December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Extreme Left/Right
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:59 AM 11/19/96 -0400, amp wrote: >I first saw mention of a chart similar to this in the 60s. It was a way of >describing beliefs politically that was put forth by Jerry Pournelle. (Who >is available on the net btw.) That must be one hell of a download... ]:> >> When I used to listen to a certain "leftist" radio station broadcasting >> out of New York City, they would talk about "left-wing", communist >> dictatorships and "right-wing", fascist dictatorships. A dictatorship is >> a dictatorship!!! The "wing" that it comes from makes no difference!! > >Yup. You hit the nail on the head here. This is something that any thinking >person should recognise. The basic way we are taught to understand and >reference politics =makes=no=sense=. The question is whether you wish to be tortured by the Government forces or the Peoples Revolutionary army. (I guess is comes down to which side has had more practice this week...) Also, will this be deliberate torture or the accidental kind. ("Oops. Sorry. We were actually after a dully elected representative of the four horseman. You just got in the way. Maybe it will grow back...") >> The >> way the media defines these things makes no sense; you can't have a >> dictatorship on BOTH sides of a POLITICAL SPECTRUM no more than you can >> have YELLOW on both sides of the COLOR SPECTRUM. > >Take a gander at the libertarian's chart. I think it is a more accurqte way >of describing people, and in fact is similar in some ways to what you >describe. A philosophy is charted based on how one views personal and >property rights. This assumes that there are only two basic axises that rights are based opon. Some of those can get pretty fuzzy. To properly describe how the system works would require an n-dimensional hyperpolygon of indeterminate size. (Kind of like describing the black budget. You know it is there, but looking at it is difficult, and if they catch you looking the hounds of tindalos will be coming at you out of every corner of the woodwork.) Personally, I am a political non-euclidean. --- | "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 |

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Re: Extreme Left/Right
by amp 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Tue Nov 19 04:35:41 1996 =snip= >I first saw mention of a chart similar to this in the 60s. It was a way of >describing beliefs politically that was put forth by Jerry Pournelle. (Who >is available on the net btw.) ao> That must be one hell of a download... ]:> I must be getting a bit dense. It took me a while for your comment to sink in... >Take a gander at the libertarian's chart. I think it is a more accurqte way >of describing people, and in fact is similar in some ways to what you >describe. A philosophy is charted based on how one views personal and >property rights. ao> This assumes that there are only two basic axises that rights are ao> based opon. Some of those can get pretty fuzzy. To properly ao> describe how the system works would require an n-dimensional ao> hyperpolygon of indeterminate size. (Kind of like describing the ao> black budget. You know it is there, but looking at it is difficult, ao> and if they catch you looking the hounds of tindalos will be coming ao> at you out of every corner of the woodwork.) Agreed. The problem is, how complicated do you want it to be? If we are going to be classifying people by their political philosophy, the sustem we use should at least be usable. An n-dimensional model would probably be a highly accurate representation if properly constructed, but who would sit through the grilling it requires? (perhaps someone might be willing to =force= you to be grilled, but it wouldn't be pleasant imo.) A third axis would probably pinpoint things a bit better than a 2-dimensional model, but I must admit, I'm at a loss as to exactly what this third line would be. I think 'personal' and 'economic' liberty are a pretty good barometer of someone's thinking. It's not, by any means, perfect, but it is easily understandable even by most people today. amp ao> Personally, I am a political non-euclidean. Indeed. Thank God the universe is non-euclidean and non-newtonian as well. === amp(a)pobox.com Earth First! We'll strip mine the other planets later! === -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMpGNflUbR1RWr40pAQEtyAf8DdM8I8wKHftp+wnm6McMPbCRWada8NNC cfvVMMmcowCEXbzXRli/+BU30YUan3Qr/Uf3nvqsT+yasfHJPEJIaIaUy7J+NC6w IX+FQqpuDi3Hrh2B805qeq6erc0KWEkJkxZuV1WU1Akt+qk7DWPdVbwSmBF6Ae3z 1K8KxH1Z53NZ8HtWAfPzD6OV+cvCo66a+JwFxrEt02IGoZ6L53p9oQeDY81siGtl xGmA+1xJ0cZtnqnUY6CuhG6As4iqr254ZdVSnszaI/lPrJCKG/w1aj9+5/UDoU1J VcJfrTsdYaWDyuhxqeIkPbRNkFNr47KVnnPw7Ebemqmz2RjVdo18xQ== =AlLl -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Securing Electronic Mail Within HMG
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We have received from an anonymous source a document titled: "Securing Electronic Mail Within HMG, Part I, Infrastructure and Protocol." 21 March 1996. >From the Introduction: "This document is the first part of CESG's recommendations for securing electronic mail within HMG. The main objective of the recommendations is to facilitate pan-government secure inter- operability of electronic mail, by simplifying the implementation of secure electronic mail within government, ensuring secure electronic mail between departments is possible, attempting to facilitate future inter-operability with commercial users, maximising the use of commercial technology in a controlled manner, whilst allowing access to keys for data recovery or law enforcement purposes if required." Other sections describe: 2. Authentication Framework 3. Confidentiality Framework 4. Security Protocol The document refers to the Royal Holloway program for TTP critiqued by Ross Anderson and others as "EuroClipper." Perhaps those with more knowledge could make an assessment. The document consists of 13 pages of text and diagrams, with a few gaps. ----- http://jya.com/sem.htm (35 kb with 7 jpg images)

