December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Thank you for downloading DropStuff
by Aladdin Customer Service 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Cypher Punks, Thank you for downloading Aladdin DropStuff with Expander Enhancer 4.5. (If you had any problems downloading the software, please contact Aladdin Customer Service by sending an email to service(a)aladdinsys.com.) As you know, DropStuff is shareware, and you may try the software out for up to 15 days with no obligation. After that, please register DropStuff 4.5 by using our onlineregistration form, available on the Aladdin web site at: http://www.aladdinsys.com/store/ At Aladdin, we believe in maintaining a close relationship with our customers. What you think about us and our products is important to us. From time to time, we send out surveys about Aladdin, our products and service as a means of improving your experience with us. We hope that you will take a few minutes to respond to these surveys. When you become a registered user of DropStuff 4.5, you'll be entitled to special value offers on Aladdin products, we'll notify you of upgrades, special updates and events and provide you the excellent technical support for which we're famous. We hope you enjoy using your new copy of DropStuff with Expander Enhancer 4.5. Thank you, Marty McGillivray Product Manager The StuffIt Family of Products Aladdin Systems, Inc.

1 0

RE: Postcard Debates
by Joel O'Connor 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Deep. . .mad deep. I completely agree, does anyone know of any such laws regarding e-mail? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.0.2 iQA/AwUBNnFaV1MQ9C083U98EQIkFwCcDqbpZqgR0wehfhGufe8Rqzr8ZKcAoNH8 xVqePuZTtRuBALc2NSfiM3BS =kkN5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ---"Wilson, Jamie (J.R.)" <jwilso37(a)visteonet.com> wrote: > > If everyone just encrypted their messages then no suspicions would be raised > regarding the use of encryption. Most people use envelopes, plain and > simple -- and as a result no one questions what they are hiding. It's > understood that mail is private and therefore people have a right to seal it > in an envelope and not worry about people tampering with it. On the same > note, there are federal regulations and penalties (in the U.S. anyway) for > tampering with mail and interrupting the delivery of it. The same laws > should apply to email. > > ____________________________________________________ > Jamie R. Wilson > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Robert Wenzler [mailto:rwenzler@usachoice.com] > Sent: Thursday, 10 December, 1998 13:56 > To: Mbishop645(a)aol.com > Cc: maven(a)weirdness.com; hab(a)gamegirlz.com; Cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: Re: > > > > > Mbishop645(a)aol.com wrote: > > > > >HaB wrote: > > ><snip> > > >> That's a good place to begin, though. "Would you send a letter to > > >> someone without an envelope?" "Then why not put your email in the > > >> electronic equivalent of one?" > > >> > > >> balance. > > > > > >Would I send a letter to someone without an envelope? > > >One word: postcard. > > > > Ahh, but would you tape a check for your phone bill to a postcard? Other > > than writing a greeting to someone what else do you use a postcard for? > > No, I would not tape a phone bill check to a postcard. There is the > chance for it to fall off. > > There is different methods of sending mail for different levels of > security and functionality. Some people make it obvious what is inside > an envelope. (who would not recognize a Christmas card from the > envelope?) Others make it as bland and normal as possible to > have it go by without much notice. > > It all depends on how secure you want it. Some things you can do > with what amounts to postcard security. > > What amount of security do you want for your email? Would you be > willing to do something extra for that security? > > This type of question is up to each person. How much risk is the > person willing to take. Each person has the responsibility to > understand what the risks are and to decide what risks they are > willing to take. > == Ogre bounces like sonar. . .Peace. Ogre _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

