December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Bad govt represents bad people?
by Rachel_P._Kovner＠gorgias.ilt.columbia.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

perry(a)imsi.com wrote: >Actually, as public choice economic theory has shown, bad government >tends to be the inevitable result of the evolutionary pressures on >government and government officials. This is not to say that some >government programs are not occassionally well run or that some >government officials are not legitimately "trying their best", but >that the pressure on the whole system is to go towards maximum >corruption, just as the evolutionary pressure on organisms is to only >follow survival-prone strategies. and David Koontz wrote: >Since when is the victim responsible for the crime? I would agree with you that there is a natural evolutionary trend towards bad government - however, I do not think of this process as inevitable. The "eternal vigilance" quote I cited was merely my way of saying that "bad government" -will- come about if people do not protect their rights, because of this 'evolutionary pressure' of which you speak. Therefore, it's very important for a society to resist this evolutionary pressure. If they do not, their actions will contribute to the rise of bad government. I'm not really interested in throwing blame around, but I would say that those who do not resist 'bad government' are, in some small way, responsible for it's rise. There will always be people out there who will attempt to encroach on our liberties - sometimes they will succeed, sometimes they will fail. It depends on how much support they have and how much resistance they encounter. It is up to the people of a country to resist bad government - otherwise, although they will be the victims of bad government, they will have contributed to bringing it upon themselves. rk ---------------------------------------------- Delivered by the NLTL Internet Gateway

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Revisionist History of the US....:(
by Jim choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, I am not going to name names but I would like to address the comment that several folks have made (or agreed with) that the US has gone 200 years w/o a major upheaval. Maybe I am taking a alternate History than you folks but I believe the Civil War can be considered a major internal upheaval and it occured 4 score and 7 years (87 years) after the birth of our country. Since then we have also had the civil rights upheaval (if you don't want to consider deaths of folks like MLK major that is your business) in the late 50's and early 60's as well. Especially when you consider the political and social turmoil that occured because of the Vietnam War. What I find most interesting about this chronology is that the upheavals occur approximately every hundred years since our founding. The fact that the present problems we are having w/ the administration recognizing and the general populace demaning their civil liberties/rights is apparently early by approximately 70 years. Perhaps the present administration is really as progressive as they claim...:) Take care.

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Remail: errors
by HFinney＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I have been out of town for the last week, so I missed some CP mail. It looks like some good things are happening with remailers, though. Kudos to Karl, Sameer, and the others for their work! I have received many messages to my remailer in the last week which came from remail(a)tamsun.tamu.edu, which were PGP-encrypted apparently in an effort to get my remailer to send them. They did not work, though, because there was no "Encrypted: PGP" header to trigger the remailer's decryption. This can be arranged by creating the message something like this: ======================================================== :: Request-Remailing-To: hfinney(a)shell.portal.com :: Encrypted: PGP - -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- <rest of message> - -----END PGP MESSAGE------ ======================================================== This would then be sent to remail(a)tamsun.tamu.edu. I don't know whether the multiplicity of such erroneous messages is just due to one person stubbornly re-trying, or whether there is an error in one of the new programs for creating chained remailer messages. Hal Finney hfinney(a)shell.portal.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBLJaNuKgTA69YIUw3AQHrNwQAowMEQwuH6YyHoj6T7AqZFLNdTf+eqJ9L LhAatHS94nmC1smkfVNq0dZmigmkvBdMNEPlBZemmxALz+KJw6OSY/ULSBmuVNEq 5rJANh3XimoJWqLISy2lZiuC5Fw2R7UvRadcdM94pncSVvev92Fyf7CqEOOtrGAK PUzRds7BVNo= =FpLa -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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more than spread spectrum
by cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There are alternatives to spread spectrum, if we're threatened with loss of freedom to communicate. We could lay our own wires/fibers. We could set up a mesh network of infrared lasers through the air. Last time I looked, there were no laws against shining lights out your window as long as they didn't bother anyone. An infrared laser could hardly bother anyone. We could produce a line of cheap cards to plug into a PC which would do packet routing, using a variety of physical links -- our own wires, lasers, very low range radio, .... Each card would connect to three or more neighbors and become part of the global mesh. Adaptive routing with no global map would suffice for the card and would keep the whole system peer-to-peer with no need for central control and no chance for central tapping. Of course all of these solutions require a high density of users. A college campus might be the right place to start. We could then branch out to cities. I suspect that a place like Chicago or NYC with high rise apartments might be the place to start -- many options for line-of-sight communications. The benefit isn't just for Cypherpunks. It's a free network for the masses -- like the original USENET (with each user donating routing and store/forward) but with unrestricted, low-range, continuously operating physical links. I'll volunteer to do the software for the node card. Does anyone have hardware design/fab to donate to the effort? - Carl

