December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Bombs & bomb threats in LA
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:33 AM 8/2/96, Conrad Walton wrote: >i'm not exactly sure what an acid bomb is, but according to my book, The >Anarchist Cookbook, that I bought in 1972 (was the internet around back >then?), there is a compound called "picric acid" that is "more powerful >than TNT, but has some disadvantages". The ARPANET (or ARPANet, or Arpanet...) was around then. (I had an account on it, circa 1973...not very useful for me.) I also got my copy of "The Anarchist Cookbook" back around then. It was in the news locally when the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's office attempted to have it removed from the local bookstores....this removed it all right, as the stacks of copies sold out as quickly as they could be received and unpacked. (As others have noted over the years, much of the advice is probably bogus and even dangerous. Not being an explosives dabbler, I wouldn't know.) If Feinswine gets her ban on bomb-making information passed, and this is upheld by the courts (doubtful), the sites will be swamped with information queries, and fooling around with bombs will become more popular amongst the teenage set that has not expressed much interest in such things the past couple of decades. The more things change, the more they remain the same. --Tim May, an I-bomb-throwing crypto anarchist Buy a section of metal water pipe 1/2 by 6 inches long, threaded on both ends. Buy two metal caps to fit. These are standard items in hardware stores. Drill a 1/16th hole in the center of the pipe. This is easy with a good drill bit. Hanson is a good brand to use. Screw a metal cap tightly on one end. Fill the pipe to within 1/2 inch of the top with black powder. Do not pack the powder. Don't even tap the bottom of the pipe to make it settle. You want the powder loose. For maximum explosive effect, you need dry, fine powder sitting loose in a very rigid container.

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Re: Pipe bombs
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:26 PM 8/2/96, Lucky Green wrote: >At 21:02 8/1/96, Timothy C. May wrote: > >>Buy a section of metal water pipe 1/2 by 6 inches long, threaded on both ... >I do believe you forgot the fuse... Electrical ignition elements, such as >the ones used to launch model rockets should work just fine. Actually, all I did was copy the first couple of paragraphs from the very first set of instructions I found, found by using Alta Vista to search the Web on the string "pipe bomb". That's what turned up. (I guess I should've put quote marks around it and given a URL, but I was in a rush to generate my felonious alternate .sig. I'll correct it now.) --Tim HOW TO MAKE A PIPE BOMB: "Buy a section of metal water pipe 1/2 by 6 inches long, threaded on both ends. Buy two metal caps to fit. These are standard items in hardware stores. Drill a 1/16th hole in the center of the pipe. This is easy with a good drill bit. Hanson is a good brand to use. Screw a metal cap tightly on one end. Fill the pipe to within 1/2 inch of the top with black powder. Do not pack the powder. Don't even tap the bottom of the pipe to make it settle. You want the powder loose. For maximum explosive effect, you need dry, fine powder sitting loose in a very rigid container." (more information at http://sdcc13.ucsd.edu/~m1lopez/pipe.html, or by using search engines)

