December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Quick, Dear -- Beat Me
by Albert P. Franco, II 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: "Lynne L. Harrison" <lharrison(a)dueprocess.com> >Subject: RE: Quick, Dear -- Beat Me >At 10:47 AM 11/5/98 -0500, Petro wrote: >>At 12:08 AM -0500 11/5/98, Blanc wrote: >>>From Duncan Frissell: >>> >>>I just went to the bank I do business with this week to open a new account. >>>They wanted my social security number, (which they actually already have on >>>record), and during a search on her handy database, the Customer Assistance >>>clerk informed me that there was another person in Florida using the same >>>number. Long list of problems which could result from someone using your SSN snipped... >All in all, you should seriously reconsider your decision of not reporting >the problem. > > So much for the SSN "never" becoming a national ID number! Since your SS account and pension can be negatively impacted, this tends to reinforce the idea that your SSN should be a secret. But how can we keep it a secret if they keep putting it on public documents such as drivers licenses? Seems to me that when they are all done making the SSN the official National ID number they will need to give us a NEW SSN that is secret, kind of like a PIN to unlock and validate our National ID and SS accounts. ...and latter a PIN to protect the PIN... APF

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Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 07 Nov 1998 01:33:18 -0500 > From: Michael Hohensee <mah248(a)nyu.edu> > Subject: Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd) > No government can protect individual rights. That isn't a reasonable statement. There is nothing in the definition or application of 'government' or 'individual rights' that preclude this. The issue becomes in a practical sense how the practitioners of a government system respect individual rights. If they are willing to do away with them to protect them (as we seem to be moving toward in this country) then of course there are no individual rights. Of course, this implies there are no collective rights either. > The only way one could do > so would be if it: (a) could predict the future, and act to prevent > certain futures from happening; or (b) it controls every aspect and > motion of each individual's life, thereby ensuring that nobody steps out > of line. What has that to do with protecting individual rights? Clarify please. > All any state can do is threaten to "retaliate" against (why not just > say "attack") people who disobey its edicts. In order for this threat > to be credible, the state must wield sufficient power to kill any > individual (or group of individuals) who would stand against it. If it > does not have this power, it cannot govern. This is a quaint and completely artificial distinction. > citizens. As often seems the case today, for example. We also see quite a few situations where the opposite occurs as well. > The system you suggest, which I assume consists of a state with a > "minimal" amount of power, run by enlightened people, is in a state of Anyone who assumes noble oblige is an idiot. There are no enlightened people, intelligence and wealth no more prepare an individual for a position in government than they prepare them for anything else. Rich/intelligent people don't make less mistakes than those who aren't. > extremely unstable equilibrium (if it is indeed in equilibrium). If it If you're talking of Hayek's equilibrium, it's nothing more than a bastardization of a thermodynamics term to represent the status quo. Equilabrium in the economic sense simply means that people do today what they did yesterday. In general they do about as often as they don't. > wields just enough power to enforce its will, that power can be used by > evil men to increase its power. Evil? Where did religion come into this at? > Just look at what happened after the Constitutional coup took place in > the fledgling USA. Remember the Whiskey Rebellion? When we lost the > Articles of Confederation, we were taking the first steps down the road > to the tyranny of today. The anti-federalists predicted this, although > they sorely underestimated how far it would go --assuming that it would > be stopped by another revolution. There have been several since then. The Civil War and the civil rights movement in the 60's are two good examples (on the opposite end of the 'use-of-violence' scales). > The minimalist state has been tried. No, that was a non-federalist state where the individual states acted as individuals in a collective. Because of the collective nature of the state governments it didn't work. A minimalist state would be anarchy. > The only truly free system is one in which there is no body of people > calling itself a government which can enforce its will over the > individual. The only way people can seem to be free living under such a > body is entirely dependent upon the good will of their masters, and this > is a shaky assumption to make. No it isn't the only way. The only way is to clearly define the duties of each level of government and build a system of checks and balances that prohibit them from moving outside their domains. A good first attempt at this was the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (in particular 9 & 10). The problem is that there are individuals who don't want to be limited in their authority. It's a person problem not a government problem. > How about: Any action that involves the initiation of force against the > property of another person (the person belongs to himself, of course) is > immoral. Morality? Why do you keep bringing religion and individual beliefs into it? A person is, they don't belong