December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Press URL's from today's Bernstein appeal hearing
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Today's hearing in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals went very well. The judges clearly understood the case -- both the picky legal details, and how it fits into the general social issue of encryption regulation. While we can't predict their decision (or even when it will come out), we are cautiously optimistic. We'll put transcripts of the hearing up on the Web as soon as we get them from the court reporter (in days or weeks). You may want to examine some early press coverage of the hearing at: http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/120997encrypt-bernstein.html http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,17114,00.html http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/zdnn/1208/261695.html (The Times requires a username/password; use "cypherpunks" and "cypherpunks" if you don't want them to track your accesses.) John Gilmore Electronic Frontier Foundation

1 0

Time Magazine on America Online pornospam and Kids Summit
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

********* http://www.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/1997/dom/971215/technology.why_john… .html Time Magazine December 15, 1997 Page 76 AMERICA ONLINE'S LITTLE PROBLEM By Michael D. Lemonick Reported by Bruce van Voorst and Declan McCullagh/Washington If you logged on to America Online last week, you may well have found E-mail waiting from someone you never heard of imploring you to JOIN US AT PINK PUSSY CLUB THE HOTTEST SITE FOR XXX LIVE GIRL SEX SHOWS!! or proclaiming OVER 1,000 EROTIC AND EXOTIC SHOWS!!!!!! CLICK HERE TO ENTER or any of hundreds of similar electronic come-ons. Spam--unsolicited junk E-mail--is perhaps the most irritating feature of online life. Its purveyors use powerful software to "harvest" screen names and then ship out bulk electronic mail bearing sales pitches or get-rich-quick schemes. [...] Other Time features: Bruce Handy on last week's Kids Summit: "Why Johnny Can't Surf": http://www.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/1997/dom/971215/technology.america_… .html Time poll on Are Your Kids Safe Online? http://cgi.pathfinder.com/cgi-bin/gdml2x/game/time/internet

1 0

Re: Remailer Trivia / Re: Singapore & Freedom
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Doesn't Anonymous have a brother, Neal? Isn't he a playwrite, or > author, or something? > Anybody? Neal Coward?

1 0

One for the Good Guys
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Well McAffe has reluctantly pulled out of KRAP. http://www.pgp.com/newsroom/na-kra.cgi - From the wording of the press release they still are unwilling to admit the error of their ways but at least they have realized the fallout from being associated with such an orginization. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a-sha1 Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNIor7o9Co1n+aLhhAQL5lAP+KcogSdFYFLqczIOAiAIaXM0xhPz488VP 9/M2i3JrYq4kxg2gl4TKCIineHewGzKuEutA4xhiP5ITIlRIQ3HWPldURpi1j8RR Qil7AczrynhAvR3SY4/kyWxkLtczLlD+DedXciamAxmvD0jp0QSkez5RqzuEVCMg nJgWK1RzXmY= =MjpK -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

3 2

(no subject)
by Alan Holliday 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1 0

Re: Time Magazine on America Online pornospam and Kids Summit
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On or About 8 Dec 97 at 12:44, Declan McCullagh wrote: > http://www.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/1997/dom/971215/technology.a > merica_onlin.html >From the above: "But parents may have to resort to the crude but effective technique of keeping the computer in public view and looking over the kids' shoulders every once in a while. " What a novel idea, Declan, parental supervision! Who would have thought? Ross =-=-=-=-=-=- Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://ross.adnetsol.com Voice: (408) 259-2795

