December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Getting into MIT is impossible
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Erland van Lidth de Jeude is a MIT grad. He played the big badass in "Stir Crazy." Computer science major, BTW. At 07:37 PM 2/3/97 -0800, Clint Barnett wrote: >wasn't Dolph Lundgren an MIT grad? I seem to remember something about him >having a degree in Chemical Engineering or something along those lines. > >clint barnett >lord of the cosmos >emily carr institute > >On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, Anonymous wrote: > >> >> >> According to Rick Osborne: >> >> "I disagree and can speak from experience. I was denied admission to MIT >> even thought I had a 3.82 GPA, 1440 SAT (one try), and had taken 9 AP tests >> with two 5's, four 4's, two 3's, and one 2. As for being well-rounded, I >> was on several academic teams, sang in Chorus, acted and stage managed in >> Drama, and played Tennis." >> >> People get into MIT--or don't get into MIT--for lots of reasons. Most >> intelligent people apply to several schools, knowing that admissions >> practices are subject to the vagaries of reality. >> >> In my case, my SATs were about 1500, with some 800s in achievement tests. >> And the usual bullshit high school clubs, political offices, etc. etc. I >> was accepted by MIT, but not by Caltech. I didn't lose any sleep over the >> way things turned out. >> >> And I decided not to go to MIT, either. >> >> "The only thing I didn't have that the next MIT applicant had was money. I >> made the mistake of letting them know that I was dirt poor and would need >> full aid/grants/etc, and to quote "The Great Escape" it was "Zzzt! To the >> Russian front!"" >> >> My guess is that "other factors" were involved. >> >> I noted with some interest, but little surprise, that the guy claiming MIT >> required a 4.0 GPA and a 1600 combined SAT score could barely spell, and >> had major problems making a coherent point. Methinks this is why MIT >> rejected him, not his lack of a "1600." >> >> ">For what it's worth, I wanted to go to MIT my sophomore year in high >> >school, too >> >> "Lucky you. It had been a dream of mine since I was an annoying >> overachiever of 6. Sux to be white trash, I guess." >> >> MIT offered me a substantial economic aid package, in the form of loans, >> grants, and various campus jobs. What does this tell you? >> >> "MIT may be a great school, but they tend to be snooty assholes for the most >> part. (DISCLAIMER: Not all MIT grads/attendees are necessarily "snooty >> assholes", I'm just saying that I've yet to meet one that wasn't.) >> >> I've known about a dozen or so MIT grads, and only one of them was a snooty >> asshole, and it was a _she_, one of the first MIT women grads (and she was >> _very_ impressed by this). >> >> Most MIT grads are perfectly reasonable. >> >> Xanthar >> >> >> >> >> -- >> > > > Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

1 0

Silly Americans
by Rick Osborne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

________________________ R i c k O s b o r n e ________________________ I was reading through the news when I stumbled across a thread that made a very good point. The original poster was talking about the UniSys GIF patent, and this was the reply: >Broaden your view. I can do anything I want with the GIF format without >asking _anyone_, and so can almost everyone in the world - except those >poor americans who chose to live under a "broken" patent law which >allows protecting _algorithms_. Totally silly. It brings up an interesting point, especially when applied to ITAR/EAR. On a philosophical note, why *do* we allow the government to regulate algorithms? (Implementations, I can understand, but *algorithms*?) _________ o s b o r n e @ g a t e w a y . g r u m m a n . c o m _________ "A poem: a story in meter or rhyme." 'Ahh. `There once was a man from Nantucket ... `' "You've been talking to Garibaldi again, haven't you?"

1 0

Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote: > I'm afraid you have been a charter member of my killfile. Any comments > you may have made, I missed. Since they weren't about crypto anyway, but > about list moderation (a dull topic, IMHO), I can accept that. I never commented about crypto? Why, I even wrote a crypto program, which few on this list have done, BTW. I hope Sandy allows this on the big list, since Michael has penned a message about me, but said that he won't allow my reply to him. Nobody has to tell me (or probably anyone else either) that they have killfiled me (or anyone else). All they have to do is ignore me (or anyone else), and there's no further problem, plus, as a bonus, it makes for less noise on the list. What say, Michael?