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Re: fbi, crypto, and defcon
by pjb＠ny.ubs.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From grafolog(a)netcom.com Fri Aug 2 11:48:53 1996 > Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 15:48:47 +0000 (GMT) > From: jonathon <grafolog(a)netcom.com> > X-Sender: grafolog@netcom10 > To: "Paul J. Bell" <pjb(a)ny.ubs.com> > Subject: Re: fbi, crypto, and defcon > X-No-Archive: yes > Mime-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type> : > TEXT/PLAIN> ; > charset=US-ASCII> > Content-Length: 772 > > Paul: > > On Fri, 2 Aug 1996, Paul J. Bell wrote: > > > in general, i suspect that the rip-off is going the other way. after all, > > no one forces anyone buy from microsoft, AT&T, etc., but people do steal from > > When I purchased my computers, I had to pay $150 to not have > Windows and Dos installed on them. That $150 went to Microsoft. > It seemed to me that I was being ripped off, by Microsoft. > > As far as AT&T goes, do you know how to determine what their > lowest residential rate is? Secondly, do you know how to > sign up for it? > > > xan > > jonathon > grafolog(a)netcom.com > > > > Illiterate: adj. Inability to read write or speak five > or fewer languages. > Funksioneel Ongeleerd: a. Die wat kon nee elf or meer tale > lees, skryf and gesprek. > > > as i said, i have no use for microsoft, whats more, i don't use microsoft. that said, if a person really must pay to not have their products installed, i agree that that is intorelable, and at the least calls for finding a new vendor for computers. if you really don't plan to use dos or windows, there is no reason why you should pay for them. frankly, this sounds like a real stupid move on the part of your hardware vendor. maybe you need to shop around. as for at&t, no, i don't know the lowest residential rate, but i'm sure that the rate varies depending on your long distance calling pattern. i'm sure that the rate is less for someone who rarely makes an ld call but wants to have the ability to do so when and if the need/desire arises then for someone who makes a few call per month and for another user who makes a lot of call each month. at any rate, all you need to do is to ask them for the lowest rate for your calling pattern, and if you don't like the answer, hang up and call mci, s print, etc. at least thats better than microsoft, where you don't have a lot of choice. take a quick look around the world, paying particular attention to those many countries where the telephone company was directly controlled by the government. was the service they provided really great? was it cheap? did they every provide anything new or improved? as one who has spent a lot of time in some of these countries i can answer from experience, hell no. a one time, in the late 50's i lived and worked in a certain west african country. th erule was, taht the first person in the office in the morning would take the phone off the hook, and maybe by 10:30 or 11:00 we would get a dial tone. of course, you would never hang the thing up again taht day, just pass it along to anyone else that needed to make a call. egypt and all of france was not a lot better. as late as 1983 it was a real challenge to get a phone installed or make a long distance call in france. no matter what the french say, telecommunications services still suck in france. i agree with you that a lot of companies do gouge the customer for all that they can get, and maybe AT&T is one of them, but maybe not. i have spent my entire working life providing for myself, asking and taking nothing from anyone, other than what i earned for myself. i payed for my education and for everything else that i ever had. however, once i had the money to invest, i did so, in, among others, AT&T, and since i take a chance with the money that i worked for by investing in them, i, by god, expect a return on my investment, and if AT&T can't provide it, i will dump them and take my chances elsewhere. however, whether its AT&T or someone else, if i risk my money, i expect something in return, and i can only expect that if the company (AT&T or who ever) makes a profit. profit is not a dirty word, it is what makes it all possible. AT&T did not build the worldwide network that serves us all for fun, not did they invent the transistor or UNIX, or all the other thinks that we take for granted just for the fun of it, or without risk. if you take the risk, you deserve a return on your investment. i have yet to meet a stockholder who said that they were satisfied with any given profit level and wished the company to give away goods or services rather then increase the dividends to the stockholders. the name of the game is PROFIT, its what keeps us all alive and employed. the real saving grace is in having a choice. i am not suggesting that as long as a company makes a profit that anything goes. what i am suggesting is that a company, or an individual for that matter is only obliged to see to there own well being. if an individual so chooses, they may spend their life, or any portion thereof, working for the good of someone else, or giving the results of all their labors to others, as they choose. in many ways this is a good thing and is what makes civilized life. however, i do not believe that it is ever permissable to dictate to an individual or to a company which is, after all, only the sum of it's employees and stockholders, the requirement or terms of how they will dispense the profits of their labors. if AT&T or any other company doesn't give you what you want, tell them to fuck-off, and take your business elsewhere. oh that we could so easily deal with a government that provides so little of what the people want. i think that it is rare for a company to forget who is really calling the shots, but our very own government seems to be completly unaware that they exist to serve us, not the other way around. they seem to have forgotten that the purpose of the constitution is not to define what rights are given to the people, but rather to define what powers the people give to the government. cheers, -paul

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Re: [off-topic] roving wiretaps (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Forwarded message: > Date: Fri, 02 Aug 1996 16:41:17 -0700 > From: Cerridwyn Llewyellyn <ceridwyn(a)wolfenet.com> > Subject: Re: [off-topic] roving wiretaps > A sophisticated land line wiretap that will not be detectable by the > average citizen will cost well over $500, plus you have to install it > without the target knowing, etc. It costs nothing, it is already built into the switch at part of the standard diagnostics. I spent 5 years at the University of Texas at Austin working in security and part of my job was support of the NT switch. You go to the switch put a butt-set or recorder on the diag port and route the call data over to that port. Jim Choate

