December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: [Noise] anonymous bacon
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:28 AM 9/21/96 -0700, Dale Thorn wrote: >Jonathan Corbet wrote: [Government Access to Meat stuff from Risks deleted] > >Did you ever see one of those mattress tags which reads something like >"removal of this tag is a violation of ..... and is punishable by ..."? >They could tag the stuff, then make it a violation of law to cut the >meat before final consumption. The IRS is very concerned about barter, >and besides, how are you gonna go half way on legislating against >untraceable barter (other than to prohibit dividing the beef)? And meat tenderizers would be outlawed, because it would be viewed as an effort to obscure the markings. (You could be sent to jail for beating your meat!) Think of the legal liability for selling someone meat that is later involved with the drug trade! The way the laws are going, you could lose everything for selling a steak to a known drug user. Soon you would have meat market laws similar to the alcohol laws in Utah. You will have to eat the steak on the premises, in front of a government authorized and licensed vendor. (Until the cholesterol police make meat consumption a crime.) Soon we will have gangs fighting over the illegal meat trade. Meat will be murder! Instead of "drive-ins", we will have "drive-bys". Government will have an even bigger reason to put a steak through our civil rights. Our goose will be cooked! Then people will go to trading vegetables and grain. And all the "honest folks" will be left with nothing to eat but rocks. (Until, those too are banned because someone might throw one...) --- | "Remember: You can't have BSDM without BSD." - alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com | |"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 |

1 0

Re: Going AP Shit on the Internet
by Black Art 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:34 PM 9/21/96 -0400, hallam(a)vesuvius.ai.mit.edu wrote: > >[AP drivel deleted] > > [Examples of where AP would fail deleted] > >Both the assumption AP rests on are utterly false. It is neither possible >to assasinate people at will nor will it intimidate. > >In addition *ANYONE* who attempted to implement AP would be someone *I* >would regard as a tyrant and therefore a legitimate target by the rules >of AP. I would naturally consider it permissable to engage the support of >others in their suppression. Since we now live in the fantasy land of AP >I can now wipe out anyone anywhere so I eliminate all AP leaders. I'd buy that for a dollar! I would expect that only a small portion of the "targets" on an actual AP system would be political figures. People have a far broader range of people they would like to see eliminated. How many "hits" would John Tesh have gotten after the Olympics? How many "hits" would Urkel get after anyone actually watched him on TV? These powers could be used for good or evil! People do not just want to kill politicians. Many of them would like to kill people they find annoying in their general lives. TV stars. Advertising executives. Bosses. Bill Gates. Brings stalking to a new level! Say a company came out with an Internet browser that was considered the "market leader". A less scrupulous competitor (who has a large company and lots of cash) could afford to have key personnel off-ed as a part of "doing business". (And it would not have to be the figureheads. Less well-known people in charge of key areas, like security could be off-ed.) Is your job important to KILL FOR? They could even hide it in the sales and promotion budget. It could change the face of business forever! Who do you want to kill today? There is no mechanism to assure that AP is used for only the people that Mr. Bell would like to see killed. If it is implemented, then EVERYONE is a target. >I think that this type of talk is incredibly dangerous. There are plenty of >people on the net who are psychos and if you spread AP drivel arround someone >is going to act on it. Probably not Jim Bell, more likely a psychopath who >lurks on the list but does not post. Actually, I would expect that the various government agencies would do their best to track down those trying to implement such a system. Governments do not take competition lightly. The odds of getting a real hit man are also small. The FBI has agents who frequently pose as hit men for the sole purpose of tracking down those who want to eliminate their friends and neighbors. Only organized crime and government have easy access to assassination. ("Government Access to assassination" Escrow anyone?) >If you call for people to be murdered - and let us not forget that this is >what AP is about you bear the responsibility when someone acts on it. I do not think that Mr. Bell is willing to examine the moral consequences of the things that he advocates. (He would get alot more respect from me if he would own up to it and admit he is wanting to see mass murder for hire.) There seems to be a big blind spot here. It would also be a great excuse for the bluenoses who want to regulate the net into extinction. (Advocating murder is not taken well in our society, even if the targets deserve it.) >I consider AP to be very close to calling for the assasination of the >President of the USA. That is a federal crime and there is a law that >requires the investigation of any such threats. I suggest that people >think *very* carefully before engaging in this dangerous nonsense any >further. Facilitating the murder of others through hiring of hit men is illegal no matter who the target is. I wonder how he would find a service provider that would dare host the site. I know of no "data haven" that would risk having a murder for hire server anywhere near their site. They would find their feed cut pretty quick or feel the sting of legal liability or both. (Part of being a "data haven" is not to attract attention to yourself. The first rule of not being seen is "Don't stand up".) >PS it is not censorship to stop people from advocating murder. I disagree with this conclusion. It IS censorship. The only thing that seems to change it is the subject matter. If it was changed to "it is not censorship to stop people from advocating cryptography" or "unrestrained sex" or "destruction of the ruling party" would you still agree? Sometimes advocating murder is considered valid. (As the various people in the media talking about how "we should have offed Husain (sp?).) How do you make the distinction. Whoever is in power this week? I think not. Besides, if you want to weed the nut cases out of society, you let them advocate such things in public. Makes it easier to cart them away before they hurt someone. (Unless they are in Government office. By then, it is too late.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Black Art blackart(a)ctrl-alt-del.com "The Government will mind its own business the day that Malcolm McDowell becomes a spokesman for Crisco."