1 0

Welcome to Netcenter
by netcenter-reg＠netscape.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Monica Lewinsky, Welcome to NETSCAPE NETCENTER, where you can access all the Internet services you need in one convenient location. With your FREE enrollment in Netscape Netcenter, you're joining millions of others who've already discovered the Internet's best resource for software, content, commerce, and community. YOUR FREE EMAIL ACCOUNT ************************************************** As a bonus, we have automatically reserved for you your own private Netscape WebMail account: cpunksusa(a)netscape.net Netscape WebMail accounts, provided free to all Netcenter members, are accessible from any computer with internet access. You can activate your WebMail account here: http://home.netscape.com/netcenter/mail/index.html IMPORTANT MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION ************************************************** Each time you visit us at Netscape Netcenter, you will enter your user name and password. Our records now indicate: Your User Name is: cpunksusa Please keep this information for future reference. BEST OF THE NET ************************************************** With your Netscape Netcenter membership, you'll be able to take advantage of a broad variety of business and consumer channels like news, sports and personal finance; outstanding products from leading companies such as Music Boulevard, Travelocity, Amazon.com, and FTD; and integrated services like personalization to give you the information you want, when you want it. And, there's more! We'll send you a periodic email newsletter featuring all the latest information on the specials, services and products available to you. It will keep you informed of the frequent updates and new services being added to Netcenter. Thank you for becoming a member of Netscape Netcenter, your home on the Net. The Netcenter Team http://home.netscape.com/netcenter NETSCAPE NETCENTER ************************************************** Netsearch: http://home.netscape.com/escapes/search/netsearch_0.html WebMail: http://home.netscape.com/netcenter/mail/index.html Personalize: http://my.netscape.com/index.html Member Directory: http://home.netscape.com/memberdirectory ************************************************** Netscape respects your online time and Internet privacy. This welcome letter is a one-time only mailing. If you would like to subscribe or unsubscribe to other Netscape or partner mailings, please visit our In-Box Direct service. http://form.netscape.com/ibd/cgi-bin/ibd-x.cgi Copyright (c) 1998. Netscape Communications Corporation. All rights reserved

1 0

Your Postal Code
by netcenter-reg＠netscape.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Monica Lewinsky, You have received this email because you had requested Netcenter to mail you the postalcode used in your Netcenter registration. We have your postalcode as: "90024" You can use this postal code to obtain your password or username. If it is not your correct postal code, please update it (and any other out-of-date information) in the Netcenter Member Center. Thanks, Netcenter Registration

1 0

Linux Encrypted File Sytem
by Mike Gorsuch 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hey guys, I'm hoping that you guys can point me in the right direction. I have become very interested in the idea of an encrypted file system, rather than encrypting individual files. I read an article in the Linux Journal that talked about how to give Linux the support. Well, first I had to get the source for an older kernel, 2.0.30, and use the patches. It patched and compiled fine. Next I was supposed to patch mount. The problem I am facing is that the mount source will not take the patch right. If anyone can help me on these two issues I would be very happy: 1) What source version of mount do I need to use? 2) Is there a way to get kernel 2.0.35 or later to use this support? Mike ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The Darkest Hour is Always Just Before Dawn..." Mike Gorsuch aka Wulfgang ICQ UIN 670820 email: mikeg(a)soonernet.com Web Page: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/6071 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5 7

Biological warfare by proxy
by Frederick Burroughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The destruction of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, has left that country with little reserve of a medicine to fight malaria. The factory, which was thought to manufacture chemical warfare agents, was destroyed by US cruise missiles. The factory produced half of Sudan's medicines, leaving no supplies of chloroquine, the standard treatment for malaria. By destroying the means to make medicine to treat malaria, endemic to Sudan, the US has essentially engaged in biological warfare by proxy. A request by aid workers for more aid from the British Government to help supply medicine to Sudan has been rejected. Story at: http://reports.guardian.co.uk/articles/1998/12/20/p-39360.html

1 0

No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Prepping for Y2K armageddon so far has caused our taskforce little more trouble than post-its on each device showing an ode to Mercury for getting the lead out in time to lope upstairs shedding clothes for the bacchanale planned to celebrate the end of computer oversight of our infrapasture. We urge ourselves: good riddance to everything overmanaged by the matrixed interdependent skeins of networks and switches and redundancies and dev nulls and robot backups, time to get back in touch with fecund reality, slurp gutters, chew roots, sniff musks, chuck pixels. One mole aint into that, though, and uplinks us it's going to be evil incarnate under sky, without electromechanical life and love and think support systems, untethered, fending for ourselves, trying to walk and talk, itching filth, urging senses to pinpoint food and drink, getting no feedback, becoming terrified, running across a roadkilled computer, gathering around, toggling inputs, rooting peripherals, suckling outputs, so the saint preaches, you'll be gasping: why have you abandoned us, oh motherboard, boot up. Hooting, itching to get offline topside we backslash: Rev gospel, dirtworm.