1 0

Safe Speech
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Blue-Nosed Guardian (Nikki Craft, NJ) December 4, 2000; THURSDAY; ALL EDITIONS SECTION: OPINION; HEADLINE: PEDOPHILES IN THE BIOSPHERE; WE MUST STOP SPOKEN CHILD PORNOGRAPHY EVERYWHERE BYLINE: The Record BODY: The increasing presence of child pornography in spoken communications is a national problem that must be dealt with aggressively and quickly. This is not a free-speech or First Ammendment issue. Child pornography is a crime. We do not tolerate it on our computers, and we should not tolerate it in audiospace. Unfortunately, as a Page One article in the Blue-Nosed Guardian pointed out yesterday, audiospace is tailor-made for the dissemination of child pornography. It allows peophiles instant access to explicit descriptions of childhood sexual activity almost anywhere, and it gives distributors and collectors enough anonymity to avoid getting caught and being prosecuted. Using advanced non-digital technology, two pedophiles can meet almost anywhere, and exchange explicit descriptions of childhood sexual activity, with little fear of detection. Phrases like "Timmy, aged 7, has a stiffie" and "Little Mary's muffin swelled and moistened when she saw little Timmy's cute red knob" can be exchanged with ease vicariously victimizing inocent children worldwide by transforming them into sexual objects for pedophiles' selfish gratification. In fact, the ease of communicating descriptions of childhood sexual activity through the spoken word may actually have broadened the audience for child pornography. And law enforcement officials worry that this may lead to increased child abuse, because American parents might actually begin to believe that guilt-free sex-positive messages are good for children, in lieu of the normal beatings and state-mandated psychotherapy. Vice President and famed child-rearing expert Dr. James Dobson has been leading a campaign to make sound waves safe for children. This week, he announced a new partnership between cities and the Justice Department effort to crack down on child pornography, and a toll-free hotline where people may report any neighbors heard discussing the sexuality of minors in terms other than those used in Surgeon General Phyllis Schlafly's "Innocence and Abstinence" report. But law enforcement officials, sound wave experts, and child advocates say it's not that easy, by any means. Even if landlords, businesses, and professionals cooperate in monitoring all speech uttered by persons on their premises, there are hundreds of small conversations which take place in other locations, where people are loathe to police others, because of liability concerns, or because they consider it to be a waste of time. The Blue-Nosed Guardian's article also pointed out that most law enforcement officials are not knowlegable enough to track down child pornography distributors, who are experts at whispering spoken descriptions of child sexual activity and finding new ways to conceal their communications from onlookers. Law enforcement officials may also lack the manpower needed to track down pedophiles. "If we want to break into someones house and install recording equipment," one investigator said, "we actually have to go in front of a judge and get a warrant." Child advocates say they hope to eliminate such "loopholes for pedophiles" in the future. Many more "audiocops" are needed at the federal, state, and local levels, who have the expertise to stay ahead of spoken communication, and much more manpower and training is needed. In New Jersey, state Sen. stupid fuck Andrew Ciesla, has introduced a bill which would set aside $400,000,000 of money stolen from the taxpayers for a special unit to investigate spoken child pornography, and create a 24-hour toll-free state hot line for people to turn in their neighbors. Alerting the authorities is a key component of this crackdown, and Dr. Dobson also announced a national "AudioTip" hotline to report any comments about childhood sexuality which might be overheard. Dr. Dobson also took the opportunity to plug his new book, "Dare to Discipline III: Electrotorture and Enemas." The Vice President is to be commended for seeking ways to stop these ugly predators. But this effort must be more than just lip service. It must result in all Americans understanding that children have no sexual feelings, and engage in no sexual behavior prior to age 18 unless they have been corrupted by pedophiles, and that abstinence is the expected behavior of those over 18, before entering into a stable marriage which can only be terminated by the death of one of the partners. In the meantime, intense pressure should be brought to bear on the non-mute citizen units, and those who supervise them, to make a huge dent in this particularly vile audiocrime, through aggressive self-policing and frequent government-sponsored self-criticism sessions. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

