December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

ANON: pseudospoofing confusion
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Does the ECPA (the law regulating communications privacy) or the >copyright laws apply to material that was written under a >*pseudonymous* identity? I would consider this a grey area. A court Well, there may be some legal precedent to look up: some of the greatest works of literature were published under "pseudonymous" identities. Lewis Carroll, George Orwell, Mark Twain, George Eliot: none of these people ever existed. In fact, Mary Ann Evans published under "George Eliot" in order to pretend to be male; I guess you could call her master pseudospoofer, since she specifically created a fake identity in order to fool others. I suppose "Publius" doesn't qualify as a pseudospoofer since the three gentlemen who were responsible for the _Federalist Papers_ were probably just trying to hide their identity (at first) and not go about creating new ones. I'm sort of fuzzy on the distinction between pseudonymous and pseudoanonymous; is it that a pseudonym is obviously so? For example, an id on anon.penet.fi is obviously a pseudonym, so if I were to use it, I would be pseudonymous. In a sense, every mail address you see here is a pseudonym. Now, pseudoanonymous is when a fake identity is created, without it being obviously so. (Right?) So if I were to obtain another account with a different user name, etc. and use that account, I would be pseudospoofing. (?) But the difference between these two seems so slight, a semantic one rather than practical. For example, suppose several people were in communication with someone they had never met. One person (of the several) is curious as to the identity of the mystery person, and tries to find out information about this person. Very little is turned up. So little, it could be that the mystery person is "pseudoanonymous", a fake identity. Are the several people being pseudospoofed? How can they tell one way or the other without actually meeting the mystery person? If they can't tell, then what difference does it make? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLOcsTYOA7OpLWtYzAQFKzAQAyx5MNNNyjs/BeJLLqM0EX5A0ZQADCLge fNkndrgT/nSWiVGubE58girFQdNZlI5a50swKeKOqEHo8zxdqYSEIw8mrAm8iXeB mH5uOi2KHpxuWHQ+nkgmEi+KKkFNI6PQH7jR0euVPgu+GZsj40V52mJ9Z9ZYP/EV GvE6VvFkux8= =CA2o -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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LD info posting...
by Jim McCoy 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: szabo(a)netcom.com (Nick Szabo) > Message-Id: <199311161017.CAA01079(a)mail.netcom.com> > Subject: Nonviolence in cyberspace > To: arthurc(a)crl.com > Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 2:17:37 PST > Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.87.9311151449.A21078-0100000(a)crl.crl.com>; from "Arthur Chandler" at Nov 15, 93 3:03 pm > X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] > Arthur Chandler (arthurc(a)crl.com) writes: > If the publication of this information is intended as a prelude to the > RL persecution or harassment of Mr. Detweiler, I want to lodge a strong > dissenting opinion. Perhaps it was meant as an object lesson in the necessity of the dreaded "pseudospoofing" for Mr. Detweiller. I find it rather amusing that many of the same people who were arguing against L. Detweiler's claims of a cryptoanarchic identity conspiracy are now objecting to the simple presentation of the same information about LD that LD wants to make available on all of you regardless of your wishes. Quite ironic. jim

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Privacy != right?