to anyone. It should be: Any act that harms a person or their property without their prior permission is a crime. There are no exceptions other than immediate personal self defence, which terminates upon the application of minimal force to guarantee the threat will not reoccur (in many cases this means kill the attacker). This should apply to all individuals participating in a governmental role as well. > This neatly tidies up the obvious question of exactly what "individual > rights" are. There's a partial list of them in the bill of rights, but > it is not complete, by its own admission. By it's own admission they are protected from denial by the 9th and 10th so they don't need to be listed (unlike the 10th lists the duties of the government system). The problem is conservatives and liberals alike don't respect those boundaries. They want more. > Furthermore, the above > definition excludes such dubious rights as the "right to an education", > the "right to welfare", etc. Now you're doing exactly what you are complaining about. Your defining others rights when you don't want them defining yours. People may very well have a right to welfare and an education (I believe people have a civil right to medical and legal advice gratis - stems from the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness). The issue isn't that. The issue is *what are the duties of the government as defined in its charter*. If those duties are not in there (and they're not) then it shouldn't be doing it without an amendment from the charter. > All of the above involve the initiation (or threat of initiation) of > force. Hence they are immoral, and the victims and any bystanders would > be morally justified in using force against the initiators. Of course, > this would not be true in a governed society, where the state must hold > a monopoly on the use of force, if only to maintain its own position. > Much less efficient. Go read the Constitution, it's true here in our governemnt though many people don't want it to be so. As a result they find all kinds of childish and inane reasons to deny the obvious. Like it or not the federal governments panapoly of current powers are as vacous as the king is naked. It's like executive orders, unless you happen to work for the executive branch they aren't worth the paper they're written on. Why? Because at no point is the office of President given this authority over anyone other than executive branch employees. He has no more authority to dictate general behaviour via that mechanism than you or I do - zero. Per the 10th there is not one sentence in the Constitution that delegates that authority to the office. > We've all got our pet peeves. Would you like to live under mine? Would > I like to live under yours? Can I trust you to be tolerant? Can I > trust your successors, 20 years from now? Can my descendants trust > subsequent successors, 200 years later? Experience tends to show the > contrary. There is more at stake than toleration or trust. You paint with too narrow a brush. If you're saying we should have anarchy then you're as kooky as the people who don't literaly interpret the Constitution. > The anarcho-capitalist free market is not one where "everything goes," > and there is indeed a strong concept of individual rights. What is > moral and not moral is defined by society on an individual basis. The > first and only rule is: First, it is one of everything-goes because there is no mechanism that will stop anybody from doing anything. There are NO concepts of *rights* in such a system, let alone individual rights. If anything the only rights are who has the capitalist backing to stave off the anarchic forces. That's not justice, equality, or respect for rights. > No one has the right to initiate force against another or another's > property. Attack me with your body and property and watch it happen junior. > This is the fundamental and only "social contract" we make. Anyone who > disagrees with this is obviously antisocial, and nobody's going to want > to live with him (or allow him to continue living, if he attacks > someone). Oh bullshit. There is much more involved like not stealing which isn't the use of force and allowed by your anarcho-capatilism as well as your definition of valid use of force above. It's gibberish. > >From this, morality follows. If X does Y to Z, and if Y is perceived as > immoral, then X is not going to be very popular with Z or anyone else, > unless he can make amends. No one will want to trade with him, be near > him, etc. This is a very strong motive to avoid doing immoral things. Will you get religion the hell out of here please. Y is obviously popular with X or else they wouldn't have used it. It further follows that there are more than one X-type out there. So your premise falls down on its face in the dirt. > If Y is really nasty, such as the initiation of force, then X is going > to be in *deep* trouble. With who? In an anarcho-capitalist society as you paint it the optimal strategy is to allow others to reduce your competition opening up the market for you. Let's take an example. Imagine we live on a street and we notice a person going from house to house down the other side of the street. What is our optimal strategy? It isn't to call the cops (there aren't any) and it isn't to immediately kill the intruder (it isn't our property after all) since there is an opportunity to make a considerable gain here improving our status in the society as a whole. The optimal strategy is to wait and let this bozo kill our neighbors up to our house and *then* kill the intruder. At that point we have just inhereted an entire street of houses and its included properties. You put up a fence across each end of the street and