2 1

Re: LACC: Re: Australia now has information police
by Julian Assange 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > > Hello: > > I have one short, short question regarding this item. I really > hope that you know the anwswer and have the time to answer it. > > 1- International document: any idea who else had signed it? [re COCOM trade agreements] All COCOM countries most likely. That said Australia does not seem to be actively enforcing this relic of the cold war. However around 8 years ago, I recall that the NSA found out about a telephone encrypting device developed here in Australia, and preassured the Australian government to forbid export of the device, under COCOM provisions until it was weakened. At the moment it is politically untenable to enforce COCOM export provisions over cryptographic software in this country. The COCOM treaty is seen, quite rightly, as a U.S barrow which COCOM countries had to sign in order to avoid U.S trade sanctions and tarrifs, but not something that needs to be enforced for smaller concerns (arms shipments are bigger concerns). COCOM is being replaced with new controls, according to the PARI DAILY. (anyone have better details?) PARI DAILY FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 1996 BULGARIA IGNORED AT POST-COCOM TALKS Bulgaria did not take part in the first plenary session of the member-countries of the Wassenaar Arrangement, also known as the New Forum, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mr.Pantelei Karasimeonov told a briefing yesterday. Of all the 28 participants in the session, it was only USA that opposed Bulgaria's participation in the arrangement, a control regime which is to succeed the Cold War's COCOM export controls of technology and equipment usable for military purposes, too, it was revealed at the briefing. Bulgaria has stated many times, and at different levels, its willingness to join the new control regime, the Foreign Ministry spokesman emphasised. In a statement, disseminated by BTA, Bulgarian News Agency, Foreign Ministry pointed out that obviously some of the participants in the Wassenaar Arrangement talks are still under the rather depressing impressions of the suitable conditions created in the country for wide-ranging scot-free ruin and lack of ownership, which apply also to the military-industrial complex and foreign trade in spesial-purpose production. Mr. Karasimeonov said that these impressions have sprung from the period of radical economic and political reforms in the country; he voiced his hopes that the founder-states of the Wassenaar Arrangement would soon change these views of theirs and would put their trust in Bulgaria's export control abilities. Trade Ministry officials said that bilateral talks are due to be held between Bulgaria and each of the New Forum member-countries, which are expected to result in Bulgaria's joining the arrangement. An expert group is to visit USA from April 29 till May 3 aiming to acquaint American high officials with the measures Bulgaria has taken to control trade in spesial-purpose production, Mr.Vladimir Velichkov, head of Internationally Controlled Trade Department at Trade Ministry, said in a recent interview for the PARI Daily. By June an expert group of the Wassenaar Arrangement is due to visit Bulgaria to lead discussions about our participation in the New Forum. -- "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis, _God in the Dock_ +---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+ |Julian Assange RSO | PO Box 2031 BARKER | Secret Analytic Guy Union | |proff(a)suburbia.net | VIC 3122 AUSTRALIA | finger for PGP key hash ID = | |proff(a)gnu.ai.mit.edu | FAX +61-3-98199066 | 0619737CCC143F6DEA73E27378933690 | +---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+