1 0

Re: "Kids summit" -- CNNfn interview
by bureau42 Anonymous Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 27 Nov 97 at 13:12, Declan McCullagh wrote: > [I'd still like to hear more on the inner workings of next > week's "kids on the Net" summit from our friends at CDT who > are sponsoring it. The lineup of speakers includes Janet > Reno, Al Gore, and the secretaries of commerce and education. > All joining together to Protect the Children! --Declan] Here is the piece about the CNN show transposed to another, accurately analagous context to show the utter idiocy of what's going on. What's really sad, what's really scary, is how _little_ I actually had to transpose to do this. All I changed were the occurrences of "online," "software," and "Surf." I modified a couple of other related words just to comport with the shift of the metaphor from online to streets/public places. Many paragraphs remain unaltered because they contain none of the key words. For credible transposition, imagine that the "tools" they're discussing are something like a headset, blinders, and body armor that kids can be made to wear while in public to protect them from the realities of public places. Ask yourself how different that would be from the assinine blocking software being discussed in the original interview, and how intelligent is it to presume to think one can mold all public places to be as safe and comfy as the family living room. These people must be on very strong drugs. This is also an indirect statement on the utter superficiality of present day "news" coverage. The original interview _says_ virtually nothing, communicates virtually no facts. It is really just an emotional rallying and back-patting with little discernable in the way of contextual detail. PropagandaMongerII ---------- > HEADLINE: Kids & Public Streets > JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNNfn ANCHOR, ASPHALT JAM: Next week family > advocates, educators and industry leaders are coming together to > discuss ways to keep children safe on public streets. One of the > sponsors of the Streets Summit is Curbwatch, a company that makes > blocking tools to help parents and teachers filter out > objectionable street content. > Joining me now from Stanford, California to discuss the goals > of the summit is Michael Sears. He is the president of Curbwatch. > Michael it's great to have you on ASPHALT JAM. Welcome to you. > MICHAEL SEARS, PRESIDENT, CURBWATCH: Thank you, a pleasure to > be here. > DEFTERIOS: First of all, let's discuss how this summit came > about. Was it a building movement that finally crescendo. > SEARS: I think it is. It's actually the outgrowth of what we > did last June with President Clinton and Vice President Gore. In > fact June and July time frame the SDA (Streets Decency Act) was > overturned. The White House decided to take the initiative and > asked the industry to get together to see what we can do to > actually empower kids and enable kids on the streets. > DEFTERIOS OK. What is the happy medium here, Michael because > that's what everybody is really looking for because the Street > Decency Act did stumble and we had people on both side of the > debate wanting to stake out their territory. What is , in your > view, is the center ground? > SEARS: Well, the debate will continue, but the center ground > really is that it's all about kids. What we're talking about doing > here is bringing together industry and law enforcement and public > policy people and talking about to empower kids on streets and give > them effective tools. Effective tools that are also very easy to > use. > The idea behind that is how can kids actually get onto the > streets, learn, research, discover, play and do it in a really > enriching environment. But also we realize that there are a lot of > safety concerns in public places. That's probably what we're going > to talk about primarily. > DEFTERIOS: How about the ACLU, they were raising concerns > about being blocked out here or filtration or censorship on the > extreme. How do you deal with that side of - the people on that > side of the debate? > SEARS: It's a slippery slope. The idea here is do we block, > companies like Curbwatch, do we block content in public places. > The idea once again is we target your typical 12 year old in the > US. If that 12 year old should see something or if that 12 years > old needs to discover something we try to make sure that we have > all of our technology, all of our processes in place to insure that > information comes forward. Such as, we don't block the idea of > breast, for instance, because breast could be talking about a > chicken recipe. It could be talk about breast cancer. However, if > it's a sexually explicit depiction or expression of that word > that's where you come in and use filtering tools to block. > DEFTERIOS: There's another side to this, of course, that kids > are often much more street savvy than their parents. How do you > over that hurdle? > SEARS: That's a major hurdle. In fact we're talking about > empowering kids with effective tools, but those tools have to be > very easy to use and the ease of use isn't really for the kids > because the kids know how to do this stuff. They know what's on the > streets. They know what's out there and they know how to get > there. What we really provide are the easy to use tools for mom > and dad. So mom and dad pointing and clicking and turning switches > on and off very easily can really control the family's environment. > DEFTERIOS: As you know, this is a political hot potato for > President Clinton because he didn't want to seem extreme on both > side and he would like industry to work it out. When it is all > said and done, Michael, what is the solution here? > SEARS: Well, the solution that this market is all about is > called parental control. Curbwatch started the market about three > years ago and the word parental control itself was important not > only because it's the technology, but because of those first two > words, parental control. Mom and dad have to be involved. Mom and > dad have to engage not only to help the kids in public places, but > also make sure that in street conversations or with graffiti or > with explicit pictures they can really sit down and talk to the > kids and moderate what their kids are doing. We're just a tool. > DEFTERIOS: This is not a government. Not to interrupt you, > but we're almost out of time here. But this is, you're saying, not > government intervention then. > SEARS: Absolutely. > DEFTERIOS: The technology is out there to let the families > tackle this on their own. > SEARS: That on and off switch should be in the hands of moms > and dads not the government. > DEFTERIOS: OK, great. How about your market share before we > let you go tonight? How are you faring against your competition? > SEARS: I think we're doing very well. All the buzz that's > been happening over the last couple of months has helped our shares > as well as our competitors. We've shipped millions of copies, 7.2 > last July. We haven't done the survey lately, but we're clearly in > the tens of millions right now. > DEFTERIOS: OK. It's great to have you. > SEARS: Great to be here. Thanks very much. > DEFTERIOS: And have a nice Thanksgiving holiday. > SEARS: Same to you. Take care. > DEFTERIOS: My pleasure. Michael Sears, president of Curbwatch, > joining us from Stanford, California.

