December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: In Search of Genuine DigiCash
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:17 AM 8/22/94 -0400, Jason W Solinsky wrote: >A buck is NOT a buck. It keeps on going down in value. We should use the >introduction of digicash to finally create a monetary instrument that never >experiences positive inflation. It's important not to pile on too many features, desires, agendas onto a relatively simple financial instrument. The point of digital cash is to provide liquidity for internet commerce as cheaply as possible. Anonymity is a happy benefit. Engineering it for anyother purpose reduces its efficiency. >Incorporate in a foreign land, invest the >money safely, issue and buy back shares according to a fixed formula that >depends only on the valuation of the company, publish your returns and >register the stock as securities in as many lands as possible. You now >have a perfectly legal basis for digicash. The shares will float in the >range of values specified by the stock issuance formula. They will >gradually go up relative to inflation and will be easily traded in multiple >currencies. And it will be really difficult for most governments to attack >the "payable to bearer" nature of the currency because it would encroach on >the rights of all American corporations. No? Or, you can take money in over the window and turn it into digital cash denominated on a dollar basis, priced at that point with discounts or primia as necessary. Occam's razor. >> In theory, though it probably won't happen, an underwriter could issue a >> greater amount of digital cash than regular cash paid for it ... [snip...] > >This will once again make the value of the digicash dependent on when it was >issued. An alternative formulation of this same scheme would have the value >od digi-cash be invariant with the data of issue, but have periodic >redemption dates on which the value of the digi-cash would jump. I find >neither to be desireable. That's true, but the difference in price reflects the estimated future value of that money in a suspension account plus the operating costs of the underwriter, not by some complex pricing methodology which makes the cash more difficult to use. >Market liquidity is increased by convenience to the holder of the securities, >not the issuer of the securities. I cash out my "digiDollar" today, it's a dollar. I cash out my digiDollar tomorrow, it's a dollar. I cash out my digiDollar the next day, it's a dollar. Looks pretty simple to use to me. (a digiDollar is a dollar is a dollar is a dollar) :-). [Oops. I went and concocted some more buzzy language. Occupational hazard. Don't worry, I'll try not to use it anymore, and maybe it'll die gracefully.] Cheers, Bob ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

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pgp -c,no initialization vector, possible bug, pgp 26ui
by 0x7CF5048D＠nowhere 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In pgp 2.6 UI When pgp is called with the -c switch, the routine idea_encryptfile in crypto.c is called from main in pgp.c. > status = idea_encryptfile( workfile, tempf, attempt_compression); >int idea_encryptfile(char *infile, char *outfile, > boolean attempt_compression) >{ > FILE *f; /* input file */ > FILE *g; /* output file */ > byte ideakey[16]; > struct hashedpw *hpw; Note that idea key is a 16 bytes. Now idea_encryptfile calls squish_and_idea_file in crypto.c with this 16 byte key. > /* Now compress the plaintext and encrypt it with IDEA... */ > squish_and_idea_file( ideakey, f, g, attempt_compression ); Now squish_and_idea_file calls idea_file in the module crypto.c with the same 16 byte key. >static int squish_and_idea_file(byte *ideakey, FILE *f, FILE *g, > boolean attempt_compression) >{

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Re: Snore while they snoop
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:06 PM 8/22/94 -0400, John Young wrote: >NY Times wrote yesterday on "metering" of software usage by >soft and hard means. This type of monitoring could easily, >Clipperly, "1984"-ishly, record and report on other activities >of the user. Then there's this company called, I think, "Wave" Inc. out of Colorado somewhere. The first time I heard of it was in Peter Huber's Forbes column a year or so ago. The guy who's fronting it is a former chairman of a large defense contractor (United Technologies?). It involves metering application software use down to the second, using PC boards and the internet, or some other WAN equivalent. A dongle is forever... Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