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Re: Securing Electronic Mail Within HMG
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ben Laurie wrote: >This document is available on the Web, at: > >http://www.xopen.org/public/tech/security/pki/casm/casm.htm > >see also my "addendum" to Anderson & Roe's paper (which is actually a critique >of the above proposal, rather than RH itself) at: > >http://www.algroup.co.uk/crypto/rh.html Ben rightly points to a complete and handsome forebear of our gap-toothed descendant. We withdraw ours. Thanks Ben. And thanks for your "addendum" to A&R.

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Re: REQUESTING INFORMATION :-)
by Clay Olbon II 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:53 AM 11/19/96 -0200, George A. Stathis wrote (in part): >I REQUEST INFORMATION on those people who compile "Unemployability >Lists" in the USA, as well as ANY other information on this issue. You can add me to your list. I keep an "unemployability list" - although I don't write it down or put it on a computer. >We Greeks would like ALL the names of the people who act as "Informers" >of companies denouncing those unfortunate Americans who are doomed >to unemployment. We plan to give these names to all our friends, so >as to warn them WHO to avoid during our summer holidays in Greek >Islands. Why don't you come back to reality. I have hired and fired people. Those that I fired I would not hire again. There are others I have worked with that I would never hire (and would strongly recommend against anyone else hiring). That is life. I have little sympathy for the "unfortunate" people that I may hurt by not recommending their employment. Generally it is because they are lazy, stupid, or dishonest. This is a judgement call on my part, and others are free to take or discard my recommendations based on my reputation. Here is my recommendation for you. Take my "unemployables" list. Hire everyone on it. Try to run a business without going broke. Hiring people based on reputation is a system that works. I'm sorry if this impinges on your sensibilities. Reality has a tendency to do that though. Clay ******************************************************* Clay Olbon olbon(a)ix.netcom.com engineer, programmer, statistitian, etc. **********************************************tanstaafl

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Re: Crypto Bounties
by Ian Grigg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

azur(a)netcom.com wrote: > Why not the free market rate the programmers. Have a software > distribution/payment collection system which requires that the programmer > get a completion bond from a 3rd-part insurance company. If the programmer > fails to deliver as promised and/or on-time the donding company pays the > 'investors' back in full. Since the bonding company's money would be at > risk, if the programmer failed to deliver, they have every incentive to > conservatively rate the programmers/companies offering ot build SW to spec. What you are essentially doing is buying reputation I guess, although I am not familiar with completion bonds, so I the following is mostly conjecture on their nature. There are two major feature/bugs with the completion bond. Firstly, it requires the bonding company to make a judgement, and this adds a weak point into the link. That judgement will then result in a lot of emphasis on the fine print of the contract, and fundamentally, software doesn't work very well when fine print gets involved. The notion of "completion" especially sits oddly with the scenario described, where freeware of mostly source form gets distributed to a wide group of programmers who can adjust minor problems fairly easily. I would guess that when EDS delivers a product, there are completion ("penalty") clauses, but when the Internet was "delivered" there was no such clause. Secondly, the existance of an intermediary points to a major inefficiency in the market. Whilst your joy at paying intermediaries may vary, historically, intermediaries follow a pattern of building barriers to entry, raising charges, and slowing innovation. This is theory that is generally applicable in practice, and it is for this reason that the emphasis in my post was on removing the single point of guaruntee. In the context, I would also question the nature of a financial entity that was willing to sell its reputation to cryptoanarchists. > >[slash] However, I like this viewpoint because it > >eliminates the need for judges. History shows that a good market > >microstructure will beat an authority approach in the long run. By aiming for no single point of judgement, the only solution that we found was to rely on a multi-shot game, with past reputation leading to up-front payment leading to confirmation of reputation. As it happens, the bonding companies will rely heavily on reputation as well, in its varying forms, anyway. snow(a)smoke.suba.com originally asked: > >> Has anything like this been proposed before? > > Yes, Eric Hughes proposed a broad and structured proposal primarily > addressing this manner of market funding for software development (and > possibly suitable for other intellectual property creation) at DEFCON IV. > My previous comments on completion bonds were taken from his presentation. Yes, I saw that earlier post, and did a quick search for it but no luck. If any one can point us at the paper, that would be useful. On a slightly related note - is there any interest in setting up a mailgroup for programmers and designers of markets? There's plenty of cash stuff out there but I know of no forums for trading of fungible items. -- iang iang(a)systemics.com

