be verified? How do you know that the answer came from the hardware?) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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: Past one terabit/second on fiber
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One problem with the development of such high-end technologies is that they tend to increase economies of scale to the point where it's impractical to have anything but a monopoly or ogliopoly. As well as concerns about the degree of control such an organization may be able to exert in and of itself (acting like a government, in essence), there's also that such an organization is easier to pressure than a lot of small providers. Anyone have a suggested solution, or reasons that I shouldn't be so worried? -Allen

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Re: Edited Edupage, 9 May 1996
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:09 PM 5/15/96, Doug Hughes wrote: >environment, lack of education, lack of money, lots of factors. Nobody >is holding a gun to anybody's head saying "Don't Read". But improving >literacy is a goal that needs to be undertaken. Do you not agree that >low literacy is a bad thing and needs to be taken care of? If not, why >not? Naturally, you can't force someone to read who doesn't want to. No, I don't think "low literacy" in some subcultures is something that "needs to be taken care of." If members of that subculture think it a bad thing that their kids (not to mention themselves) are not readers and are not sufficiently literate to thrive in a high-tech world, then they need to take steps to change the basic values of their subculture. As I mentioned, many subcultures--too numerous to name, actually--have a strong belief in literacy, learning, and success, and are doing extremely well in modern American society. Other subcultures do not, and are seeing the fruits of their bad values realized. (One notable subculture currently has 40% of its adult male population either in prison, on parole, under indictment, or otherwise involved with the legal system in a debilitating way. This same subculture now has close to an 85% illegitimacy rate.) There is nothing "I" can do about such subcultures. Loads of tax dollars have not helped. As Charles Murray points out in "Losing Ground," the loads of tax dollars and special giveaways to some subcultures have very likely made the situation much worse than it was 30-40 years ago when the programs started. >Some people on this list argue that the current representative govt >system is bad, and that true democracy is better. You can't have true >democracy without education. (You can, but it would be very bad). >True democracy relies on people being educated, the more the better. >(Actually, education benefits the entire society.) "True democracy" is actually much worse than what we have now. The advantage of what we are doing with strong cryptography is that it undermines democracy. --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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No Subject
by remailer＠2005.bart.nl 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: tilman(a)berlin.snafu.de (Tilman Hausherr) > Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology > Subject: fwd: Major Domo > Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 17:36:49 GMT > Organization: Xenu's Ranch > Lines: 28 > Approved: xenu(a)galactic.org > Message-ID: <319a0a59.33945517(a)news.snafu.de> > Reply-To: tilman(a)berlin.snafu.de > NNTP-Posting-Host: pppx179.berlin.snafu.de Does Lieberman believe that Major Domo is scamizdat ? 14 Q I see. So there's something called a 15 Cypherpunks list? 16 A Yes. 17 Q Who maintains that? 18 A Major Domo. [majordomo] 19 Q Major Domo is an individual? 20 A No, no. Major Domo is a bot. 21 Q A what? 22 A A bot. 23 Q What's a bot? 24 A A robot like. It's short for robot. 25 Q Uh-huh. And this robot is obviously maintained 26 by somebody, right? 0050 01 A Not very much. In fact, it's hardly ever 02 touched. 03 Q Where does it sit? 04 A I don't know at this point. It was a year ago, 05 which was about the last time I was reading the 06 Cypherpunks list, it was on Hoptoad. 07 Q How would one go about getting the Cypherpunks 08 list? 09 A Subscribe Cypherpunks.

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