December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
by Matthew James Gering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Matthew James Gering wrote: > >Provided you don't corrupt the meaning of free-market to include > >any possible black market, then yes, there will *always* be a > >black market. It can be made rather insignificant however. Petro responded: > Assuming your definition of "free market" is "a market without > regulation", you can't have a black market in a free market > since a black market is trade in violation of regulations. Like I said, if you don't corrupt the meaning of free market. Laissez Faire capitalism is based on a concept of individual rights. Therefore the proper role of any government (in a libertarian state) or individual/social institution (in rational anarchy) is to protect individual rights (life, liberty, property), and act as an objective framework for retributive force. Therefore, any transaction that violates individual rights is immoral (if not illegal) and constitutes a black market. e.g. assassinations, ransom, stolen goods, extortion, slavery, etc. To create a anarcho-capitalist definition of free market where everything goes and there is no concept of individual rights is as immoral and perverse as the statist concepts that similarly have no concept of individual rights (fascism, communism). Matt

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Re: FYI: Digicash bankruptcy
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text From: "Thomas Junker" <tjunker(a)phoenix.net> To: dbs(a)philodox.com Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 21:32:24 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: FYI: Digicash bankruptcy Reply-to: Thomas Junker <tjunker(a)phoenix.net> Priority: normal Sender: <dbs(a)philodox.com> Precedence: Bulk List-Subscribe: <mailto:requests@philodox.com?subject=subscribe%20dbs> X-Web-Archive: http://www.philodox.com/dbs-archive/ On 5 Nov 98, at 14:32, Nahum Goldmann quoted Phil Agre as having writ: > [With the bankruptcy of Digicash, it is time to assemble the definitive > list of underperforming Internet technologies. The received wisdom is > that the Internet lies at the vortex of a historically unprecedented era > of intensive and disruptive technological change. A sober reading of the > evidence, however, supports something much closer to the opposite thesis, > viz, the Internet is a modest and useful new tool that, despite itself, > has given rise to an astonishingly wasteful mania whereby perfectly good > capital is plowed into one ill-conceived technology after another. Is Agre a friend of Metcalfe? One wrings his hands over what other people choose to risk their money on in Internet technology development and the other solemnly predicts that the Internet will implode. If those two guys ever get together, the ambient lumens will dim for miles around. NRO will be repositioning satellites to check out the grey hole of pessimism laying like a blanket over their meeting place. > So right now would be an excellent time > for us to renounce the false idea that we are living in a time of > unprecedented technical change. Yeah, right. Listen to this guy and die. That's his message. > ...it is running behind the penetration rates that > earlier technologies such as the radio and gas cooking achieved once they > started being adopted on a mass scale... Had this guy been commenting back then, he would no doubt have been wringing his hands over all the silly things being done with radio and all the failed ideas and ventures. Checking out those future-fantasy clips from the '50's is instructive... I *still* don't have a kitchen or bathroom as spiffy as what they were telling everyone they would have a few short years -- I don't have a constant-temperature shower or cleverly designed foldaway shelves, tables, trays and ironing boards hidden in every nook and cranny of the kitchen. In fact, looking at one of those on video got me in the mood to go back 40 years so I could look forward to having those neat things. More importantly, though, as great as the utility of radio has been in many areas, it has mostly been a one-way incoming pipe for the average person. Its greatest utility value in that mode has probably been news delivery, but that is highly overrated. If you tune out the news in all forms for two weeks, you will be a lot less stressed and realize that, by and large, what makes the news doesn't care a whit about you, and if you con't care a whit about the news, no pieces of the sky fall in. If radio hadn't been regulated as badly and suffocatingly as it was, and if people without propellors on their heads could have used it to communicate with friends and associates over long distances instead of waiting for telephone operators to call them back to tell them a trunk had become available for their annual long distance call to Mamain Toledo, perhaps radio would have had a hugely greater impact than it did. Radio came, radio was monopolized, and it became just another flavor of newspaper or magazine. Now gas, there's a revolutionary development! Convenient, yes. Revolutionary, no. Were we able to cook before gas? Were we able to heat before gas? Did gas mean that Father no longer had to trek to an office or factory to earn his living? Were we suddenly able to shuttle business documents back and forth between Passaic, New Jersey and Jakarta at zero incremental cost? Did gas perhaps enable millions of people to shift their modes of work and cut the ties with fixed offices? Maybe gas enabled multimedia communication, as in Smell-o-Vision? Geez! So it was convenient. So lots of people rushed out and utilized it in a short time. So? What did it change? It may have made some industrial processes cheaper or more feasible. It made some very uninteresting aspects of life less time and attention consuming. <yawn> > Internet protocols that we use today are unchanged in their essentials > from about 1982. Isn't that like denigrating all of wheeled transport by pointing out that gee, the wheels we use today are unchanged in their essentials from about 4000 B.C. (or whenever)? And your point is...? > In fact, once the real history of this era is written, I > think that 1982 will shape up as the true annus mirabilis, and 1994 will > simply be seen as the era when the innovations of ten to fifteen years > earlier finally caught public attention and reached the price point that > was needed to achieve the network externalities required for its large- > scale adoption. Can you spell M-O-S-A-I-C? > If we get out the rake and drag away all of the detritus > of the underperforming technologies that I listed above, and compare our > times on an apples-for-apples basis with other periods of technological > innovation -- including the Depression era, for heaven's sake -- then I > think we will have a much healthier perspective going forward. Yes indeedy, that's what we should all do when we need a lift -- drag out Dad's or Grandpa's Depression scrapbook and get some *real* perspective! That'll drive out that pesky optimism and make us thankful for not having to run down the road chasing the family farm as it blows away in the wind. Yessirree, those pics of Uncle Dwork selling apples will straighten us right up and dispel those silly fantasies of interconnecting the world, working from Tahiti, or