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Re: HP announcing some International Cryptography stuff on Monday
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:44 PM 11/17/96 -0800, Lucky Green wrote: >I have a hard time believing that Netscape caved. As I wrote in July, HP >was working on selling our children's birthright to obtain an export >license for their product. But Netscape participating in this just >doesn't sound right. I agree about Netscape. IMHO they started with their hearts in the right place, but with a naive lack of experience in real-world security. Since their hearts are in the right place, and they have good people, they have improved a LOT in the last year. >> Since I am inherently optimistic, one ray of light may be that the San Jose >> Mercury News was mentioning the ability to export the system, and then when >> the necessary licenses (US and foreign) were obtained, turn on the >> encryption. I guess from this that the encryption is in hardware. Now, >> software/hardware interfaces are usually fairly simple, so what we have >> here is a software system with a crypto hook. > >One possibility is that all crypto is done in hardware. The recent >announcements by many hardware manufacturers that smartcard readers will >be included in all their products (MS will put them into their keyboards) >might get the necessary infrastructure deployed. I was assuming that you would interface software crypto where the hardware crypto goes. The best way to hack this will depend on the specific implementation. (At the same time you are gronking* the software calls to the hardware, you can gronk the signature checking code.) * gronk v.t. To hit over the head with a club. From Johnny Hart's cartoon, B.C. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | The lottery is a tax on | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | those who can't do math. | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | - Who 1st said this? | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Re: REQUESTING INFORMATION :-)
by George A. Stathis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:07 ðì 19/11/1996 -0500, Clay Olbon II wrote: 9in response to...) >>to unemployment. We plan to give these names to all our friends, so >>as to warn them WHO to avoid during our summer holidays in Greek >>Islands. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > >Why don't you come back to reality. Gee! hey, hey, hey... that was a joke!... :-) >I have hired and fired people. Those >that I fired I would not hire again. So have I, as a matter of fact. Though I found that people who don't become friends _and_ business _partners_ as well, tend to be useless due to the _type_ of we're doing here. We don't need 'workers'; we need co-developers, responsible partners and co-researchers. We are in Natural Language Processing (with PROLOG/'C'/Assembly). >There are others I have worked with >that I would never hire (and would strongly recommend against anyone else >hiring). That is life. I have little sympathy for the "unfortunate" people >that I may hurt by not recommending their employment. Generally it is >because they are lazy, stupid, or dishonest. ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ I understand you completely here. I sympathize. >This is a judgement call on my >part, and others are free to take or discard my recommendations based on my >reputation. You sound honest and down to earth. I like these qualities very much. >Here is my recommendation for you. Take my "unemployables" list. Hire >everyone on it. Try to run a business without going broke. Does your "unemployment list" include Doctor Dimitri Vulis? I'd be greatful to know this. Please, seriously now, and if you have such evidence (that Dimitri is 'lazy', 'stupid' or 'dishonest') send to me if you can... Please provide _evidence_ for his 'fame'. I will have NO MORE slander behind the guy's back. WHAT is going on? I've been harrassed and threatended TOO, just because of defending him or supporting people's rights to a fair trial? WHERE do you live, dude? In Nazi Germany? :-( I have no disagreement with your down-to-earth explanations. But... Sooner or later your 'sheep-leader' Mr. Gilmore will start blocking access to MORE geniouses (other than Voulis, who I think _could_ be one) to your list, and then encryption will be entrusted to morons who can at ANY moment have their coding systems BROKEN!!! Perhaps you misunderstood my objections to your practises. FROM the moment that (for instance) people EVEN like myself receive notices (or threats of) unemployability (as indeed happened in the letter quoted below) it's an alarming sign that the _criteria_ for unemployability are no longer your own decent down-to-earth criteria (honesty, intelligence, trust-worthiness) but very dark and dubious and QUITE FASCIST criteria instead. It's only recently that the type of fascist harrassment like "We'll put you on our U-list", has reached such ABUSE, MISUSE, and ALARMING FREQUENCY. For some people it's become bread and butter