3 2

Re: "Remailers can't afford to be choosy"
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Without going back and reviewing my precise words in my first post on this topic, I don't think Lance is doing anything unreasonable. My comment was more to the point that a lot of the talk I see about filtering topics, looking at content, blah blah blah, is basically inconsistent with the basic concept of a "digital mix," a la Chaum. At 7:19 PM 9/21/96, Lance Cottrell wrote: >One important differentiation to make is filtering on form vs. filtering on >content. Most if not all remailers have clear usage guidelines. These >indicate several form restrictions on what messages the remailer is >offering to transmit. These restrictions may be on message size, >instruction formatting, number of destinations for one message, or number >of identical messages. These restrictions are no more censorship than >restricting messages to SMTP compliant ascii. > >Where people do not follow the stated rules, I take action to enforce them. >Either by source blocking the abuser if known, destination blocking the >destination, or trying to apply public pressure. I think all these actions >are completely reasonable, given that the proper use guidelines were >clearly defined up front. It is similar to putting up a fence around your >yard when people start hanging out there uninvited. Clearly stating policies is fair enough. In the future, with a rich ecology of remailers, I would expect many kinds of remailers with many kinds of policies, prices, etc. Still, it is always useful to remember that a remailer is first and foremost a _remailer_, not an inspector of content to determine appropriateness of topics, whether a receiver "wants" a remailed message, etc. (None of the main "physical remailers," e.g., the US Postal Service, Federal Express, UPS, Airborne, etc., offer "destination-blocking" or even "source-blocking" services. Of course, they charge some form of fee for remailing. And there is nominally a return address (albeit easily bypassed/spoofed).) >Are you suggesting that I not take perfectly legal and open actions to >enforce the public statement of allowed uses of my remailer? No. I think clearly stated policies are perfectly legit. What I was getting at with my "remailers can't afford to be choosy" point was a more general point that sometimes seems to get lost in the discussions, namely, that remailers will, perforce, be used for lots of unpopular, disgusting, flamish, etc. uses. Not all remailer uses are noble whisteblowings (*). (* In fact, some whistleblowings are amongst the most "most illegal" uses! The person within General Dynamics who uses a remailer to describe contract fraud in the Tomahawk Cruise Missile program is almost certainly putting the remailer operator under intense pressure, just as is a person using a remailer to post the Church of Scientology NOTS documents. To me, they are the same. Hence, "remailers can't afford to be choosy.") --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."

1 0

Death Threats
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(I don't know what the hell this thread has to do with "[NOISE] Kiddie porn on the Internet," so I've changed the name.) At 9:22 PM 9/21/96, Mark M. wrote: >Do you really consider speech to be "dangerous." The law requiring >investigation of threats against the president is a stupid one. The maintainer >of the exploding head page was investigated by the USSS after putting up >computer-generated pictures of Bob Dole's head exploding (Presidential >candidates are also covered under this law). There's too much potential for >abuse. Hey, I'm a candidate for President, too (at least I know of someone who plans to vote for me). Does this mean I am protected against various threats, and veiled threats? Let me know, as I seem to be under attack by certain Russian-developed spambots. More seriously, the whole set of protections the President has is inconsistent with our nominally anti-royalist approach. Of course, America long ago created its own royalty. Even dynasties (how else do you explain Teddy Kennedy getting away with the Mary Jo Kopechne thing?). Actively (and plausibly) threatening _anyone_ is a kind of crime (*), but there is no reason to make special laws covering certain persons. (* Why do I say "actively (and plausibly) threatening _anyone_ is a kind of crime"? Don't I believe in free speech? Well, if I hear that Vladimir G. Nulis says I should be killed, and that he is coming to California to take care of this, I have no compunctions, liberrarian or otherwise, about shooting first at the first sign of his appearance on my property. Understandably, the government does not wish this to happen. Thus, I have no problem with illegalizing direct and concrete threats. General threats, such as "all lawyers should be taken out into the parking lot and garotted" are not specific, direct, and concrete, and hence fall under the free speech provisions.) --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."