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(Fwd) Re: Problems with anonymous escrow 2--response
by blancw＠pylon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by solman(a)MIT.EDU The skills of an entity without any reputation capital are absolutely worthless. But usually an anonymous entity will come around brandishing all sorts of certifications (reputation capital). .......................................................... Well, I was thinking that certifications & reputations wouldn't mean all that much to me, nor either knowing or being unfamiliar with someone's identity (or pseudonymousness). I would be more convinced with a demo. Something which could demostrate facility or ability would be more valuable to me than a second-hand proof. I realize some professions cannot provide such demonstrations, but I myself would rather have a way of making decisions based on the excercise of first-hand judgement whenever possible. This anonymity/identity and certification/reputation business appears something like trying to have one's cake and eat it, too, as the expression goes. A featureless landscape with remote associations to actual substance so as to both please the aloof-ers & appease the uncertain. It's a bit paradoxical that for every method which is found by which to hide, another method is found by which to reveal what was heretofore undetectable in Nature. While scientists push back the envelope & reveal what was previously 'invisible' to our eyes, others work to effect stealth techniques against the tools of Consciousness. Kind of strange, though interesting. Blanc

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Odds and Ends (Books) (fwd) Re: Books: wanted to buy
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article p00122(a)psilink.com, "BSW Gateway" <p00122(a)psilink.com> () writes: >I am searching for two out-of-print books. I would like to purchase one >copy each in reasonably good condition. If you have either and are willing >to part with it, please contact me by email. Thanks. > >Tutorial: The Security of Data in Networks >by Davies >IEEE Computer Society Press, 1981 > >Kahn on Codes >by Kahn >Macmillan, 1983 > >Note: the second book is NOT "The Codebreakers" but a later book by Kahn. I tried e-mail but the message is bouncing around like a kangaroo on certain controlled substances. The following is a list of bookstores dealing, more or less specifically with espionage and intelligence and include some coverage of crypto. My recommendation for the first title would be to try Elm. If you contact C&D, ELM, or NIBC, mentioning my name _might_ help. Alec Chambers Cloak and Dagger Books, 9 Eastman Avenue Bedford, NH 03110-6701 Phone: (603) 668-1629 (evenings) Proprietor: Dan Halpin Jr. Dealer in out of print and rare books relating to nonfiction espionage, crypto, terrorism and partisan and guerilla warfare. Stocks more than 10,000 books and will do searches. Dan is extraordinarily amiable and helpful, but does ask that you send $2.50 for a catalog. I have dealt happily with him for some time. Elm Spy Books, P.O.Box 9753 Arnold, MD 21012 Phone: (301) 544-9014. Proprietor: Emil Levine Has a coverage similar to Cloak and Dagger, but is interested in specializing in crypto (he's not too far from Ft. George mmmmmmmfff...). Another helpful individual with whom I have dealt. Catalog costs $2.00. Military Bookman, 29 East 93rd Street New York, NY 10128. Mail Order (212) 348-1280 Large collection of military titles, including military intelligence. Catalogs available National Intelligence Book Center, 1700 K Street NW, Suite 607 Washington DC Phone: (202) 785-4334 FAX: (202) 331-7456 e-mail: 70346.1166(a)COMPUSERVE.COM Publishes an annotated, bimonthly publication, Surveillant: Acquisitions for the Intelligence and Security Professional, listing new books, paperback editions, foreign language titles, US government documents on intelligence, video, and audio tapes, forthcoming books and works in progress, and news and events. Annual subscription is $96 in the U.S. The Book Center will also compile bibliographies on _specific_ intelligence on request. All sales are now conducted through Olsson's Books, 1200 F Street, NW, Washington DC 20004 (202) 337-8084. Q.M.Dabney&Co., 11910-P Parklawn Drive, Rockville, MD 20852 Phone (301) 881-1470 Very large military collection with some intelligence titles. Carries only out-of-print books. Not a browsing bookstores, phone orders only, catalogs available. I have dealt happily with them for years although they are SLOW on actually sending the stuff out. Ruth Koffsky Books, 5515 Greystone Street, Chevy Chase, MD 20815 Phone: (301) 656-5587 Specializes in ex-library and reader's copies of works on intelligence, politics, and world affairs. Open by appointment only or by mail. Upon request will send a list of titles on a very specific topic. Sidney Kramer Books, 1825 I Street, NW Washington, DC 20006. Mail order: (202) 293-2685 Fax: (202) 835-9756 Large collection of intelligence-related titles in sections on "intelligence," "military affairs," and "regional studies." Offers catalogs and will special order. Sky Books, 48 E. 50th Street, Second Floor, New York, NY 10022 Mail Order: (212) 688-5086. Large selection of titles on military intelligence and espionage. Offers book club with selection of intelligence titles.