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> There is no right to privacy in this country. > > The much touted "Right to privacy" is a common law > conception and invention that, for the most part, has little > foundation. There are constitutional provisions that _suggest_ > privacy, but none that "assure" it. To enforce a right to > privacy in court, judges have to do a lot of reaching. >From the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech..." Mike or another with legal expertise can correct me, but I believe it has been shown more than once that privacy can be a necessary condition for freedom of expression. >From the 4th Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable seraches and seizures, shall not be violated..." This does not spell out the word "privacy", but the implications would appear to be plain. >From the 8th Amendment: "cruel and unusual punishment [shall not be] inflicted". This MIGHT be grounds for the conclusion that privacy is a right, in such cases where violation of that privacy may be construed as cruel, or [more likely] unusual punishment. Theoretically. I make no pretense at being an attorney, or having a wide knowledge of caselaw, I'm just arguing from a philosophical and logical position. The 9th Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Looks pretty cut and dry right there. The 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the Unites States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to *the people*" [emphasis added.] Again, pretty cut and dry. >From the 14th Amendment: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;" This takes care of the state level as well as federal it would appear. I make no claim that this is a perfect analysis, but it is food for thought. It would appear to me that unless one takes privacy to be neither a right in any manner at all, ever, under any circumstance, nor to be: a) a power not delegated to the federal govt. or b) a power not forbidden to the states or specifically delegated to the states then privacy must perforce be a right or power of the people. > Your natural rights approach to the rights of privacy is > limited in that, unlike other rights founded in a Natural Rights > / Victorian legal thought fashion, privacy has no logical > precedent in the state of nature. Tell that to the wolf who will happily kill you for invading it's territory. Tel that to the same wolf who drags your corpse back to it's private, and jealously defended, private burrow or other shelter. I'm not a proponent of natural rights, just pointing out a gaping hole or 2 in this line of reasoning. > Unfortunately the departure of the formalist approach takes with > it the notion of the public and private spheres distinction. The > progressive movement began to blend the spheres, and what > distinction was left between them was gelded by the notion that > the public sphere was the larger and more important of the two. > Farewell individual rights, hello good of the collective. This would appear to be a pretty good analysis. > I think this is much of the reason that the appeal to the > absolute right of privacy gets little attention today. Instead > we see privacy taking a back seat to public elements like the war > on drugs and national security. I think the reason is closer to propaganda. If the media at large told people they should want privacy, the odds are they would want privacy. Right now shooting coke dealers is more "sexy", and I think it a fair assessment that most Americans take their social cues, and much of their ethics, priorities, and other important aspects of personality from tv and other media, for better or worse. This is the reason that getting pro-crypto media attention is essential. Only when the people realize that drug dealers and largely imaginary terrorists are a far smaller threat than loss of privacy and other rights, will the pendulum swing back. > Turn for a second to the nature of right and privilege. > Privacy is really not a right to begin with but a privilege. [...] > Privacy in the past has fit nicely into the privilege hole. > It wasn't that you had a right to privacy, but rather that > everyone else had no-right to pry. Privacy was in a Hohfieldian > manner, a privilege. Please explain to me then the presence of laws against peeping tomism, trespassing, interception of wire communications, etc. It appears clear to me from these laws that privacy, of one sort or another, is considered to be a right, at least in certain applications and circumstances. > Today this changes. Privacy, or more > accurately LACK OF PRIVACY, is now a duty. The social security > administration has a RIGHT to assign you a number. The law that created the SSN was not intended to violate privacy. It is in fact primarily the states, and especially the private sector, that misuse this tax number to violate privacy. > The IRS has a RIGHT to poke around. This is vague. If