December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Travelling With Laptops/PGP
by Pyro Teknik 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Problem: > > I will be spending a couple of months chilling out in Barcelona, Spain. > I will have a local Internet account/dial-up in that city, and will use > it to telnet into my various US-based accounts. This is how I plan to > keep in touch with various people while I am gone. > > Questions: > > 1 - Is the importation of two laptops and it's various peripheral devices > by a US citizen into Spain going to be a problem? I know it is in some > European countries. > > 2 - Will having PGP 2.6.2, with 2048-bit keys, or any key length for this > matter, installed on these two machines, cause a problem? > > Would this be a viable workaround? Or should I just say fuck it, and just > disavow myself of any reason/need for PGP for the duration of my stay? If > this is gonna be a problem, I'll just forego anything requiring > encryption while I am in Spain. I walked straight through British, Dutch and Maltese Customs at the respective airports and they didn't even ask what was in the bag, let alone what software. I had PGP and a huge keyring stored on my hard drive and they were known the wiser. > I have no interest in smuggling crypto in, or defying international law > just to use PGP for personal use. If it's not allowed, I simply won't use > it. But, I MUST be able to bring my laptops into the country. That HAS to > happen. I'd suggest to lugging them through as hand luggage. If you are worred, zip up pgp and so on with a password - if customs do check, they aren't gonna waste breaking the zip password (even though it can be done quickly) Also, I think the law may different, as you are an American Citizen using your own equipment... [*]-------------------------------------------[*]----------------[*] [*] Pyro Teknik - <pyro-teknik(a)geocities.com> [*] Linux Guru [*] [*] www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Alley/7705/ [*] Phone Phreaker [*] [*]-------------------------------------------[*]----------------[*]

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Politeness
by logos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dimitri Vulis wrote: >logos <logos(a)c2.net> writes: >> I have been unfailingly polite to you. Do you have it >> within your character to respond to me in kind? >Do you think spelling my last name "Vilus" is polite? I think it was neither polite nor impolite. It was a innocent transposition error. Correcting the error and apologizing were polite, however. Do you disagree? I have already raised the question of your apparent lack of intellectual honesty in that you seem to not apply the same rules of conduct on yourself as you would on others. In English there is the saying, 'what is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander'. I note that you have spelt my name as 'logos'. As it is a proper noun in the usage and I have spelt it with the 'L', I would ask you if you consider this spelling of my name to be polite? Logos out

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Encryption policy challenged
by C Matthew Curtin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,5909,00.html?dtn.head "The Business Software Alliance, a powerful Washington trade organization, warned the White House that its encryption policy will fail if the government does not turn to the industry for guidance." blah blah blah ... Interesting how these polite requests from the SBA, et al, are going for such ridiculously low goals. Being able to export 56-bit symmetric cipher products... Why in the world go for such a low number when that is the absolute *best* that you can possibly get? And with such a small difference between 56 and 40 bits, there isn't really any room to haggle. Duh. -- Matt Curtin cmcurtin(a)research.megasoft.com Megasoft, Inc Chief Scientist http://www.research.megasoft.com/people/cmcurtin/ I speak only for myself. Hacker Security Firewall Crypto PGP Privacy Unix Perl Java Internet Intranet

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Intellectual dishonesty
by logos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dimitri Vulis wrote: > > LOGOS <logos(a)c2.net> writes: > > > > Yes, that and other catagorizations which are > > irrelevant to the primary focus of this list. > It's funny that you should say this, since Tim May and other prominent > "cypher punks" devote so much attention to their "enemies'" ethnicity and > religion. Recall the attacks on "crazy Russians", "immigrants who abuse > American freedoms", the recent attack on Hispanics, the attacks on Jews, > the attacks on Mormons... Yes I do recall some of those statements. Since you feel that those 'attacks' were inappropriate, is it not intellectually dishonest to engage in such 'attacks' yourself? If it was wrong for them, how can it be right for you? If your age, sex, sexual preference, race, ethnicity, mother tongue, nationality, etc. are irrelevant to the discussions on this list, what possible justification is there for you to raise such issues in my case? I wrote: > > In any case, it is a good example of the informal logical > > fallacy of 'over generalization'. As I understand it, there > > are circa 1000 people subscribed to Cypherpunks. To paint > > an entire group with such a characterization is both > > illogical and unfair. I also question your use of the To which you replied: > What about painting entire ethnic or religion groups, as Timmy May does? This is truly a non-sequitor. I am sure you know better than this. Tim May is responsible for his actions; you are responsible for yours. Taken to it's logical conclusion, if Tim were to murder a random Russian immigrant, you would be justified in killing a random native American. As I said before, you are obviously too smart to seriously entertain such an irrational viewpoint. Thus it is difficult to draw any conclusion other then that you are rationalizing your inappropriate behaviour. > You sound like someone who doesn't read this list, but only "reads the > logs" and sees the complaints from the likes of Arsen... Actually, I read it quite thoroughly. > I've recently quoted the selected writings of Paul Bradley, most of > which were far more "uncultured; crude; or boorish" that anything I > ever said. For example: [elided] Again, would you please explain the logical basis for committing the same abuses you cite from others? I would think you would seek to distance yourself from such behavior, rather than to exceed it. The inappropriate abuse of the 1000 members of this list by others can in no way excuse their further abuse by you. > > It is obvious to me that you are an intelligent person. > > I am concerned, however, with your apparent intellectual > > dishonesty. It would appear that you know perfectly well > You want intellectual dishonesty - look upstairs from toad.com. No, I want intellectual honesty. But even if I look upstairs from toad.com and find intellectual dishonesty, how would that in any way mitigate your apparent intellectual dishonesty? Are you arguing that one is somehow dependent on, or the result of the other? This makes no sense to me. Does it to you? > > that your posts serve no purpose in the cause of promoting > > privacy through the use of cryptography. It is hard to > > draw any other conclusion then that you are intentionally > > being provocative for the purpose of disrupting the work > > of this list. If this is not so, I apologize, but how > > else can we judge your actions? Please step outside of > > yourself for a moment and give us an honest self-assessment > > of your behavior and the motives behind it. > The work of this list appears to be character assassination. If people like > Paul Bradley and Tim May insist on slandering people and trying to harm > their professional reputations (see the thread on "don't hire" lists), > I will do my best to defend them and their freedom of speech,... The above does not appear to make sense. Did you leave something out? It is unclear to me how rude and provocative personal attacks and broad, unkind generalizations about Cypherpunk list members defends freedom of speech, protects privacy or promotes cryptography. Would you please explain the rationale behind your actions? Logos out