making a killing with a killer Internet app. There oughta be a law! It should be illegal to offend good, pessimistic outlooks by running around in circles showering ideas and developments like sparks. > As it is, > people the world over have been propagandized into a state of panic, one > that encourages them to abandon all of their experience and common sense > and buy lots of computer equipment so that they will not be scorned by > their children and left behind by the apocalypse Where does this guy *get* this stuff? How many people do we *know* who fit this description, hmmm? Even one? Well, OK, but Aunt Mabel doesn't count -- she invested in bull semen, too, though we all thought she did it with just a tad too much enthusiasm. > The sad line-up of underperforming technologies should be > understood not as serious attempts at innovation but as a kind of ritual, > an expensive and counterproductive substitute for the chants and dances > that healthy societies perform when they are placed under stress. Maybe > once we get some healthy rituals for contending with technological change > ourselves, we will be able to snap out of our trance, cast off the > ridiculous hopes and fears of an artificially induced millennium, and take > up the serious work of discussing, organizing, and contesting the major > choices about our institutions that lie ahead.] Oh, geez, I can hear this now, around 1725 or 1750... people in England and on the continent, naysaying the wild and wooly schemes and hopes for opportunity and fortune in the new world. It must be part of the curse of the human condition that we have to have gloomy people like this hanging on the coattails of invention, being dragged kicking and screaming into a future they cannot avoid no matter *how* loudly they complain. Regards, Thomas Junker tjunker(a)phoenix.net http://www.phoenix.net/~tjunker/wang.html The Unofficial Wang VS Information Center --- 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: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
by Matthew James Gering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > > Yes, they are. Can you say 'taxes'? > > > > Imposed by a gun. > > Don't try to change the subject. I'm not, taxes are a political transaction, I must pay them whether or not I demand the service or disservice I receive for them -- taxes are not bound by supply and demand. > It's one of the defining characteristics that allow a > government to be a economic factor in the economic system It is the defining excuse for the FEDERAL government to interfere with the economic system. > > > Can you say 'mint money'? Can you say 'federal reserve'? > > > > Can you say government fiat? > > Can you say fucked up non-working economy if there isn't some > standardization of monetary systems? I can see it now if > folks like you get your way. Try studying the free banking era of the Mid 1800's, or the international exchange markets. > When I go to Louisiana I'll need a whole new > currency that I can't trade my Texas money for. Why can't you trade your Texas money? Who is to prevent you? Who is to prevent other from meeting the exchange demand? Who it so prevent people from accepting it in trade? Clearly with the digitization of money, multiple currencies are not a problem. > > > Can you say 'FDIC'? > > > > Can you say banking regulation at the point of a gun? > > Don't change the subject (again). I'm not, the gun is the defining characteristic that makes it political and not economic. > > The Soviet Union is a prime recent example. > > How? Self-destructed command economy that created prices by fiat instead of obeying market economics. > > British Mercantilism. > > How? Self-destructed empire (starting with our war of independence) by creating artificial trade barriers between the colonies to reap artificial profits at the colonies expense (which was really at the heart of the revolution, not taxation nor representation). > Economics *is* human behaviour Let's expand the definition to the point it has no meaning. No thank you. Economics is production and trade; human behavior affects trade, it is not economics. > If you are trying to extend economics to the > extent of trying to predict the micro-economic actions of > individuals then you don't understand macro or micro > economics very well. You can predict the actions of groups of individuals if you understand the nature of individuals. Predicting an individual is left to the soothsayers. > No, the fundamental law of economics is > greed/desire/want/etc. Okay, you take your laws of greed/want/desire and figure out how to sustain life. > Self-defence and self-sufficiency. The first requires brute > force and the second requires some mechanism of trade. No, self-sufficiency by its definition means you are...well...sufficient by yourself. If you require trade, you are no longer self-sufficient. > symbol is money. Money either has intrinsic value, or it is a symbol and debt against something held of value, or it is a debt on the future acquisition of value produced by someone else -- i.e. future productivity. > First, the money supply was created by a popular vote, not a > government fiat Oh, please do tell when/where this popular vote took place. We've moved from intrinsic value currency to a currency representing hard value (gold) to something that represents nothing more than faith of government, and whose supply is controlled by fiat of a *private* institution -- the Federal Reserve Board. > > discussion? Privacy (as opposed to secrecy) is about discretionary > > disclosure of information. Discretion by you of the disclosure by you of information about you. Make sense? The other type of privacy, somehow preventing other people from disclosing information about you by means other than mutual agreement is privacy of the statist type. > > There is an economic cost of doing so, and an economic benefit. > > The government could tap my phone and there would be > no economic impact. No cost, eh? I suggest you take a look at the congressional allocations for FBI wiretapping capabilities. > No, regulation does not automaticaly imply force. Correct -- in fact the only regulations by private individuals/entities that *do* have force behind them is that of the custodian/dependent relationship, and they are limited. But find a government regulation that does not have the confiscation of your property (by force) and/or incarceration of your person (by force) as the absolute finality to non-compliance. They are few. > Yeah, so. I don't believe this is relevant since we all agree > on this. Oh, I forgot if you agree it irrelevant because you are simply being entirely combative. > I got news for you dude, I catch you in my truck after dark > or running down the street with my property I'm perfectly > within my rights to initiate force. But you are not the initiator, you are reacting to my initiation of a force (or derivative), in this case trespass and theft. > You mean in an insiteful manner. You aren't talking > about reacting to something you're veiled comment is No, force in reaction to force. That is plainly simple. > > You have absolutely *no* freedom to use it > > reactionary against government (which is in the face of the 4th). Brain fart, the 2nd. The right to bears arms has historically implied the right to bear arms in defense against a despot. Matt