you mean the IRS has a right to poke around in your records to make sure you are not cheating on your taxes, this is not a right but an entitlement (i.e. a priviledge that restricts a right.) Similarly a court can demand that you show this document or that. This is indeed a violation of your right to privacy, but in it's position as an entitlement, it is no different that civil forfeiture, searches, emergency confiscation of a vehicle by police for use in a chase, or the forcing (at gunpoint if necessary) citizens from their own property in situations of impending disaster, subpoenas, etc. etc. etc. This is not a new tale. > The FBI has a RIGHT to tap your phone > (with cause, [or not]). Only under certain, very limited, circumstances, and again this is not a right but an entitlement, since it by definition infringes a right. If you don't "get" the distinction, try on this simple example: you have a right to swing your arm (and please note that it, like the right to privacy, is another of those rights not specifically enumerated, but covered by the 9th Amendment), but I have an entitlement to not be hit in the face by your swinging arm. My entitlement supercedes your right, but only under certain circumstances (e.g. when my face is in imminent danger of being struck by your arm, or has already been struck - assault, and battery respectively, if intentional - but I cannot use my entitlement to demand that you _never_ swing your arm). > We have gone from a privilege to the > opposite side of a right, a duty in effect. The FBI's attempt to make their very limited entitlement to wiretapping into a duty of the populace and the market failed dismally, when their "Digital Telephony" proposal collapsed. > Enter cryptography. Now we have the means to protect our > information. Technology makes it easier to avoid the "duty" of > disclosure. There is no such duty, except under the limited circumstances where an entitlement of the govt. requires it. Cryptography is not likely to change this any. Try encrypting all of your records, and refusing to decrypt them or surrender the key despite a court order to do so. Unless you can make a convincing case that to do so would be self-incrimination (see the 5th Amendment), you'll likely find yourself slapped with a contempt of court charge. > One way or another, something will give. Privacy is > on the fence right now with a movement to a government > entitlement against it. Cryptography will either force the hand, > or force a backdown. Which one is a matter of conjecture. > Personally I would like to see the elements of privacy > become guarded by right to privacy, with the typical bundle of > property rights that follows such a designation. Right to use, > right to exclude, right to transfer the property of information, > personal or proprietary. This opens the door for more radical > injunctive and money damage relief for the violation of these > rights than is currently available. It is with this goal in mind > that I approach my support of cypherpunks and cryptography. This is certainly reasonable. I would like very much to see a new Amendment that specifically enumerates privacy as a right. > Numbered bank accounts and even lines of credit > exist and will continue to prosper. One can hope so, but when the Swiss numbered bank account, the canonical example, vanishes, I begin to have doubts. > Thank you for your time and attention. You're welcome, and ditto. -- Stanton McCandlish mech(a)eff.org 1:109/1103 EFF Online Activist & SysOp O P E N P L A T F O R M C R Y P T O P O L I C Y O N L I N E R I G H T S N E T W O R K I N G V I R T U A L C U L T U R E I N F O : M E M B E R S H I P @ E F F . O R G

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Re: modem taps/caller id
by Matthew J Miszewski 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It is my understanding that the *67(9) feature does not stop the actual sending of your number to the switch but rather stops the data from being transmitted from the switch to the end user (actually sends a 'P' I believe.) --Matt ______________________________________________________________________________ In defense of liberty, encrypt for all purposes, civil and professional. In defense of privacy, encrypt all correspondence, personal and professional. In defense of sanity, do not encrypt your dry cleaning invoice! ++++++++--------mjmiski(a)macc.wisc.edu (c)1993

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Key Servers
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I wonder if anyone would want to start a PGP key server dedicated only to *real* identities. Obviously, there is no such demand with the current ones. And please don't start with the `that would be impossible' arguments. A key server that had the official policy `if you register here, on your honor your legal name is what you give, under penalty of public exposure if you are caught' would be enough for me.