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Latest info on the "counter-terrorism" bill
by jseiger＠cdt.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The House passed a revised counter-terrorism bill this afternoon by a substantial majority. The bill is expected to be considered by the Senate on Saturday 8/3, and is likely to pass. The House-passed bill DOES NOT contain ANY of the privacy threatening provisions. Provisions dealing with funding for the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (Digital Telephony) were REMOVED from the bill just before the vote after civil liberties groups AND the FBI objected to the language. Provisions dealing with emergency wiretap authority and "roving wiretaps" were also not included in the House-passed bill. In addition, the bill does not contain any encryption provisions. Earlier in the week, the Administration had circulated an outline of their anti-terrorism proposal which included new, unspecified restrictions on encryption. Senators Burns (R-MT), Leahy (D-VT), Pressler (R-SD), Lott (R-MS), and others worked hard to prevent any encryption provisions from being included in early versions of the bill, and deserve a lot of credit for fighting for the Net. It's nice to finally have a number of powerful allies joining the usual defenders of net.freedom on Capitol Hill. The bill passed today contains provisions increasing airport security, studies on ways to improve US anti terrorism policy and other terrorism issues, and a controvertial provisions expanding federal racketeering laws to cover terrorist activity. The bill also contains a small but not insigificant privacy victory. The bill doubles the punishment from 5 to 10 years for unlawful disclosure of information obtained from a warrant and increases certain penalties for violation of the Privacy Act. This is not over yet -- many of these issues, particularly encryption and Digital Telephony funding, are likely to be back before the Congress in September, so stay tunned... Thanks to everyone who called Congress today to object to the new sweeping surveillance provisions that were dropped from the bill! It looks like we mave had really made a difference in this debate. More as it comes... Jonah -- Jonah Seiger, Policy Analyst Center for Democracy and Technology <jseiger(a)cdt.org> (v) +1.202.637.9800 http://www.cdt.org/

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Stop the presses -- Anti-terrorism bill not that bad
by declan＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Stop the presses -- the other shoe didn't drop. Despite a flurry of last-minute hyperbole, the House passed an anti-terrorism bill this afternoon without the ominous encryption or wiretap provisions. Now the bill lies in the lap of the Senate, which probably will approve it later today or tomorrow before they leave town for the August recess. In the wake of the dual bombings, Congress wanted to be seen as taking *some* action before they adjourned, and last weekend Clinton and the Dems started lobbying hard for the heinous measures they wanted in an anti-terrorism bill. Vastly expanded state-snooping capabilities: multipoint wiretaps, warrantless short-term wiretaps, dialed-phone number recorders, and black and smokeless powder taggants. Even possible of anti-crypto language that Jamie Gorelick, deputy attorney general, has been shopping around for months. The Net owes its thanks to the House Republicans for stopping these fool Dems in a fine backroom political maneuver late last night. They did it through the House Rules Committee, which in the wee hours of the morning reported a rule allowing the GOP leadership to introduce the terrorism bill on the floor today -- without letting Democrats see it, amend it, or even send it back to committee. It was a good plan -- coordinated by Rep. Chris Cox -- keeping the legislation away from the hands of the Big Brother Dems. The Democrats waxed pissy. Rep. David Bonior, the party's whip, called the majority's maneuvering "extrordinary." John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, blasted Gingrich and the Republican leadership for "bringing a meaningless bill to the House floor." Conyers said to reporters at 1 pm: "It's a hoax on the American people. It is all bark and no bite... This bill is missing the important wiretapping provisions that would allow law enforcement to find and stop terrorists before they kill. The House Republicans and the NRA say we should not have emergency authority for surveillance even if we know terrorists are about to blow a plane out of the sky. They also say that we should not have wiretap authority for terrorists who use more than one telephone to make their deadly plans." Of course, this is political grandstanding at its finest -- or worst. Conyers conveniently neglected to add that law enforcement officers already have the right to use roving wiretaps with court approval. Also, there was a mixup over Digital Telephony funding, compounded by the text of the legislation's being kept secret until the last minute. Summaries distributed to reporters early this afternoon said: "The bill authorizes the FBI to use enhanced telephone technology to investigate suspected terrorist activity. Funding for equipment purchase was provided in the 1996 omnibus appropriations measure enacted earlier this year." But the DT provisions weren't in the final draft of the bill. Silly Congressperns. The House had *already* approved the DT slushfund on July 24 as part of the 1997 Commerce, Justice, State departments appropriations bill. Now the 1997 CJS appropriations bill goes to the Senate, which will decide how much cash to give Digital Telephony when they return in early September. What's going to happen? Well, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), a former prosecutor and longtime proponent of Digital Telephony, said yesterday at the Intelligence Committee hearing on terrorism: "I was proud to have worked with the FBI director to ensure passage of the Communications Assisatance for Law Enforcement Act, sometimes called the digital telephony law." With Republicans like the ones in the House, who needs so-called "civil libertarian" Democrats? -Declan