1 0

Re: Moderation, Tim, Sandy, me, etc. * Strong crypto == DES?!
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"gnu(a)toad.com" "John Gilmore" 4-FEB-1997 12:20:22.10 >Tim, the Cypherpunks have chosen to follow Sandy's lead for this >month. I'll admit I made it easy for them, but the results are >conclusive. There are 1311 addresses in the cypherpunks list today; >42 in the unedited list; and 19 in the flames list. Forty people >cared enough to read every posting; the other thousand either wanted >to try the experiment -- or didn't care enough to send an email >message. Which, as we all know, is a very low threshold. You're making an invalid assumption... namely that people who stayed on the moderated list are neccessarily wanting it to be the main list. This isn't the case with me, for instance. I'd also point out that some of us - including me - were taking the time to take a look at what happened with the moderated list. On the one hand, it did result in a decrease in the trash messages... on the other hand, it also drove away 1+ good posters (TCMay for one). As I've said before, I might wind up going with Sandy's (or some other) filtered list. But changing the name (effectively, to cypherpunks-unedited) was a bad idea. >I'm definitely bugged by the community's attitude toward my >"censorship". Rather than being glad that someone, anyone, was doing >something about the major problem on the list, 99% of the reaction was >to create even more ill-considered, emotional flamage. *I* didn't >make the signal/noise get worse at that point -- *you-all* did. I can see how you might ignore objections from those who did make the signal/noise get worse... but from those who didn't? _I_ tried to help you by letting you & Sandy know when something was going wrong. >Perhaps at that point I should have shut down the list, as Lucky is >now suggesting. "Asking the list what to do" was clearly not a useful >option. Sandy cared enough about the community to make some concrete >suggestions to me about how to get the list back on track. They >involved a lot more work than the previous setup. I told him if he >was willing to do the work, we could try it. As Dale suggests, I >wasn't about to waste my time reading the whole list in real time and >passing judgement on the postings. Sandy was, for a month. I (and others, I believe) are gratified by y'all's attempts to help. I just think that you went about it the wrong way. >Start a mailing list on another site! Move this list to somewhere! [...] >The experiment will be over in a few weeks. Who's going to take over >deciding how to run the list, and running it? Would you be willing to help in starting up a distributed list? That would appear to solve at least some of the toad.com problems (keeping it running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) with which I am sympathetic. >If you want to help organize what I'll call the `progressive crypto >community', for lack of a better term, then please do. Otherwise, in >the immortal words of Lazarus Long, "PIPE DOWN!". I'm willing to help the _libertarian_ crypto community, to the limit allowed by my available resources (I'm a grad student). Organize? I'm not so sure to what degree that's helping. Progressive? I'm not a liberal. Slight but meaningful difference in terms. >PS: Can we talk about crypto too? It's clear from the last few days >of press releases that the pro-GAK forces are again working to confuse >novices into thinking that two very different things are the same >thing. Last time it was "public key infrastructure" and "key >recovery". This time it's "strong crypto" and "56-bit DES". What >should we do about this? Educate the public? The public won't listen until 56-bit DES is broken; then, they can be told that "somebody broke the cryptography used by banks" and they might listen. In other words, what can be done is supporting DES-breaking efforts (ideally, via the collection of different possible keys and their indicators, as someone had mentioned earlier - sorry, I'm a biologist, not a mathematician, so I've forgotten the actual terms. It was something that would essentially enable the near-instant breaking of _any_ DES code after the competion of the project. My apologies if I've gotten mixed up on this). -Allen