3 2

CNET Digital Dispatch Vol. 2 No. 38
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The individual who posted the C-Net top ten missed the crypto-related parts of that issue. (I guess the humor section is all that people read on C-Net...) Here is what he missed... >Hook up your new system to the Net, and use it to remake >yourself. Get a virtual nose ring. Program your avatar with >all the attributes you wish you had. On the Internet, your >image is up to you. What will yours be? Read Editor-in-Chief >Christopher Barr's views on online identity: > >http://www.cnet.com/Content/Voices/Barr/091696/index.html > >Maybe you're not ready to share your identity. Maybe that's >the furthest thing from your mind. If you've got secrets to >keep, you need to know about Pretty Good Privacy, the de >facto encryption standard for email. Our tutorial will tell >you how to get PGP software and how to use it: > >http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Privacy/index.html > >Then be sure to read our update on mover and shaker Philip >Zimmerman, the guy who invented PGP: > >http://www.cnet.com/Content/Voices/Movers/zimmermann.html --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

1 0

Re: Kiddie porn on the Internet
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:34 PM 9/21/96 -0400, hallam(a)vesuvius.ai.mit.edu wrote: > >[AP drivel deleted] > >Go talk to someone who is a member of an organisation like the PLO or >Hammas and pretty near the top. If you think that they would be intimidated >for a moment by AP you have another think comming. It depends entirely on what you mean by "intimidated." AP would make them pretty damn useless, because instead of the typical Palestiniation having to depend on a few corrupt self-chosen leaders, they could get their revenge on an individual basis. Who needs PLO or Hamas under such circumstances? Besides, the Israelis (as well as resentful Palestinians) could get rid of abusive PLO or Hamas leadership using AP. > >If it could the US would have assasinated Saddam by now. No, because the leadership in the US who would either choose such a system (or not) well understand that people who live in glass palaces shouldn't start throwing rocks against the enemy leadership. > It can't because it >is too difficult to find out where exactly a person will be. Assasination >attempts against Castro similarly failed. Assassination can easily fail if you don't give the proper people the motivation to accomplish the task. The key to having it work out is to ensure that the few people who have access to the target are sufficiently motivated to collect the reward. Who, exactly, was given a motivation to kill Castro? A few clowns in Miami? A few crooks in Jersey? Give _everybody_ who meets Castro during the day a $10 million motivation to kill him, and he'll be dead before sunset. >If you care to look at the history of Cambodia you will see that Lon Nol >assumed the presidency despite the knowledge that there was practically no ch >chance of defeating the Khumer Rouge and that he would almost certainly be dead >in less than a week as a result. > >Both the assumption AP rests on are utterly false. It is neither possible >to assasinate people at will nor will it intimidate. Since it's never been tried before, how do you know? >In addition *ANYONE* who attempted to implement AP would be someone *I* >would regard as a tyrant and therefore a legitimate target by the rules >of AP. I don't doubt that there will be many people who misunderstand AP. You're obviously one of them. I would naturally consider it permissable to engage the support of >others in their suppression. Since we now live in the fantasy land of AP >I can now wipe out anyone anywhere so I eliminate all AP leaders. > > >I think that this type of talk is incredibly dangerous. There are plenty of >people on the net who are psychos and if you spread AP drivel arround someone >is going to act on it. Probably not Jim Bell, more likely a psychopath who >lurks on the list but does not post. Pardon me, but what's wrong with this? Follow the news more closely, and you'll hear of a group which is operating in southern Mexico, the "EPR," which is killing off government employees, politicians, and police. True, they're not implementing the mathematical, digital-cash basis behind AP, but they see to be making good progress against the corruption which is Mexico. Increase their productivity by a factor of 10, and the Mexican government would be terrified. Increase it by 100, and the Mexican government would fall within a few months. >If you call for people to be murdered - and let us not forget that this is >what AP is about you bear the responsibility when someone acts on it. Does that make YOU responsible if, by calling for people to NOT kill their oppressors, they continue to suffer oppression? >I consider AP to be very close to calling for the assasination of the >President of the USA. That is a federal crime and there is a law that >requires the investigation of any such threats. I suggest that people >think *very* carefully before engaging in this dangerous nonsense any >further. > > Phill >PS it is not censorship to stop people from advocating murder. Then you obviously don't understand the meaning of the word, "censorship." Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