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Quarantining Toxic Waste
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm writing this in hopes there are still some sane people left here. It's quite shocking to hear such blase arguments about identity from the people who have erected the current key server system. At the very minimum, these people should make their policies about pseudospoofing clear in policy documents -- anyone listed here could be imaginary, there are no guarantees. I'm going to make some arguments why a key server system with true identities should be completely quarantined from one that allows Medusa's Snakes: 1) First, honesty and dishonesty are fundamentally incompatible. Our technology should reflect that. 2) No one that ever subscribed to a database that had tentacles would be interested in one that guaranteed none were there, and vice versa. 3) if the databases overlapped, it would be easier for criminals to infect a `true name' system. ah, how the psychopunks understand this. 4) sequestered servers (the `reputable' ones) could eventually hook up with all those neat government databases on identities. A Cypherpunks Worst Nightmare. Hee, hee. 5) I remember a P.Metzger argument with M.Graff on some mailing list about using DNS as a kind of key distribution system. The argument boiled down to the point: can *anyone* insert entries? Coincidentally, this is the critical question in a True Name vs. Toxic Waste Dump databases. 6) The software already exists to have a separate network of True Names. 7) People interested in True Names might want to sort their mail and news interactively, dynamically. I imagine that when I connect to an NNTP server, I also set up a socket session with a True Name database that replies to my queries in real time. People interested in toxic waste would not be interested in any such system. There are many other arguments. I'm sure all the Psychopunks will come up with their clever arguments to sabotage any True Name debate or database system. I stopped believing in Cypherpunk Honesty about the same time I stopped believing J. Dinkelacker. <g>

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some pseudopool FUN
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

S.Boxx: > <sigh> nobody is interested in preventing pseudospoofing here. the > people who have most maneuvered themselves into a position to aid > future cyberspace are instead constraining it. that's the point, isn't > it? gosh, how could I have been so blind... T.C.May: >I think its because we don't see pseudospoofing as a "danger" like you >do. Personally, I consider it a necessity. I like being able to hide >behind an anonymous identity (not that I do, mind you). I don't see >pseudospoofing as "constraining". On the contrary, I see it as >freeing us. E.Hughes, on Pseudospoofing software >No the software isn't mine, but I consider myself it's God Father. >Tim May and I were talking about this a long >time, and he just beat me to learning enough PERL to write the thing. >But I'd like to think that the two of us did most all of the design of >it. So, in a way, it is my software. Nick Szabo: >As an example, look at Ender's Game, where Ender's brother and sister >get on the net under pseudonyms, and get treated just like everyone >else. There is no biases. People are judged on their actions and >words, not by who they are, how old they are, what they look like, or >anything like that. Maybe you are blind, I don't know. I've never >met you. Arthur Chandler: >And, as I said, it is not the job of the Keyserver to provide any sort >of policy. The job of the Keyserver is to distribute keys. Nothing >more. Nothing less. The job of identifying True Names is solely a >job for Digital Signatures, not a job for the Keyserver. Jamie Dinkelacker: >I oppose using it in a bogus fashion because the software is not >designed for such a use, there is absolutely no protection for it (any >key can be added), because I, and all the other Keyserver admins, >believe that all the keyservers should be interconnected, and because >I feel the job for determining a True Name on a key is a job for >Digital Signatures, not for the Keyserver. Perry Metzger: >I am a cypherpunk. I don't believe in trusting something on faith >alone, but you seem to be asking for that. There is no way to protect >such a reckless use of the Keyserver. The only way to provide a >secure way for True Names is to Cryptographically identify them. Hal Finney: >So, Mr. Detweiler, why do you oppose using Digital Signatures to >verify True Names? I mean, besides that you consider yourself a >Cypherpunk? ;-)

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ANARCHY: The Coming Crypto Phase Change (fwd)