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Re: Voluntary Governments?
by cfrye＠mason1.gmu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim - You forget Weber's definition of government, which I remember as "the institution with a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within a geographical area". I may have substituted "violence" for "force", but that is the gist of his meaning. Unless a government has some means of coercing its more recalcitrant subjects, it can't function as a government in the sense we mean it here. Curt

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Re: Creating privacy crises: Society hacking
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> At the HOPE conference, there was someone selling CD-ROMs of the DMV > records for Oregon for $125. The same folks promise to add more states > soon: next in line is Texas. > Perhaps one could generate a privacy crisis by collecting that information > and conducting a mass mailing to every person in the database: "we have > this information on you. So could anybody with $125. Call your congress > critter and complain." Mailing that information to everybody in Oregon would be expensive. On the other hand, mailing it to everyone in the Oregon legislature, the governor, the DMV honchos, and maybe a few other high honchos could be interesting, and might not cost that much..... Bill

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CREDIT CARD PRIVACY
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, Jim Hart wrote: Most customers want more privacy, but when you think about it, there is not a whole hell of a lot they can do about it right now. If they want to get the status and flexibility of a credit card, they need to give up their privacy.... At this point Duncan Frissel will regail us with some wonderful scheme, understandable only to lawyers, that can be used to get credit cards under aliases, perfectly legal if you use a doubly nested corporate structure going through Aruba and the Caymans,...I won't comment on why most consumers have neglected that option.... Well, I imagine that is because he doesn't have a clue what he is talking about. In our upcoming Privacy Seminar, Duncan and I will discuss trivially simple ways to do just the thing Mr. Hart tells us can't be done. And, as Duncan says, "it'll be as legal as church on Sunday." Tune in to the Privacy Channel, Jim, you might actually learn something. The Privacy Seminar will start approximately 1 September. An announcement giving instructions on how to sign up will be made sometime this week. Stay tuned. S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ m ka;sld fas;dlkf a;sdkflkj as;dlf jasd;lkfj

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Re: Voluntary Governments?
by elton＠sybase.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is probably not really relevant to cypherpunks, but I think it needs to be addressed. Jason Solinsky said: >Government has nothing to do with throwing people into prison or using >guns. It is an entity that exercises authority. Or an entity that enforces >laws. Er. No. Government has _everything_ to do with throwing people into prisons, _and_ with using guns. Further, "exercises authority" is a code phrase that means "throws people into prisons and uses guns." If you want a working definition of government, it would have to be "a group of people who have assumed to themselves the exclusive power to regulate and use coercive force within a set of established borders." ...And, given the USA vs. Manuel Noriega, the nature of the "established borders" becomes subject to flexible interpretation. It's not the case that any use of force defines a government. It _is_ the case that only government pretends to be the sole arbiter of who may use force, and how much they may use. If you inspect the matter carefully, without the threat of force there could be no government. Otherwise, how would they collect taxes and tarriffs? Moreover, they must declare themselves to be the only authorized users of force, or their "enforcement" (look carefully at that word) power will be limited in its effectiveness by the strength of the resistive force. Government depends for its existence on being the biggest gang with guns anywhere in the area. -- Elton

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Re: Creating privacy crises: Society hacking
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:54 PM 8/22/94 -0400, wcs(a)anchor.ho.att.com (bill.stewart) said, >Mailing that information to everybody in Oregon would be expensive. >On the other hand, mailing it to everyone in the Oregon legislature, >the governor, the DMV honchos, and maybe a few other high honchos >could be interesting, and might not cost that much..... Hey! Representative Democracy! What a concept.... Cheers, Bob ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

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Re: In Search of Genuine DigiCash
by pcw＠access.digex.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >I don't think any of us on this list is yet ready to present a plan to >real bankers. Eric Hughes has told me he agrees. Real bankers may be well ahead of everyone on this list. I'm told that Citibank has some very intriguing work pending at the patent office. It's for digital cash. -Peter Wayner

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Transcript
by fhalper＠pilot.njin.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Is there or will there be a transcript of the recent debate that Zimmerman was part of? Thanks, Reuben Halper

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