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ITAR
by koontz＠netapp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

How about exporting programs, that when executed generate source code for encryption algorithms? (xmas.c comes to mind, an obscurity winning c program that writes out the twelve days of Christmas.)

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Re: URGENT: Surveillance Bill Gets New Life - House Vote lLikely TODAY!
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:21 PM 8/2/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >("I had no idea of what was in the Communications Decency Act...it just >sounded like the "decent" thing to vote for."....."You mean the >Anti-Terrorism Bill suspends habeus corpus? What's that? I'll ask my >staffers to look into it.") > >Fuck 'em all. Fawkes had it wrong...they're not worth the powder to blow >'em to hell. > >All we can do is work on technological workarounds. Making their $2 billion >Wiretap Boondoggle a worthless exercise is a start. I thought of what I consider to be an excellent "workaround." The way I see it, a majority of us want to see a majority of them dead, or at least resigned. If that's the case, why can't we get what we want? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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BOO_mer
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

8-2-96. WaJo: "More Bombs Are Exploding Across the U.S." What also worries law-enforcement officials are the comparatively unspectacular bombs exploding at a rising rate in neighborhoods across the country. Indeed, with homicides declining, bombings may have become the fastest-growing category of violent crime. "In the old days, kids would break windows," says John O'Brien, an agent in Washington with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "Now, they're making pipe bombs." Police say one of the most popular bombs among youths -- one combining acid and other ingredients in a bottle -- is called the "McGyver" because many learned about it from the television show. David Estenson, head of a bomb-crisis management firm and former head of the Minneapolis police bomb squad, observes that many of the pipe bombs in Israel contain only match heads. "U.S. Studies Use of Chemical Tracers To Track Explosives in Terrorist Blasts." The Treasury Department is studying a family of trace chemicals -- first developed by U.S. weapons scientists to track the fallout of nuclear weapons -- as a way to give terrorist explosives an identifiable trail. The trace chemicals are newer and much smaller than plastic "taggants," which have provoked resistance from the explosives industry and gun lobbies. Desmonde Cowdery, vice president of Isotag L.L.C., a small Houston company that has obtained commercial rights to the process, claims the chemical tracers are so small they can be blended with all types of explosives, including fertilizers and gunpowders, without interfering with chemical reactions. "Can America Stomach a War on Terror?" The lessons from the world's battlefields of terror are sobering. Not only have few countries been able to make much of a dent in a determined terrorist campaign, but their efforts also often incur a heavy price. Due-process rights have been suspended, freedoms of speech curtailed, police powers beefed up. Tommy Sands, a Belfast folk singer, praises America's caution. He says that in Northern Ireland and other hot spots, authorities have often overreacted to the initial threat. "It's like driving a car and seeing a red light come on that means you're short on oil. If you take a hammer to it, the red light will go out, but you're still short on oil," Mr. Sands says. "Sometimes there are answers other than the big hammer." ----- http://jya.com/boomer.txt (19 kb for 3) Lynx: http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~jya/boomer.txt BOO_mer

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Re: [off-topic] roving wiretaps (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 15:23:23 -0700 > From: shamrock(a)netcom.com (Lucky Green) > Subject: Re: [off-topic] roving wiretaps > > The Fourth Amendment has been abolished by the Supreme Court for all > intends and purposes. It remains listed in the Constitution for historic > reasons only. ARTICLE IV. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. I must agree with the above sentiment by Lucky. When Steve Jackson got busted (I was peripheraly involved through Mentor and Bloodaxe) and the warrant was not only sealed (ie Mentor and Bloodaxe didn't get to see it) but it was unsigned as well when it was executed. Jim Choate

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