1 0

Re: Assassination Politics, was Kiddie porn on the Internet
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:51 PM 9/17/96 -0700, Steve Schear wrote: >>On Mon, 16 Sep 1996, Steve Schear wrote: >> >>> Someone wrote: >>> We've all heard these arguments, but are they true? Who says so, and how >>> can they be certain? Jim's suggestion has never, to my knowledge, been >>> tried on a consistant, large, scale. When all conventional alternatives >>> have been tried and fail, what have we or the starving children got to >>> lose? >> >>I think "Lord of the Flies" answers this question quite well. > >Does it? LOTF was fiction. Can you identify a recent instance in which a >non-governmental organization attempted to influence political/military >events via a concerted AP? As you understand, I really have to question anybody who would take an extraordinarily contrived work of fiction like LOTF and exrtrapolate from it as some sort of "answer" to AP. However, Unicorn is sufficiently confused that it's not surprising that this would come from him. While it's been well over two decades since I read it, LOTF engages in the artifice of separating out a handful of near-pre-adolescent boys, who don't seem to get along particularly well while stuck on an island after being shot down during a war. (Presumably, WWII.) It's hard to understand what kind of lesson we could learn from this, particularly since one person's opinion of what might happen should such an extraordinary and unlikely event occur can't be all that more significant or valuable than another. Or, what if such an event actually happened, and the outcome was quite different? What would that say about Golding's opinions? Or, suppose a similar event occurred, but instead of a dozen boys it was a co-ed college's students, or a few geriatrics, or a family, or a few middle-aged women, or...what? What, exactly, are we learning from one specific speculation that Golding happened to want to commit to paper? Unfortunately (or, perhaps _fortunately_?) I don't think we're going to hear from Unicorn why he thinks one particular dime novel is any more revelational about human behavior than any other. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

3 2

Re: FCC's Hundt calls for univ service for Net, nixes iphone regs
by drose＠AZStarNet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Fri, 20 Sep 1996, Tim May wrote: [...] >The Constitutional issues of free speech would remain mostly unchanged even ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >if "universal access" happens, but the government would definitely get more >of a foot in the door than it has now. I really hope that this is the case, and that some restraint would be exercised. But when the FCC has historically concerned itself with channels of communication, the 1st Am has typically been tossed out of the window. Recall the "seven dirty words" brouhaha. Perhaps they've lightened up. I can imagine Herr Hundt and his FCC fellows looking on fondly and indulgently as cute-as-a-button sitcom kids inform their network TV show parents more frequently than we've heard "fuckhead" on this list that they "suck." I seem to recall somewhere in the dim dark past that the expression "you suck" would have been subsumed under the "fighting words" statutes, implying, as it does, that the object of the utterer's scorn was either homosexual or a woman who casually performed fellation. If the FCC approves of "you suck" on network television, perhaps there is yet hope that the perverse topics daily discussed on c-punks would, at least temporarily, be allowed. Dave Rose drose(a)azstarnet.com ____________________________________ "Take this Uzi from a crack baby's hands, and put in a computer--that's our demands" -J. Jackson "Cover your mouth when you sneeze, that'll help the solution" -Mavis, Roebuck "Pops" Staples & the family

1 0

Re: Pseudonym server: Jenaer Anonymous Service
by Lance Cottrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:37 PM -0700 9/1/96, Lutz Donnerhacke wrote: >* stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com wrote: >It's strongly recomment to use a reply server to forward your requests to. >The server sends all outgoing messages via mixmaster chains. >(mixmaster(a)as-node.jena.thur.de can is always the first one in the chain). > This is very important. You don't want to send it your real address to deliver to. I strongly recommend using alt.anonymous.messages. A program called "newscan" is ideal for checking news based message pools. It scans news on a server of your choice, and saves messages based on criteria that you specify. -Lance ---------------------------------------------------------- Lance Cottrell loki(a)obscura.com PGP 2.6 key available by finger or server. Mixmaster, the next generation remailer, is now available! http://www.obscura.com/~loki/Welcome.html or FTP to obscura.com "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come." --Nietzsche ----------------------------------------------------------

1 0