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Re: Holloween II: Microsoft Plugs Linux
by Mark Lanett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> > By the standards of the ... developer accustomed to VB [Visual > Basic], these tools are incredibly primitive." How strange! I just talked about that paragraph with a friend of mine and he missed the EXACT same key words that you did. You LEFT OUT THE KEY WORDS! The actual message said: >By the standards of the novice / intermediate developer accustomed to VB/VS/VC/VJ, these tools are incredibly >primitive. Which is completely correct. What I replied to the buddy: Well they *are* [primitive]. You have to write a MAKEFILE for crying out loud. You can't go from error messages to the source code / line in your editor (unless you use Emacs). It's so stupid. Someone could write a simple (scratch-itch) OSS IDE and dominate the market in no time. The funny thing is that this was the DOS situation... MS hasn't been out of "primitive" for that long itself. Of course for experienced developers, GCC's 140 platforms (w/ cross-compiling) and optimizations and all is killer. But what's the ratio of less experienced to sophisticated developers? ~mark

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No Subject
by informer＠earthlink.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

11/06/98 INTERNET NEWS:BUSINESS WIRE 2:36pm EST Re:21st Century Frontier Group, Inc. Nasdaq OTC:"TCFG" TCFG strikes $150mm deal with Sumitomo Bank, Japans' 2nd largest bank for construction of 6 hotels and casinos, the first of which to be built in San Juan, Puerto Rico!

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Re: TEMPEST laptops
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:45 PM 11/4/98 -0800, Tim May wrote: >>The other question is how hard, given a _specific_ machine would it be to >>create a "RF" jammer? Sort of an active defense versus the passive defense >>of a Tempest sheild. build a device that measures the RF coming off a Well dang Tim, if you're gonna work inside a Faraday cage you may as well run a Tesla coil outside it... --Lace Aliens Slide on my Rugs