2 1

Panel - Copyright and the Net: Is Legislation the Answer?
by Dave Banisar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Copyright and the Net: Is Legislation the Answer? ACM97: The Next 50 Years of Computing Sunday March 2 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM Fairmont Hotel San Jose, CA Sponsored by the U.S. Public Policy Committee of ACM (USACM) Panelists: Hank Barry, Pam Samuelson, Mark Stefik, Gio Wiederhold Moderator: Barbara Simons, Chair, USACM o What is the role of copyright in all-electronic publication world? Will it be replaced by contract law? o Can the needs of authors who want to publish for renown (academics) and authors that want to publish for pay (entertainment etc) be handled in one mechanism? o Should browsing on the World Wide Web of full copyrighted texts be made illegal because people make temporary copies in their computer's memory when they look at a web page? o Should online service providers, including libraries and universities, have to monitor user accounts in order to enforce copyright laws? o Should firms that compile data have intellectual property rights so that scientists and news reporters can't use the data without permission or payments? o How should existing differences in national copyright be handled in a networked world where national boundaries and are little more than a speedbump on the information superhighway? o Does technological protection for copyrighted works inherently undermine fair use ? These and related issues will confront the 105th Congress in the coming year. They will also be examined by this panel, which will discuss controversies surrounding the extension of copyright law to deal with cyberspace. Examples include: How does proposed legislation reflect the net? How much influence have lobbyists for the entertainment industry had in writing legislation? What should be the role of professional societies in analyzing policy initiatives? We will discussed legislation and international treaties that have been proposed by the White House. We will also examine both technical and legal approaches to problems created by the net, as well as how various approaches might impact the science, technology, and business communities. A significant amount of time will be allowed for audience interaction in the discussion. Biographical sketches Hank Barry is member of the firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and is Chairman of the firm's Interactive New Media practice group. He represents publicly and privately-held companies in the multimedia, software, computer, on-line and entertainment industries. Hank has authored numerous articles in the fields of venture capital, interactive media and technology transactions. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Cyberspace Lawyer. Hank received his law degree in 1983 from Stanford University, where he was managing editor of the Stanford Law Review. Pamela Samuelson is a Professor at the University of California at Berkeley where she holds a joint appointment at the School of Information Management and Systems and in the School of Law. She has written and spoken extensively on the challenges posed by digital technologies for the law, particularly in the field of intellectual property. She is a Contributing Editor of Communications of the ACM and a Fellow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Mark Stefik is a principal scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. At Stanford University he received a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics in 1970 and a Ph.D. in computer science in 1980. His current research activities are in approaches for creating, protecting, and reusing digital property. Stefik is review editor for the international journal "Artificial Intelligence" and has authored two books on AI-related topics and a third book on the Internet. Gio Wiederhold is a professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, with courtesy appointments in Medicine and Electrical Engineering. His research focuses on large-scale software construction, specifically applied to information systems, the protection of their content, often using knowledge-based techniques. Wiederhold has authored and coauthored more than 250 published papers and reports on computing and medicine. Wiederhold received a degree in Aeronautical Engineering in Holland in 1957 and a Ph. D. in Medical Information Science from the University of California at San Francisco in 1976. He has been elected fellow of the ACMI, the IEEE and the ACM. He currently serves on the ACM Publications Board, focusing on the move to electronic publication. Barbara Simons received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley in 1981. She joined the Research Division of IBM in 1980; she is currently working in IBM Global Services. Simons is a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and ACM. In 1995 she was selected as one of 26 Internet "Visionaries" by c|net, and in 1994 Open Computing included her in its list of the top 100 women in computing. She was awarded the 1992 CPSR Norbert Wiener Award for Professional and Social Responsibility in Computing. Simons founded and chairs USACM, the ACM U. S. Public Policy Committee.