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Fan mail from John Gilmore and his cronies
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Apparently I'm not the only one not believing that "Logos" did not misspell both my first name and my last name just "accidentally". >Received: (from bin@localhost) by zifi.genetics.utah.edu (8.8.3/8.6.9) id AAA02080 for dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com; Thu, 5 Dec 1996 00:04:58 -0700 >Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 00:04:58 -0700 >Message-Id: <199612050704.AAA02080(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu> >To: dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com >From: nobody(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu (Anonymous) >Comments: Please report misuse of this automated remailing service to <complaints(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu> > >You wrote: > >>logos <logos(a)c2.net> writes: >>> I have been unfailingly polite to you. Do you have it >>> within your character to respond to me in kind? >> >>Do you think spelling my last name "Vilus" is polite? > >Polite, no. Accurate, and perhaps a "freudian typo"? YES. > >Let me guess, O proud (if irony impaired) kook: > >You're now an authority on on-line manners? > > > No. Logos thinks s/he is. :-)

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Why Cryptography is harder than it looks?
by Brent Cunningham 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Can you please either: 1) email me a copy; or 2) give me a pointer as to where I can get a copy; of Bruce Schneier's paper on "Why Cryptography is harder than it looks?" Much appreciated. - Brent Check out the Network Computing review of Entrust: www.nwc.com Brent Cunningham Nortel Secure Networks Post Office Box 190 Ramona, California 92065 Tel: 619 788-7676 Fax: 619 788-9696 Email: bc1(a)entrust.com www.nortel.com/entrust

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No Subject
by Clark E. Satter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

unsuscribe cypherpunks >X48186 >NC-ITG When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.

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FW: Intellectual dishonesty
by Butler, Scott 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Timmy May wrote: > >>P.S. I certainly hope this "Logos" nym is not who I suspect it is, as this >>will surely end our Real World friendship. A fucking bozo. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >^^^ > >Now ... now Timothy. If there is anyone reading this message in the U.K..... Can you remember a television series featuring Ronnie Corbet.. "SORRY" TIMOTHY ! Cheers Scott :-D > > > >

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[crypto] Avatar Protection?
by Ryan Russell/SYBASE 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A graphic-designer friend of mine and I were talking about VRML avatars, and custom design work, and could he offer a service designing them etc... His worry is that since everyone in the same virtual environment as his customer would see the designer avatar, wouldn't they also be able to easily rip off his work? (or his customer's property, take your pick.) I wasn't sure...it seems to me that I read something vaguely along these lines for a cryptography protocol of some sort.. The problem is this: Is there a way for a user to "view" the client's avatar (and in this sense, the user usually has to receive a copy of the code to render the avatar and render it on the local machine) but not save a copy? Assume that a client with no save feature is not a viable option...too easy to work around. I suppose an analogy would be: Is there a way for a person to see the plaintext, but not record it? I think that question really answers itself - no. How about alternatives? If the server of the environment only renders "views" (say, certain angles, or a bitmap) of the avatar, rather than sending the description file? Any other thoughts? Ryan

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Re: [crypto] Avatar Protection?
by AJ Barrett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:13 PM 12/4/96 -0500, e$pam wrote: <snip> This sounds like a good argument for the crypto "watermark" idea that was discussed a few times earlier on the list. I think it goes something like this: The document/avatar/code/whatever has a crypto identifier embedded in it that can be extracted to verify ownership. Perhaps a good analogy might be a steganographic application. > The problem is this: Is there a way for a user to "view" the client's > avatar (and in this sense, the user usually has to receive a copy > of the code to render the avatar and render it on the local machine) > but not save a copy? Assume that a client with no save feature > is not a viable option...too easy to work around. Yep. Even the "eyes only" setting in PGP is no good if the recipient is savvy enough to cut and paste the plaintext to the clipboard. -- Sincerely, AJ Barrett <abarrett(a)checkfree.com> Product Analyst CheckFree Corporation: The Way Money Moves http://www.checkfree.com

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