wallah, your own little fifedom. If you're really lucky something similar will happen on the next street over and they won't be as lucky at killing the intruder. Then after they are all dead and the intruder has consolidated their gains (probably by fencing their street in) you can begin to scheme ways of taking that property since its obvious yours is next. > Z may well shoot him out of self defense, and > even if he survives his action, he'll have to pay a *lot* of restitution > before people will trust him again, if ever. Law enforcement by > ostracism --read L. Neil Smith's "The Probability Broach", for a more > detailed description. Wait a second, there is no law to enforce here outside of make money, obtain property, keep somebody else from taking it. > In summary, a free market is far from being an immoral market. In fact, > it is the most moral market there is, since there is no state which > holds the "right" to initiate force. In summary a free-market is a anarchy of kill or be killed, take or get taken. He with the most goodies wins until somebody with a better strategy comes along. There is nothing to moderate the use of force, especialy when its the optimal strategy to increase ones holdings. Your spouting gibberish. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Stip club plays by rules and wins...for now [CNN]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 11:34:45 -0600 > X-within-URL: http://customnews.cnn.com/cnews/pna.show_story?p_art_id=3130419&p_section_n…. > STRIP CLUB FINDS WAY AROUND CITY RESTRICTION: LET KIDS IN > > AP > 06-NOV-98 > > NEW YORK (AP) -- A New York City strip club has found a loophole that > allows it to wriggle past the mayor's crackdown on sex-oriented > businesses. > > The club says its policy is to admit kids -- if they're accompanied by > adults. > > Therefore, it argues, it's not an adult business. > > A judge agrees. > > Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is livid. [rest deleted] ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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A question about the new ISP ruling and email...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I was pondering the draconian implications of the requirement to register ISP's. Would an email only site be an ISP under these regulations? What I had in mind was a box sitting here on a link to the Internet and several local dial-ins. When a user logged in they could start pine, elm, slip, or ppp. It would support inbound only telnet. The only commands that would execute besides the above would be exit, quit, bye. There would not need to be any directory access or related issues. The only storage avaiable would be quotas on email buffer size. Would such a commercial entity require registry to be protected? I have to talk with a lawyer and find out if TAG needs registered. If so then I'd be interested in participating in a civil liberties suit. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Identification and Privacy are not Antinomies
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Aaww horseplops[1]! In fact, great, festering, mid-path, sole-sticking horseplops! This argument is vacuous. As every small child knows, authentication != identification and, in most cases, only authentication is required and, the absence of identification implies privacy. Am I a UK citizen, a good credit risk, a club member in good standing, etc. An appropriate mechanism, a smartcard, can easily authenticate both itself (challenge-response) and the bearer via a biometric and/or PIN without revealing the identity of the holder. However, who holds out hope that such a sensible thing would ever be adopted by the powers-that-be. Nematode [1] The plop is a useful measure of human cogitation. As every small child knows, much good thinking is done whilst enthroned on the commode, since the evacuation of feces from the anus promotes the introduction of fresh material into the brain through the ears. After years of experimentation and careful measurement, we (the ISO labs) have observed a strong correlation between ideas and fecal bombardment of the receptive commodal pool and audible emissions therefrom. For example, it required only 0.3 plops to decide to vote for Clinton while a similar decision in favor of John Major required almost 5 plops. For the purposes of comparison, 10^6 homosapiens plop = 1 horseplop. While the relationship between megaplops, flops and MIPS is not yet clear, our ISO plop standard should be emitted soon. -----BEGIN PLOP SIGNATURE----- Version: PLOP for Personal Privacy Charset: nocommode NSACIAMOUSEaw6mkJhRWnHTzAQFMlgP/ZMM+14qUzy+w6AGSlOtAyrE2BBDSV3Hm Tlc0Ct7wyXV2CPEMzieCm4ZS0rzigkgTZTMCmEqYexEJkdSAU60WMHm3cr28UJIG ekx7N7aWKQ34u05dRrE+IVR329y0ia/2F8B7edZ7CqoydOJAnQxNIB1qohlCGlGT RYgOGVSpO04= =MF1K -----END PLOP SIGNATURE-----

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Identification and Privacy are not Antinomies (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 20:26:24 +0100 > From: Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> > Subject: Identification and Privacy are not Antinomies > Am I a UK citizen, a good credit risk, a club member in good > standing, etc. An appropriate mechanism, a smartcard, can easily > authenticate both itself (challenge-response) and the bearer via a biometric > and/or PIN without revealing the identity of the holder. > > However, who holds out hope that such a sensible > thing would ever be adopted by the powers-that-be. What the powers-that-be hold is realy irrelevant. The issue is what do we do to make sure that the powers-that-are-to-be don't have that option? ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: A question about the new ISP ruling and email...
by Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: Jim Choate <ravage(a)EINSTEIN.ssz.com> > > Hi, > > I was pondering the draconian implications of the requirement to register > ISP's. Would an email only site be an ISP under these regulations? I dunno. But I've begun netcopping the Ignition-Point list on an ongoing basis (starting Friday), and they'll be an interesting test case of whether what they're doing is "fair use". Pobox.com/listbox.com is reluctantly assigning a person to receive (my) copyright complaints, and will register themselves with the FCO. I like to post whole articles myself. Anyway, for a test case, better them than me. ---guy ;-)

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IP: Head of U.S. Internet Policy Plans to Resign: Magaziner
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com X-Sender: believer(a)telepath.com Date: Sat, 07 Nov 1998 09:05:02 -0600 To: believer(a)telepath.com From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Head of U.S. Internet Policy Plans to Resign: Magaziner Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Precedence: list Reply-To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/cyber/articles/07magaziner.html November 6, 1998 Magaziner, Head of U.S. Internet Policy, Plans to Resign By JERI CLAUSING ASHINGTON -- Ira C. Magaziner, who has led the Clinton Administration's efforts to foster the growth of the Internet and electronic commerce, said today that he plans to leave the White House before the end of the year. Magaziner said he has not set a departure date or made any firm plans for his future, but he hopes to wrap up his duties within the next month and move back to New England. His family moved there a year ago, he said, and he has been commuting since then. "I felt a responsibility to follow through on what we had committed," Magaziner said. "And we have had some good successes." Magaziner joined the Clinton Administration five and a half years ago to draft what turned out to be a doomed effort to restructure the nation's health care system. He then turned to the Internet, where he has been aggressively trying to shape domestic and international policy for electronic commerce and governance of the Internet. "At a time when there was a lot of confusion about where the [Internet] industry was going both domestically and internationally, Ira Magaziner was the guy who rolled up his sleeves and got into the nitty-gritty of how technology works, what the effect would be on our society, and then took those notions and began to be the evangelist for the Internet industry in a global marketplace," said Brian O'Shaughnessy, spokesman for the Internet Alliance, one of the world's largest associations of companies with Internet interests. "He's a cerebral guy who took these intellectual ideas and wrestled a lot of very powerful forces to the table... He's certainly been the champion for [Internet] self-governance." In June 1997, after studying the Internet for 15 months, Magaziner released the Administration's "Framework for Electronic Commerce," which called for a hands-off, market-driven approach to regulation of the global network. Magaziner's philosophy then and now is that while the Internet is growing rapidly, this growth could be stymied by excessive government intervention. "For this potential to be realized fully," he wrote in that report, "governments must adopt a nonregulatory, market-oriented approach to electronic commerce, one that facilitates the emergence of a transparent and predictable legal environment to support global business and commerce. Official decision makers must respect the unique nature of the medium and recognize that widespread competition and increased consumer choice should be the defining features of the new digital marketplace." Since then, he has led efforts to hand administration of the global network over to the private sector, and has traveled the world pushing other countries to endorse his tax-free, unregulated approach to the new medium. Magaziner said he is satisfied that he has put the issue of electronic commerce on the world's agenda. In addition to winning passage of two new laws imposing a moratorium on new Internet taxes in the United States and protecting copyrights in the digital age, he has won international agreements to keep the Internet duty-free and set standards for international payment systems. He is also wrapping up what has been a highly contentious effort to hand the administrative functions of the Internet's name and address system over to a private corporation. But as he announces his departure, Magaziner has left one important issue -- online privacy -- unresolved. Magaziner has been the lead cheerleader for industry self-regulation on how personal data is collected and used in electronic databases, a controversial stance that has put the United States directly at odds with the European Union and one that threatens to disrupt electronic commerce with those countries. Critics say he has ignored consumer interests in favor of business. However, others laud his refusal to back down. "Ira...has been working long and hard on behalf of self-governance and not letting the E.U. data directive simply become the rule of the day," O'Shaughnessy said. The European directive that took effect last month imposes strict privacy policies on companies that do business in Europe. A