December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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re: Moderation, Tim, Sandy, me, etc * Reputation Capital
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I found this post from Mr Gilmore deeply disturbing, and I thought I'd take this chance to, as someone recently said, "Fly with the Eagles." John Gilmore said: >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. Careful. The statistics you are throwing around here are misleading. So if 1350, say, subscribers were subscribed to an unmoderated cypherpunks list, what would that tell you? As has been pointed out, beaten to death, and generally repeated: there are already filtered c'punks lists. By filtering the main list, you are just making your own life difficult and corrupting the reputation capital of "cypherpunks", and the results are far from conclusive. >all I want is something that works. The cypherpunks list was unusable >for this kind of discussion, only a month ago. It's usable now. > >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. Again, maybe that 99% is trying to tell you something? Maybe there is some provocation for this outpouring of "emotional flamage." Also, here you claim that the s/n ratio is worse than before, but above you said that the "moderation" has made the list usable. These two statements seem contradictory. >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 Not a useful option? Why not? If there aren't any ideas left in this community, I'm with Lucky. Pull the plug. >gratifying. You-all remind me of a passage from Booker T. >Washington's book _Up From Slavery_, describing what happened on the >night that news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached the South: <quote snipped> >Most of the people on the list haven't bothered to face that freedom. >Your de-facto "leaders" have faced it for you. It is a more serious "You clearly don't take your freedom seriously. Now try a month without it." >Start a mailing list on another site! Move this list to somewhere! >Create and nurture an alt group! Make an independent moderated list My problem with this is that you are currently holding the reputation capital tied up in the name "cypherpunks" hostage. If hosting this discussion forum has grown so tiring, then you are free to pull the plug in a heartbeat. I've heard a few even go so far as to ask "what's in a name" when others get so upset about the list called "cypherpunks" being moderated. Well, I'll tell you. Reputation capital. Thats why so many lurkers have waded through the muck for so long. I've seen the crown jewels that have surfaced here in the past, and spread the word. "Cypherpunks" was where the action was. It was fast and loose and inhabited by a prolific core of sharp minds. Old memes die hard, as is evidenced every time we see a warning about the "Goodtimes Virus." >The experiment will be over in a few weeks. Who's going to take over >deciding how to run the list, and running it? As I said, if you don't want the list anymore, pull the plug. It will pop up again elsewhere and you need never worry about it again. This post from Mr Gilmore certainly is revealing. Perhaps inevitably, he has assumed the traditional paternal role of authority when its motives and/or power to regulate is questioned. Golem

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Re: Moderation, Tim, Sandy, me, etc. * Strong crypto == DES?!
by aaron＠herringn.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I'm glad we're talking about some of the real issues here. > >Tim May said: >> I don't want Sandy Sandfort sitting in judgment on my >> posts, deciding what the Cypherpunks--a group I co-founded for God's >> sake!!!!--are to be allowed to read and what they may not. > >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. [huge snip] If I might make a suggestion: Some people want moderation. That's fine, I've never been very big on letting other people choose what I read, but some people want it. For those who want it, let someone moderate the list for as long as they care to do it. Approved messages get a "X-sandy-approved" header. The responsibility for setting up a filter to toss everything that doesn't have the header is the responsibility of the end user. Toad will need to filter incoming posts to make sure they don't come "pre-approved", but that's the only hole I can think of. Everyone gets all of the Cypherpunks list. Those who want moderation filter the unapproved posts, those who want all of it get all of it. Hopefully, this will make (almost) everyone happy.