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Re: Netscape inside scoop on "Smart Browsing"
by x 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Natrificial's "Brain" product did the same thing, silently, or at least via a nonobvious option setting that was not explicitly documented. The transmittal of all your URL's to the mother ship was how they would inform you that you were hitting a page specially enabled for their S/W. Totally unnecessary, as the page, if so enabled, would be perfectly capable of notifying the browser with the addition of a trivial plugin, e.g. or other thing. I raised the issue of disclosing this kind of thing and got the usual "we're technology users too and we'd NEVER do anything with that information..." response, like it's no big deal. I stopped using and recommending the product, even though it looked like with the proper option setting I would no longer be reporting my bizarre habits to Natrificial. This shit's outta hand ..... >> * IS SMART BROWSING REALLY SO SMART? >> (contributed by Mark Joseph Edwards, http://www.ntsecurity.net) >> Many of you are aware of Netscape's new versions of its Navigator Web >> browser. But do you also know that, starting with version 4.06, the >> product's Smart Browsing feature can report to Netscape every Web page >> you visit, including addresses to private sites on your internal >> network? And are you aware that when you download a secure version of >> Netscape's browser, the process places a cookie on your system that can ... etc ... >> > >Rick Desautels >Sr. Systems Engineer >Rival Computer Solutions >rivalcs(a)ma.ultranet.com > > >-- >To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to majordomo(a)blu.org >with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: >unsubscribe isig > >--- 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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Holiday Shopping Survey And Contest
by prize＠survey.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Internet User, The holiday season will soon be upon us. Will you be making your list and checking it twice online? We're curious about what role, if any, the Internet will play in your holiday plans this year. Share your opinions with us and you could win a free Talking Tommy (from hit Rugrats' TV Show) or Talking Teletubby toy (from popular PBS show). To join in the holiday fun, go to the survey at: http://www.survey.com/holshopsur.html Be sure to include your email address at the end of the survey so we can enter your name in the drawing. It is not required that any information be provided other than your email address for you to be entered into the drawing. A complete list of contest rules is attached to the survey. We will be happy to let you know when the results are ready. Happy Holidays and good luck on the drawing! Greg Harmon Director of Research World Research

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My first order of Business (http://www.jesseventura.org/bbs/messages/3052.html) (fwd)
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 06:56:20 -0500 Reply-To: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM> Sender: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM> From: Robbin Stewart <rstewart(a)INDY.NET> Subject: My first order of Business (http://www.jesseventura.org/bbs/messages/3052.html) (fwd) Comments: To: robbin stewart <rstewart(a)indy3.indy.net> To: CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM It appears that we've found a solution to spam. Somebody sent "make money fast" type post to Jesse's web-based bulliten board and got the following response. Forwarded message: > Subject: My first order of Business >(http://www.jesseventura.org/bbs/messages/3052.html) > > My first order of Business > > > [ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ jesseventura Message Board ] > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------= > ------- > > Posted by Jesse Ventura on November 06, 1998 at 02:03:38: > > In Reply to: $$ posted by $$ on November 06, 1998 at 01:05:44: > > Is to rid the internet of spammers like this JERK. By the way we have = > your IP and your interner provider will be contacted, enjoy your 6X9 = > cell.=20 > --- 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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RSA Seeks Nominees for Awards & $10K Honors <FW>
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: vin(a)shell1.shore.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 01:27:20 -0500 To: "John Young" <jya(a)pop.pipeline.com>, "Dave Farber" <farber(a)cis.upenn.edu> From: Vin McLellan <vin(a)shore.net> Subject: RSA Seeks Nominees for Awards & $10K Honors <FW> Cc: cryptography(a)c2.net Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Vin McLellan <vin(a)shore.net> <fyi> RSA Data Security <http:www.rsa.com> invites industry and political activists, netizens, and scholars to nominate individuals who should be honored for their "outstanding contributions" to the field of cryptography. RSADSI annually awards three US$10,000 prizes to innovators and leaders in the fields of Mathematics, Public Policy, and Industry. The final selection is by a panel of academic and industry experts, but the nomination process is open to all. Nominations for the 1999 Awards can be made directly at <http://www.rsa.com/rsaawards/> anytime before 12/4/98. "The RSA Award in Mathematics recognizes innovation and ongoing contributions to the field of cryptography. The Committee seeks to reward nominees who are pioneers in their field, and whose work has applied value." Nominees should be affiliated with universities or research labs. The 1998 winner of the RSA Math Award was Dr. Shafrira Goldwasser, who was also named to the RSA Professorship at MIT last year. Prof. Goldwasser's pioneering work in number theory, complexity, and cryptography has also won MIT's Grace Murray Hopper Award and the first Godel Prize. Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) -- primary sponsor of HR 696, the Security and Freedom Thru Encryption (SAFE) Act -- was the 1998 winner of the RSA Public Policy Award. This prize seeks to honor elected or appointed officials, or activists associated with public interest groups, who have made a "significant contribution" to the American policy debate about cryptography over the previous calendar year. The RSA Award for Industry seeks to honor individuals or organizations which have made outstanding contributions in commercial applications of crypto -- "particularly those that provide clear value to the end users" -- and demonstrated "ongoing innovation in their technology and products." The 1998 winner was Netscape, source of SSL and a steady steam of clever innovations for the denizens of the web. Taher ElGamal accepted for Netscape. The three winners for 1999 will be announced at the 1999 RSA Data Security Conference, which (having outgrown Nob Hill, to the regret of many) is being held in San Jose, January 17-21. See: <http://www.rsa.com/conf99> ----- Vin McLellan + The Privacy Guild + <vin(a)shore.net> 53 Nichols St., Chelsea, MA 02150 USA <617> 884-5548 -- <@><@> -- For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "dcsb-request(a)ai.mit.edu" with one line of text: "help". --- 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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