1 0

Message
by Mixmaster 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Steve Schear wrote: >Nerthus wrote: >>Might be a bit of a stretch, but I think this is because money today is >>inherently a liability, that is a debt that someone, somewhere has promised >>to pay back. > >You've got this all backwards. The bearer certificates (paper money) issued >by governments is an interest-free loan by those holding the paper to the >issuer. This is true, but it is only part of the picture. The paper currency issuer (the central bank) is enjoying seigniorage, that is -- in the case of the US - -- the Federal Reserve is collecting revenue from the interest earned on the outstanding paper dollars. This earned interest is given to the Treasury and accounted for as revenue for the federal government. However, this tells us nothing about the currency's real worth. We need to look deeper to find the source of the paper currency's value. When the US government wants to create money, it issues debt instruments such as T-Bills to the Fed or to a commercial bank. The bank then credits the government's deposit (checking) account for the face value of the T-Bill. The bank believes it will collect this money back plus interest in a certain amount of time. The government can then ask the Fed to issue some paper cash in exchange for the deposit currency (new paper is then created). The T-Bill is nothing but a promise by the federal government to pay back a debt. The government has taken a loan from a bank and promises to pay it back in 1,5,10 or 30 years with interest. The money to pay it back comes directly from the tax revenues the government collects from its citizens. Thus paper currency is based on the debt saddled upon future generations of citizens/taxpayers. Interestingly, this is not much different than John Q. Public getting cash advances on his credits cards for a few years and then wondering why he is $25k in the hole and growing at 18% per annum. Many people, especially politicians, always go for the short term gain, regardless of the long term consequences. Debt-based currency (primarily a 20th century phenomenon) has ushered in a new era of political and financial irresponsibility. Eventually the debts must either be reneged on or paid off. When that time finally comes, neither option will paint a pretty picture. Nerthus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNIxg7Ra1d3zm4nqOEQJnnwCfaOLKaiCiYuqUJRSVBLc1Q6aZ4VIAoNJY EdB96VwVlxlcI9u3Glnwjf1y =vMJq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: Complete package for Cantsin Protocol No. 2
by Charlie Comsec 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Steffen Zahn <zahn(a)berlin.snafu.de> wrote: > I have put together a package for Cantsin 2 Signatures, to > generate the keys, sign documents and check signatures. > > Prerequisites are: > > perl Version 5 > libgmp Version 2.* > a C compiler > currently /dev/random for generation of keys and signatures > > precompiled binaries are provided for Linux-ELF (libc-5.*), if you have > that you don't need libgmp. > > Pick it up from http://www.snafu.de/~zahn/cantsin.tar.gz (70 KByte) Have you got a URL I can check out which explains this protocol and how it's superior to, let's say, PGP? Thanks. - --- Finger <comsec(a)nym.alias.net> for PGP public key (Key ID=19BE8B0D) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBNIwWngbp0h8ZvosNAQG9CQf+M9d05odxcm4s0D+hQltI5XbXFIE3iCzx Bjl6n7Bs0rrs/oCy3goxTjGwrwrYlDNa7bNYpnXBPDGbRiZ2UE9vGSNY1B4aa/NL vSwjlpG2chPp9rt5JEHiKV2EgUg0zvnK53L+wT4a2EB8xDkBIzcIbdTjThQqegnu IxKD8oGXwloq8hHOxZO9kCqGiUrbUTbLsY2Swt7clYwxnFGL54JS9mw9nlUCgv8m /MKU9w+RWBLzvuQv3yNK4VaTqyu/PJ8hm/9iMLCqiiF6Rghs+8euUVUSseeLJDrc ZApkfzt/JNiu58DLpt1pI3ZReR4lCEVHjbOID/WyOPeVSKdnRrkyug== =q1Hg -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

2 1