key provision of that law prohibits any company doing business in the European Union from transmitting personal data to any country that does not guarantee comparable privacy protections. The European Union has said that self-regulatory models adopted by industry groups in the United States do not meet its requirements. It has held off on imposing sanctions against the United States until at least December while the governments involved attempt to negotiate a compromise. The Commerce Department this week laid out its negotiating position, which proposes giving companies a variety of "safe harbors" to satisfy privacy protection. One idea is to create independent organizations that would monitor a company's data practices and give companies that comply with accepted guidelines what amounts to a stamp of approval. The E.U. has so far rejected that plan. But Magaziner said the Administration has scored a victory in getting the E.U. to agree to discuss self-regulation as a remedy. "They agreed to hold back, and we are still discussing it with them," he said. "We got them to recognize in February self-regulation as being legitimate. So under their own direction they are saying self-regulatory approaches can work. Now we have to get them to agree to recognize what we are proposing. That may not be finished by the time I leave, but it will be well along." Magaziner has also been leading the effort to move administration of the Internet to an international, nonprofit corporation. That power had been exercised by the United States government -- at first directly, and in recent years under a government contract granting a monopoly on domain name registrations to Network Solutions, a corporation based in Herndon, Va. A driving force toward creation of the new board was the demand by private companies around the world that they be allowed to compete with Network Solutions in the lucrative business of registering domain names. But finding a solution that balances the interests of more traditional, academic institutions with trademark holders and commercial entities with a huge stake in the future of electronic commerce proved difficult, and much controversy still surrounds the plan that Magaziner hopes to finalize this month. Last month, the Administration tentatively approved handing the reins of the Internet over to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). This new corporation was set up largely under the direction of one of the Internet's founders, the late Jon Postel. Although the ICANN proposal was presented as having "the support of a broad consensus of Internet stakeholders, private and public," several groups have complained that it was hammered out in secret and still lacks proper fiscal controls and appropriate power checks on future board members. The Department of Commerce has asked the nine-member interim board of ICANN to craft new bylaws that address those concerns, a proposal that is expected to be completed within the next week and which will be the topic of a public meeting next week in Cambridge, Mass. Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **************************************************** --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: A question about the new ISP ruling and email...
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Now *this* should be fun. Someone who claims to be a cypherpunk is now going to call the copyright police on a non-profit, volunteer news list. Cryptoanarchy indeed. The ganglia twitch. When the going gets tough, the "tough" rat out the innocent, it appears... Cheers, Bob Hettinga --- begin forwarded text From: Information Security <guy(a)panix.com> Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 14:56:55 -0500 (EST) To: cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net Subject: Re: A question about the new ISP ruling and email... Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net Precedence: first-class Reply-To: Information Security <guy(a)panix.com> X-Loop: cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net > From: Jim Choate <ravage(a)EINSTEIN.ssz.com> > > Hi, > > I was pondering the draconian implications of the requirement to register > ISP's. Would an email only site be an ISP under these regulations? I dunno. But I've begun netcopping the Ignition-Point list on an ongoing basis (starting Friday), and they'll be an interesting test case of whether what they're doing is "fair use". Pobox.com/listbox.com is reluctantly assigning a person to receive (my) copyright complaints, and will register themselves with the FCO. I like to post whole articles myself. Anyway, for a test case, better them than me. ---guy ;-) --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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genetic copy protection
by David Honig 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A patent on a means to produce seeds which germinate, but which produce plants whose seeds are sterile, was reviewed in Science, p 850, 30 Oct 98 vol 282. The trick is that the seeds are genetically engineered, and the seeds are 'activated' by an antibiotic (which acts like a signal). The purpose is to copy-protect other engineered genes in the organism. US pat 5,723,765 David Honig "When horsemeat is outlawed, only outlaws will eat horsemeat"

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