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Re: Geiger and long, unreadable lines
by Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> writes: > > Dimitri Vulis <dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com> writes on cpunks-flames: > > Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> writes on cpunks-flames: > > > > > > Mr William H. Geiger III "Author of E-Secure" writes on cpunks: > > > > <sigh> for the benifit of those misfortunate enough to be still working > > > > dumb terminals I have disabled my PGP script until I have time to add a > > > > word wrap routine to it. > > > > > > <sigh> it is you who were demonstrating your ineptitude by spewing > > > 120+ line length postings. Why is it so difficult for you to keep > > > under 80 chars? Would you like some technical assistance? Notice how > > > near every one else apart from yourself is managing to keep under 80 > > > chars? > > > > Notice how near every one else apart from yourself bends over for the NSA, > > and is willing to use a 40-bit key "escrowed" with the feds? Why is it so > > difficult for you to keep under 40 bits? Would you like some technical > > assistance? Why are you setting yourself apart from the Internet community > > that so happily embraces GAK? Why do you desire "privacy" for your traffic > > when everyone else does not? What have you got to hide? Are you looking to > > transmit child pornography, bomb-making instructions, and/or cannabis > > legalization propaganda? We better have a look at your hard disk soon. > > btw Dimitri, a crypto question: > > Diffie-Hellman key generation, there are two main ways of generating > the diffie-hellman prime modulus, method 1: > > p = 2q+1 > > where q is a prime also. > > And method 2: > > p = r.2q+1 > > where q is a prime and r is a randomly generated number. > > With method 1, the security parameter is the size of p in bits (or > size of q, as they are related). > > With method 2, there are two security parameters, size of q and size > of p in bits. > > Method 2 has the advantage that key generation is faster as it is > quicker to generate new random numbers r, than to repeatedly generate > trial prime q as you have to do in method 1. However is the security > weaker in method 2? What size of p and q do you have to use to get > the same security as for same size of p in bits as in method 1? What > should be the relationship between the size of p and q? > > (this isn't cpunks, this is cpunks-flames, so your non-crypto pledge > shouldn't hold, besides Sandy has a stated policy of killing the whole > thread, so I thought it amusing to continue your crypto relevance in > moving on to technical topics rather than political) My advice is to stay clear of any cryptosystem that relies on factoring being hard. I'll send you pointers to some very interesting new work based on the zeta function in private e-mail when I dig it up (please remind me if/when I forget this promise). I'm reluctant to say anything crypto-relevant on this defunct mailing list because last time I did, the moderator repeatedly cited it as evidence that his moderation works. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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RE: Fighting the cybercensor
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:15 PM 1/28/97 -0800, Steve Schear wrote: >>The poor can not hope to match the tyrants bid as they only have 10% of the >>wealth, the household knows that thier participation in an attempt on the >>tyrant will get them killed. Even if the attempt was successful. >>The people from the outside who would benefit from the bounty benefit more >>by taking the tyrants offer and then trying again, i.e. tiger teams. > >I think a hole in your thinking is to assume that the assasins have no >motive other than financial gain. I would submit that there are those that >have the skills, training and a political agenda coherent with the >wagerers, lacking only the financial incentive to make the risks >acceptable. These wetworkers won't consider accepting the bribe of the >rich/powerful In practice, we can't hold out much hope that donations to an AP system from "rich and powerful" people can be identified as such. After all, with the appropriate software I could just as easily make 100, $10 donations as a single $1000 donation. Assuming anonymity held, nobody but the donor knows from where the money came. However, fortunately I don't think it would make any difference in the overall effects. While AP would eliminate the taxation which is commonly thought of as the main way a "rich person" loses assets, in practice it would also shut down the well-hidden systems that allow some people to get rich (or, merely live off somebody else) "unfairly." Government agents come to mind, of course. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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IN%"pdh@best.com",IN%"ichudov@algebra.com",IN%"gnu@toad.com",IN%"ay@got.net
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded with permission: From: IN%"loki(a)infonex.com" "Lance Cottrell" 4-FEB-1997 15:34:25.09 >I would be happy to donate the resources to run Cypherpunks off our system. >We could set up the list provided we were given a list of subscribers. I >assume it would be unmoderated. > -Lance >> Hi. I don't know how much you've been keeping up with >>the discussion on cypherpunks, but there is a current proposal >>to distribute the list onto several different servers. I would >>be willing to pay for 100 subscribers to run on the cyberpass.net >>server, provided that somebody else (e.g., Igor Chudov) set up >>the system initially and was available for assistance later. Any >>problems on your end? >> [...] >> Thanks, >> -Allen

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hoho
by Igor Chudov ＠ home 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

haha

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Re: Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
by pdh＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:22 PM 2/4/1997, Declan McCullagh wrote: > What Vulis and the rest (whom I killfiled long ago) have done is polluted a > common resource, making it unusable for the rest. It's the tragedy of the > commons. When all can speak without limit in a public forum, the drunken > boor can shout everyone else down. I think this analogy is inappropriate for modern communications forums. Mailing lists have the wonderful property that the drunken boor cannot shout everyone else down. This is what is so great about the Net. It is trivial to filter the drunken boor. This cannot be done in a crowded auditorium. Another neat property is the fact that people can't interrupt each other and everybody can "talk" at once. Peter Hendrickson pdh(a)best.com

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A Vote of Silence for Human Gus-Peter
by lwjohnson＠grill.sk.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I want to be the new modernator so anyone who wants me to be it can not send any messages, ok? So any people who dont send messages are voting for me, ok? (If I am modernator I will give everyone free pizza and Schotch.) Ok. Now evceryone vote, ok? Human Gus-Peter

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Re: GAK/KR spin
by Bill Campbell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Steve Schear said: >Several months back there were discussions on the list regarding renaming >the government's key escrow/recovery proposals (KRAP comes to mind). I >think we need something that's catchy and simple (perhaps already familiar) >to understand for the semi-litterate citizen units. I propose we encourage >use of the terms "crippleware" or "crypto crippleware" when refering to the >products limited to their weak crypto and/or key escrow/recovery. Another point on all this that was made by Matt Blaze at the RSA conference (and that I have been making to all my friends) is that Crypto is basically a "solved" problem. The government's efforts to impose GAK is in effect transposing a "solved" problem into an "unsolved" problem - due to the inherent problems with any conceivable GAK "solution". I thought this was a very good case against GAK. =Bill=

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