1 0

FW: PRIVACY Forum Digest V07 #21(excerpt)
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Snip from the latest Privacy Forum Digest on commercial filtering software for enterprises, encryption and "criminal skills". cheers, C.G. -- A Navigo Farmer > -----Original Message----- > From: privacy(a)vortex.com [SMTP:privacy@vortex.com] > Sent: Sunday, December 20, 1998 4:58 PM > To: PRIVACY-Forum-List(a)vortex.com > Subject: PRIVACY Forum Digest V07 #21 > > PRIVACY Forum Digest Sunday, 20 December 1998 Volume 07 : Issue > 21 > [...] > > Date: Wed, 16 Dec 98 12:25 PST > From: lauren(a)vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) > Subject: Privacy Discussions Classified as a "Criminal Skill" > > Greetings. Is discussing privacy in the PRIVACY Forum a criminal skill? > According to one widely used commercial web filtering tool, the answer was > yes! The controversy over software to block access to particular sites, > based on perceived content, has been continuing to rage. Attempts to > mandate the use of such software in environments such as libraries and > schools have raised a variety of serious concerns. In addition to fairly > straightforward freedom of speech issues, another factor revolves around > how accurate (or inaccurate) these filtering systems really are. > > I've now seen firsthand that errors by a filtering system can indeed be > quite > serious, an event that seems to certainly validate some of these concerns. > But there is something of a silver lining to the story, as we'll see > later. > > I recently was contacted by someone at a large corporation, who was trying > to reach the PRIVACY Forum web site, which is constantly being referenced > by > individuals and commercial, educational, government, and other sites > around > the world. This person was upset since whenever they attempted to reach > the http://www.vortex.com site and domain that hosts the PRIVACY Forum, > their web software blocked them, informing them that the block was in > place > due to the site being categorized as containing "criminal skills." > > As the webmaster for the vortex.com domain, this certainly came as news to > me. The message they received didn't give additional information--they > didn't even know exactly where it came from. It was apparent though, that > the entire organization was probably blocked from reaching the PRIVACY > Forum, since the filtering software in question was affecting a main > firewall system. > > After a number of phone calls and discussions with the system > administrator > for that organization, the details began to emerge. The company was > running > a filtering software package from Secure Computing Corporation of San > Jose, > California. This package received weekly updates of blocked sites in a > wide > variety of categories, one of which was "criminal skills." > > The administrator had no idea what rationale was used for these decisions, > they just pulled in the list each week and applied it. He immediately > placed > vortex.com on a local exception list so that it would no longer be blocked > to > their users. > > I then turned my attention to Secure Computing. After a number of calls, > I > found myself speaking with Ken Montgomery, director of corporate > communications for that firm. He confirmed the information I had already > received. The filtering product in question ("SmartFilter") was > apparently > not being marketed to individuals, rather, it was sold to institutions, > corporations, etc. to enforce filtering policies across entire entities. > The product covers a wide range of information categories that users of > the > software can choose to block. He said that the majority of blocked sites > were in categories involving pornography, where there was (in his opinion) > no question of their not belonging there. > > The "criminal skills" category reportedly was broadly defined to cover > information that might be "of use" to criminals (e.g. how to build bombs). > He had no explanation as to why my domain had been placed in that list, > since by no stretch could any materials that are or have ever been > there fall into such a categorization. He did discover that the > classification of my domain had occurred over a year ago (meaning > other sites could have been receiving similar blocking messages for > that period of time when trying to access the PRIVACY Forum) and > that the parties who had made the original classification were no longer > with their firm--so there was no way to ask them for their rationale. > (All of their classifications are apparently made by people, not > by an automated system.) > > However, it seems likely that the mere mentioning of encryption may have > been enough to trigger the classification. The administrator at the > organization that had originally contacted me about the blocked access, > told > me that the main reason they included the "criminal skills" category in > their site blocking list was to try prevent their users from downloading > "unapproved" encryption software. This was a type of information that he > believed to be included under the Secure Computing "criminal skills" > category (the "logic" being, obviously, that since criminals can use > encryption to further their efforts, encryption is a criminal skill). He > also admitted that he knew that their users could still easily obtain > whatever encryption software they wanted anyway, but he had to enforce the > company policy to include that category in their blocking list. > > As PRIVACY Forum readers may know, no encryption software is or ever has > been distributed from here. The topic of encryption issues does certainly > come up from time to time, as would be expected. For the mere *mention* > of > encryption in a discussion forum to trigger such a negative categorization > would seem to suggest the fallacy of blindly trusting such classification > efforts. > > Mr. Montgomery of Secure Computing initially suggested that it was up to > their customers to decide which categories they wanted to use in their own > blocking lists--he also stated that as a company they were opposed to > mandatory filtering regulations. I suggested that such determinations by > their customers were meaningless if the quality of the entries in those > categories could not be trusted and if errors of this severity could so > easily be made. I felt that this was particularly true of a category with > an obviously derogatory nature such as "criminal skills"--the > ramifications > of being incorrectly placed into such a category, and then to not even > *know* about it for an extended period of time, could be extreme and very > serious. > > To their credit, my argument apparently triggered a serious discussion > within Secure Computing about these issues. I had numerous subsequent > e-mail and some additional phone contacts with Mr. Montgomery and others > in their firm concerning these matters. First off, they apologized > for the miscategorization of vortex.com, and removed it from the > "criminal skills" category (it was apparently never listed in any > other of their categories). > > Secondly, they have agreed with my concerns about the dangers of such > miscategorizations occurring without any mechanism being present for sites > to learn of such problems or having a way to deal with them. So, they > will > shortly be announcing a web-based method for sites to interrogate the > Secure > Computing database to determine which categories (if any) they've been > listed under, and will provide a means for sites to complain if they feel > that they have been misclassified. They've also suggested that their hope > is to provide a rapid turnaround on consideration of such complaints. > > While by no means perfect, this is a step forward. I would prefer a more > active notification system, where sites would be notified directly when > categorizations are made. This would avoid their having to > check to see whether or not they've been listed, and needing to keep > checking back to watch for any changes or new categorizations. If more > filtering software companies adopt the Secure Computing approach, there > would be a lot of checking for sites to do if they wanted to stay on > top of these matters. Secure Computing feels that such notifications are > not practical at this time. However, their move to provide some > accountability to their filtering classifications is certainly preferable > to > the filtering systems which continue to provide no such facilities and > operate in a completely closed environment. > > So, we make a little progress. The PRIVACY Forum and vortex.com are no > longer miscategorized and have been removed from all Secure Computing > block > lists. Secure Computing was polite and responsive in their > communications with me, and will establish the system discussed above in > reaction to my concerns. Web filtering of course remains a highly > controversial topic with many serious negative aspects, but we see that > when > it comes to dealing with the complex issues involved, it would be a > mistake > to assume that all such filters all created equal. > > --Lauren-- > Lauren Weinstein > Moderator, PRIVACY Forum > http://www.vortex.com > [...] >

1 0

NSA Org Chart
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks to Defense Information and Electronics Report we offer NSA's organizational chart, which was obtained by DI&ER under the FOIA: http://jya.com/nsa-chart.htm

2 1

qXt8in0ocFjj3wHmDXe6PVJil1/NP0rd
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1 0