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Random Numbers
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

an31185(a)anon.penet.fi writes: >So, it sounds like what we *really* need is a little box with a shot-noise >generator that attaches to a serial port and generates truly random >numbers to use for the key. Anyone out there feel like designing one >for us? That sounds doable. Tune a radio to a spot where there is static, plug it into the audio in port of a SoundBlaster card, sample a few Kbytes, and MD5 it to get your key. Nobody is going to reconstruct that. < MikeIngle(a)delphi.com > P.S. Has anyone called Mykotronx lately? I called a while ago and asked for any databooks and appnotes on Clipper. They said the databooks weren't ready yet, and offered to put me on a mailing list for appnotes when they were ready. I got the impression Mykotronx isn't too happy about the status of the Clipper/Spooktap project. :-)

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Re: caching scripts
by George A. Gleason 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

filler messages.... Little Jack Horner sat in the corner decrypting a long email letter. The letter was dull but the humorous "null" that it ended with made him feel better! -gg

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Digital noise
by I am not a number. I am an unbound variable. 16-Sep-1993 0950 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timothy Newsham writes: >Last time I was fingering through an analog parts catalog under the >telephony section I noticed a bunch of parts that generate audio-noise. >Maybe some of these would be suitable (if they dont use an internal >digital state machine to generate the noise). Unfortunately, last time I checked, they used a fairly short internal PRNG to generate the "noise" (which means it's not noise at all, it's completely correllated and repeating, it just _sounds_ like noise to a human ear. To get real random noise, try using a transistor "backwards", as a zener diode. Then look at the voltage- it's quite "noisy", esp. if you use a decent-sized series resistor (try 100Kohms). -Bill (done this before)...

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Re: Digital noise
by freeman＠MasPar.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> To get real random noise, try using a transistor "backwards", as a > zener diode. Then look at the voltage- it's quite "noisy", esp. if you > use a decent-sized series resistor (try 100Kohms). When I was in graduate school, a colleague built a gadget based on this principle as a source of Poisson-distributed pulses for testing the post-detector electronics of X-ray and extreme-ultraviolet astronomical instruments. I don't remember the precise source of the noise, but it was similar to the "zener" trick cited in that it was based on quantum phenomena rather than a mathematical generator. The idea was to get random pulses of varying amplitudes, amplify them up and use only those bigger than a threshold to generate output pulses. The instrument also averaged the output rate and used it via feedback to adjust the amplifier, so as to obtain a desired average rate of outputs. I think that for a while at least there was a commercial random-noise generator available that used this principle, though I don't remember whose (and it's been long enough that it probably doesn't matter). Try scientific-instrument catalogs, et cetera. -- Jay Freeman

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