1 0

Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:14 PM 2/3/97 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote: >Several people have also commented on this, that their filters are still >working overtime. As it should be, really, as no moderator can make the >list match any given person's preferences. > >(Personally, I'm not even convinced filters are essential. It takes no >longer than 5 seconds to glance at a message and know whether to scrap it >or not. Granted, it takes a bit of time to download, especially at slower >modem speeds. But whether Sandy's censorship is producing any significant >"savings" depends on how many messages he's sorting into each >pile...clearly if 20% or less of the total posts are being filtered out, >then the savings are ignorable. That might not be quite true, or at least not complete. Another effect is that the new structure of the list may deter some of the flamers from posting, when they don't think their notes will be seen on the moderated list. In any case, however, I agree that spam and trash are easy to filter out. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

1 0

Re: BA Crypto Machine Photos
by azur＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>BTW, does anyone know the meaning of 'order wire mode' in the context of a >crypto broadcast? This mode is found in the KWR-37 online crypto >receiver. Please send all photo requests or responses via private E-mail. If it means the same thing as in the telecom industry, its an out-of-band (often analof) channel between two locations connected by wide-band (e.g., T1) facilities. Its primary purpose is to provide service personnel, at each end point, the ability to converse with one another while performing work on that link. --Steve

1 0

Announcing ZDNet Exclusives!
by announce＠lists.zdnet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--------------------------------------------------------- ZDNET ANNOUNCEMENT 2/3/97 --------------------------------------------------------- Greetings from ZDNet! We're pleased to announce a FREE gift to our loyal community of Web users: the launch of ZDNet Exclusives, the Web's first FREE collection of innovative software utilities, developed for our members by ZDNet and its renowned Software Library team! ZDNet Exclusives require no registration fees; they are absolutely FREE to all the members of the ZDNet community. Over 50 programs are available for download right now at: http://www.hotfiles.com/exclusiv.html The new ZDNet Exclusives collection features many invaluable utilities to make computing easier as well as some entertaining programs to make it more fun; including: *CookieMaster* Enables users to identify, view and opt to delete the Web cookies placed on their hard drives by the Web sites they've visited. *Gates Does Windows 95* An all-time favorite screen saver that depicts Bill Gates washing windows. *Shoebox PIM* An easy way to organize and store all of that personal information you'd be likely to save in a shoebox. * Plus, many more!* Log on to ZDNet and start downloading your FREE ZDNet Exclusives today! Let us know what you think. We have more ZDNet Exclusives under development and would appreciate your feedback. ---Preston Gralla Executive Editor The ZDNet Software Library ________________________________________________ ZDNet Announcements are periodic notices of new features, special events and free offers available to members of ZDNet. --To subscribe to ZDNet Announcements, please send mail to: announce-on(a)lists.zdnet.com You can leave the subject and body blank. --To unsubscribe to ZDNet Announcements, please send mail to: announce-off(a)lists.zdnet.com You can leave the subject and body blank. ________________________________________________ Powered by Mercury Mail: http://www.merc.com

1 0

Unofficial DES Challenge Clearinghouse
by Joel McNamara 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Until someone comes up with an automated method of keyspace allocation for the DES challenge (and maybe even after), I've decided to run the Unofficial DES Challenge Clearinghouse. This Web page will list keyspace that's already been searched (or is planned to be searched) with links to any brute force utilities. If you clear part of the keyspace, e-mail me the range, and I'll update the page. http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/des.html Yes, I agree that a trusted, verifiable method of keyspace allocation and reporting needs to be put in place, but in the meantime, this rather simple page will hopefully reduce some duplication of effort. Joel

1 0

bye.bye
by Bjorn Asman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have to agree that Mr. Tim C May have a big point. Even if i didn't like all the things Mr. May wrote so could i read it, and that is the point i think Mr. Sandford missed. That is to have a list that is a "living" list. You have to have all the people giving their chanche to say what tehy like even if they dont are "mentaly healthy".I have one more thing to "say". Namely to say bye.bye. to this list. I have never posted to this list, i have only read it, because i like the freedom in it (free speech and so on), but if i have to change my subscription to unedit-cypherpunks just to "hear" the freedom of speech, i rather just say no and unsubscribe. bye.bye bjorn.asman(a)infodesign.se.org Roerstrandsgatan 7a 41703.Goeteborg Phone +46-(0)31-221056 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The subjects are cyborg, nature is coyote, and the geography is Elsewhere -Donna Haraway ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 0