and cheese, apparently... I would say you are a decent, honest, fearless man trying to do a job which has a LOT of responsibility, and you may be one among a HUNDRED morons who by adding NAMES in 'unemployability' lists are no fucking different than TRAITORS of your country and Nazi Sympathizer in Western Europe. YOU get back to reality and defend your country from fascism (NOt you personally, because you had the decency and the honesty to reply), the OTHERS must get back to reality. BACK-STABBING and SLANDER (of Dimitri or of anyone) has NOTHING to do with _serious_ issues of 'unemployability'., FURTHERMORE people are NEVER guilty before PROVEN so. Guilt or Innocence is NOT a matter of 'opinion', EITHER of 'mobs' OR of 'leaders', or of would-be psychiatrists roaming the streets looking for 'juvenile kooks', or other types of labels. You are, most probably, a real person with very real responsibilites. In this case, I appreciate you a lot, and hopefully my complaints have reached the right man's ear. With Appreciation and Thanks George A. Stathis (Software Producer and Developer ....'harrassed' -he he- by the following... fascist-scum-letter): *********************************************************************** >Hops: 0 >Received: from you.got.net (root(a)scir-gotnet.znet.net [207.167.86.126]) by prometheus.hol.gr (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA27071 for <hyperlex(a)hol.gr>; Sun, 17 Nov 1996 20:13:15 -0200 (GMT) >Received: from [207.167.93.63] (tcmay.got.net [207.167.93.63]) by you.got.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id KAA22876 for <hyperlex(a)hol.gr>; Sun, 17 Nov 1996 10:07:06 -0800 >Posted-Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 20:13:15 -0200 (GMT) >Received-Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 20:13:15 -0200 (GMT) >X-Sender: tcmay(a)mail.got.net >Message-Id: <v03007800aeb506f5ac49(a)[207.167.93.63]> >In-Reply-To: <199611171100.JAA21839(a)prometheus.hol.gr> >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 10:18:36 -0800 >To: "George A. Stathis" <hyperlex(a)hol.gr> >From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> >Subject: Stathis on "Don't Hire" List >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Content-Length: 1426 >Status: > >At 9:00 AM -0200 11/17/96, George A. Stathis wrote: > >>It is not ethical to send such strong negative _injunctions_ to masses >>of people and also to strangers (the 1900-strong members of the cyberphunks >>list for instance). Because, you may or may not have strong reasons for >>believing you are justified in such invalidation, but more than a 1000 >>people are now _told_ by (self-appointed) "experts" such as yourself what >>and whom to ignore or to believe. (Like sheep led to the slaughter)... > >"Not ethical"? > >But we will do it anyway. Moreover, some of us maintain lists of "Do Not >Hire" persons. Few high tech or Silicon Valley software companies will hire >such folks. > >Congratulations, Stathis, as you are now on such a list. > > > >"The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM >that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology." >[NYT, 1996-10-02] >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: Irono-troll (was: Re: The Utility of Privacy)
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:58 PM 11/18/96 -0600, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >A troll using nobody(a)huge.cajones.com writes in reply to Sandy Sanfort a >lot of dismissal of past tragedies resulting from privacy violations. >Hir consistent viewpoint seems to be that protecting ones privacy has no >value. Then sie has the temerity to ask > >> BTW, are you operating under your True Name? > >My ironometer is absolutely pegged. Mine did too. It is the most amusing exchange I've seen in a long while. An extremely stable nym arguing for privacy against an anonymous remailer arguing that it isn't important. It makes up for all the trash talk and references to sexual orientation that the juveniles have been posting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | The lottery is a tax on | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | those who can't do math. | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | - Who 1st said this? | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Stolen PC has Credit-Card accounts data
by dwiley＠pcy.mci.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Might wana check out http://www.usatoday.com/money/mds7.htm. It seems to me that things like this are a bigger threat than actual attacks by wire. But I guess Visa was not concerned about their physical security. Oh well.....To bad for the 314,000 people. Gota love security. To bad it sounds like the person that stole the PC had little or no knowladge of what was on the PC. I love this line..... "Melancon said the account information wasn't encoded but was in compressed form and not easy for someone outside the Visa system to read." So I guess uncompress or gunzip might work..:) Dan

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