December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: SSN database scam?
by Jim Byrd 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:22 PM 9/18/96 +0200, Gary Howland <gary(a)systemics.com> forwarded: >Forwarded from www-security mailing list. [snip] >Can anybody comment on the item forwarded below my sig file? It claims >there's a database w/ people's credit card no's etc on it and you have to >give your name and social security number to get off of it. This strikes >me as being a scam to get your ssn, but this went around at work and >people are actually calling and giving it out. I know ssn's aren't really >as secure as they're supposed to be, but still... I happen to work for Lexis-Nexis, but I don't speak for the company. Yes, P-Trak is real, it was recently made available to our customers. It is NOT a scam to get SSNs. Lexis-Nexis is a large and reputable company, best-known for its huge legal database system, Lexis. The Nexis side has news reports from a large variety of sources. P-Trak originally made SSNs available, but Lexis-Nexis removed this feature in response to protests.

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cypherpunk listserve usefulness
by Chip Mefford 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As much as it shames me, I have recently discovered that by filtering messages from only 2 participants and setting body filters on 3 keywords have remarkably improved the usefulness of this listserve. As much as I do enjoy some of the filtered subject matter, I really feel it is very off subject and makes this listserver useless for the intended task. I guess that makes me a censor and it has me reexamining some things.

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a simple cypher scheme
by sjohnson＠packetengines.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

all, i've been on cypherpunks for about a year a half now, and have wacthed many interesting threads pass by but i've never posited anything. what has brought me out into the open is this : i work for an engineering firm doing asic design, i use pgp ( as do all rational persons ), a co-worker here has come up with a 'cypher' scheme that he would like to use to send code to our clients. the scheme is this : he would take the file of code and pad all lines to the length of the longest line, he would then preform column swaps, and then row swaps, to 'mix up' the file. the person receiving the file would then preform the opposite functions to recover the file. it seems so simple that it can't be good. i've convenced him to use pgp, but i would like some input if possible on why his cypher scheme is not a good one. thanx -stuart Packet Engines - The Industry leader in Gigabit ethernet / o o o o o o o . . . o o ______ _________ ________ ________ __=====__T___ o |DDD[ _______ | | | | | | | |_|| .][__n_n_| | | 802.3 | | ATM | | MPEG | | FDDI | | SCSI | >(________|___|__|_______|_|_______|_|______|_|______|_.|________|_| _/oo OOOOO oo` 'o^o o^o 'o^o o^o`'o^o o^o`'o^o o^o`'o^o o^o` -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ | "all sufficiently advanced || Stuart Johnson | technologies are indistinguishable || Lead Asic Engineer | from magic," || Packet Engines Inc. | --Arthur C. Clarke || sjohnson(a)packetengines.com

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Macintosh Mixmaster port... Who's doing it?
by Myers W. Carpenter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any idea who might be attempting a Macintosh Mixmaster port? I and some other people were eyeing the idea. If you know who might be doing this port I would appreciate hearing from them. Thanks. myers

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Re: Workers Paradise. /Political rant.
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 15 Sep 1996 17:13:53 -0700, Dale Thorn wrote: >> And that's good. The world population really should go back to around >> 1 billion for achieving a stabile ecology (with singing birds for >> the peace of minds). The former (?) US system of encouraging young >> standalone women to make babies to get benefits was very bad. The >> Chinese system - less benefits the more children you have - is the >> way to go. >Just a comment: "The world population really should go back to around >one billion", etc. And how could we achieve that without severe govt. >oppression, one wonders? Now, I've heard of "education" being used to >help the masses learn to be responsible citizens ad nauseam, but since >education is pretty much just propaganda in the massively-capitalist >system now taking over even the P.R. of China, how the heck is education >going to work? Well, they're much better at telling kids how to use condoms than they are at, say, explaining an integral. (or even an equation for that matter) As a side note, how about some real welfare reform: mandatory birth control (and pay for that; it's *much* cheaper) and benefits go DOWN for additional births. # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell

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Mercenaries
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:40 PM 9/17/96, William Knowles wrote: >On Tue, 17 Sep 1996, Michelle Thompson wrote: > >> Interesting information from a friend of mine- >> >> >An american can not serve for pay for a position in another military >> >that could be filled by local populace. I may have my jurisdiction >> >wrong tho, this could be an international law not a US law. >> >Basically, you can't go be a grunt or an assasin in another country, >> >because they can find their own, As to Michelle's point that Americans cannot serve for pay in other militaries, there are all sorts of waivers and "look the other way"s involved. For example, the retired American officer who became the top military man in Estonia (or one of the Baltic States)--while still retaining his U.S. citizenship. >What about the French Foreign Legion? or the Volunteers for Israel, >which isn't really a fighting force, but Americans can help keep >the Israeli army at a ready state. Israel is one of several states which the U.S. allows dual citizenship with. For political reasons, because of America's extermination of the Jews in WW II (Whoops, we were on the other side...so why do we have such a cozy deal with Israel, but not with, say, France? Beats me. Politics.) Brian Davis, our former Prosecutor, can tell us how likely it is that any person would be charged and brought to trial for being a paid mercenary for some small country in the Third World. The CIA is often behind such mercenaries, so national security issues could make the issue murky. But the real reason such prosecutions are rare is that the government realizes how Orwellian it sounds to say: "You are being prosecuted because you were a mercenary for Oceania in its war with Eastasia. While Oceania was once our ally in our battle with Eastasia, and we endorsed and financed your role as a mercenary, we became allies with our great friend Eastasia and are now in a state of war with the tyrants of Oceania." >Explicit isn't a dirty word, Or is it? AOL has declared "explicit" to be a Banned Word, along with "pissant," "craps," and "cock," and numerous other such ordinary words. (So much for mentioning their pissant policies, a game of craps in Las Vegas, or a male chicken.) --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I 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, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Informal Renegotiation of the Law
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 15 Sep 1996 17:54:49 -0500 (CDT), snow wrote: >> For example, you will not read anywhere that compulsory education laws have >> been repealed -- but they have. When the home schooling movement started in >> the late 1970s, there were occasional harassment and prosecution of parents. >> The home schoolers won some and lost some. As time went on, the authorities >> came to accept home schoolers so that at this point, legal problems are >> rare. Compulsory education has been effectively repealed by the actions of >> refusenicks in both the subject population and the enforcement population. > Their children are still getting educated. Not thoroughly enough in >some cases, but educated in the basics. It has always seemed somewhat amusing that we will have a) a widespread opinion that homeschooling is of lesser value and b) numerous studies, surveys, testimonials, reports, etc, that show what a rotten job public education is doing*. This raises the question of how anyone even remotely concerned with their children's welfare could do worse. . . Yet another unexplained mass insanity. * - I can add to the testimonial side of things here. I'm one of those rare teenagers who went straight to the professional workplace (bypassing college), but it's in spite of the best effort of our educational system, especially the so-called GATE programs (Gifted & Talented Education - more like stultification from my experience in 3 widely separate districts) or honors classes. They're real big on the "touchy-feely" but actual academic performance lags. My physics teacher was actually expected to teach AP level physics to a bunch of students who hadn't even had Algebra 2. (I never took Calculus, but that didn't prevent me from understanding a derivative or integral) I won't even rant about the English classes where a 400 page book (about 1.5 hours for me) is a semester's reading... # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell

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Re: Bernstein hearing: The Press Release
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:10 AM 9/23/96, Brian Davis wrote: ... >There isn't such a clause. The allowed restrictions were developed in >case law. > >Constitutional literalists take note: the First Amendment says nothing >about what the executive branch or the states can do .... Which is why President Jefferson was able to say: "While the Constitution says "Congress shall make no law...," I am hereby outlawing all discussion of the following subjects:.... And I have had it with the Catholics and Jews in this country. While Congress has no power to make laws respecting the establishment of religion or the exercise thereof, I am under no such restrictions. Therefore, I am ordering the immediate arrest and summary execution of all Papists and Jews...." Seriously, does not the Constitution and Bill of Rights define what states may do? And Presidents? The Executive is under various restrictions, and cannot behave unconstitutionally. After all, if Alabama, for example, reinstituted slavery, would not the 14th Amendment trump this? If California were to, say, ban speech critical of women's or homosexual's rights, would not the First Amendment trump this attempt? --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I 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, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Internet File System?
by azur＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>The other day, it occurred to me that Java could really take off if there >was some sort of file system. And, since you can't write to local files >with Java, the obvious solution is to set up the 'fopen, fclose(), etc) >set of functions that are 'rpcs' to some server application on the same >computer as the web server the applet comes from. > >Since I never manage to come up with new concepts, I assume someone is already >working on this, or has already created this. > Eric Hughes, well known cypherpunk, presented a two-part paper at DEFCON IV. The first part of the paper, entitled the "Universal Piracy System" or UPS, addresses an Internet/Web file system which offers universal access and privacy. The second part addresses how the UPS can be the enabler for the demise of copyright while offering a market driven replacement of an entirely different character. I hear Eric is refining these ideas and we hope to see something published soon. Perhaps he's lurking and will respond. PGP Fingerprint: FE 90 1A 95 9D EA 8D 61 81 2E CC A9 A4 4A FB A9 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Snoop Daty Data | Internet: azur(a)netcom.com Grinder | Voice: 1-702-655-2877 Sacred Cow Meat Co. | Fax: 1-702-658-2673 7075 W. Gowan Road, #2148 | Las Vegas, NV 89129 | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Just say NO to prescription DRUGS.

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Re: Macintosh Mixmaster port... Who's doing it?
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:16 PM 9/22/96 -0500, Adam Shostack wrote: > A real Mac port of Mixmaster, that integrated with Claris >EMailer and Eudora would be a huge boon to the millions of Mac users >out there. I have no doubt that Vinnie's mac crypto conference talked >a lot about this sort of thing. Actually, the Mac crypto conference didn't spend any time at all on Mixmaster - which is not intended as a criticism of either the conference or of Mixmaster, but it just didn't happen. I gave a very short talk and said that I thought the Mac needed three apps, for people who wanted to jump in a write something useful to the cause of privacy on the net and didn't want to reinvent any wheels: a remailer client with a good user interface, a Mac-native remailer, and an implementation of DC-nets. Mixmaster would, of course, address two of those three. Lucky tells me that there is already a Mac implementation of DC-nets, but it doesn't seem to be very well known. My impression of the demographics of the conference was that it was folks who are mostly working developers who aren't necessarily up-to-the minute on crypto and ecommerce stuff, but are interested enough to at least think about including it in their applications. I'm pottering around with a Java-based remailer that acts like a POP client so it can run on a client machine, not a Unix box; but other people should take that as a challenge to see if they can finish one before/better than me, not a reason to avoid writing one. Hal Finney has already done some very nice work with Java and mailing; see his home page (the address of which I don't have immediately at hand) for more details. For what it's worth, I think future remailer/Mixmaster development might do well in Java. I'm not especially sold on or trusting of the alleged security or trustability features of Java (sorry, no offense) but I *do* think it's a neat tool for building non-machine specific network aware applications. Ignore the fact that people use it to build silly animations or that downloadaded applets may or may not be secure - it's still useful as a development tool. -- Greg Broiles | "We pretend to be their friends, gbroiles(a)netbox.com | but they fuck with our heads." http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | |

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