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunk friends, Here's a piece I just did for the Extropians mailing list, arguing for a kind of "crypto phase change." Yes, it's political, but in a way that I sense some list members are eager to hear about. We rarely discuss the long term implications of strong crypto, digital money, remailers, etc., these days. These topics got pretty thoroughly aired a year or so ago when the list was young, and the message is of course made clearly in some of the "rants" (Eric's term, but in light of the "True Rants" we've been seeing lately, I think the term is misleading). Anyway, I won't apologize further. You can always delete this. Forwarded message: To: Extropians(a)extropy.org From: tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: ANARCHY: The Coming Crypto Phase Change Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 23:54:51 PST I want to elaborate on some comments I made earlier about anarchy and crypto-anarchy and tie them to the "Oceania" ocean colonization thread. I wrote: > Some of us believe various forms of strong cryptography will cause the > power of the state to decline, perhaps even collapse fairly abruptly. > We believe the expansion into cyberspace, with secure communications, > digital money, anonymity and pseudonymity, and other crypto-mediated > interactions, will profoundly change the nature of economies and > social interactions. > > Governments will have a hard time collecting taxes, regulating the > behavior of individuals and corporations (small ones at least), and > generally coercing folks when it can't even tell what _continent_ > folks are on! The "crypto phase change" is the transition to wide use of private communications to conduct business, to arrange deals, to meet other people, and so on. I contrast it with the idea of a "singularity," so often associated with nanotechnology (cf. Vinge, Stiegler, et. al.), because nothing is ever truly a "singularity." Discontinuities, yes. Phase changes, yes. Singularities, in the sense of infinite spikes, no. Crypto and related cyberspace methods have the potential for causing a fairly rapid transition to a new sort of society. Just as printing presses did. Just as radio, television, and new media did. And this phase change could involve--likely _will_ involve--many people, perhaps the majority of the population in America and Europe, at the least. Some scenarios: - people hear about widespread tax evasion by crypto-anarchists, and they get interested (for various reasons, including jealousy, anger, greed, desire for freedom). "Crypto lasing." - consultants discover they can consult on projects from other countries, from jurisdictions that might ban their invovlement if they knew about it, and so on. - the "permanent tourists" in the world-spanning economy. - black markets in credit information, dossiers, insurance fraud cases, medical malpractice, etc. A simple example that will reach many people: You're thinking of hiring a lawyer. Under U.S. law, records of "bad lawyers" are hard for outsiders to keep, to gain access to, etc. The Bar Associations, like the American Medical Association, like other officially sanctioned "guilds," prefers to keep outsiders in the dark. So what happens when "Reputations R Us" sets up shop in cypherspace--or, more mundanely, on an island in the Caribbean that has no such laws? What happens when for the price of an offshore phone call or Net query the parochial and paternalistic U.S. laws can be trivially bypassed? It'll be a whole new world. Ditto for gambling, escrow services to hold money (think of the reduction in violence when "reputable" digital banks will hold the drugs _and_ the money), information markets, private investigation services, rent deadbeat records, and credit records that include _all_ creditor information (not just the last 7 years, and not just the "allowable" items...how dare anyone infringe my right to take into account records more than 7 years old?!). (For those worried about tracing the calls, about sting operations, etc., that's where digital mixes (remailers) come in and where prepaid "coupons" ("The holder of this number is entitled to one database query") come in. Even short of full-blown Chaumian digital money, a lot can be done. Prepaid digital coupons, or digital postage of a sort, can be used to make these off-shore--or in cypherspace, a la the "BlackNet" demonstration I did a few months back, and written about in "Wired"--markets liquid and profitable.) Like a seed crystal dropped in a supersaturated solution, crypto could trigger a phase change of immmense proportions. (The metaphor is slightly awkward, as I see the crypto phase change _increasing_ the number of degrees of freedom, as in the transition from a solid to a liquid to a gas.) The "Oceania" project, in contrast, tends _not_ to produce this kind of phase change. Joe Nextdoor may eventually start using data havens and crypto tax evasion schemes, but he's not at all likely to volunteer to man the oars on a floating barge. (I don't mean to defame the Oceania project. Just my sense of humor.) Ocean-going colonies have not appeared, even by corporations and states, for whatever reasons, so the onus is on the oceanauts to explain just what is out there that is so valuable (that can't be done by ordinary boats and ships that fish, mine for manganese nodules, do oceanographic research, etc.). Merely seeking freedom is probably not enough. Gambling, prostitution, and easy access to drugs and other hedonistic delights may be enough, but I've seen nothing to indicate this type of "Love Boat" is being planned. Just the dreamy ideas about self-sufficiency. A commune by another name. A floating "Hog Farm," with anarchocapitalist ideology replacing Thoreau and Marx. In any case, Oceania-type projects, even if moderately successful (and not just the rusting pontoons I predicted in an earlier posting), are very unlikely to trigger a phase change such as the one I see for crypto. This is why I am currently placing my faith in strong crypto and am so active in the Cypherpunks group. That's one place where the Revolution _will_ be televised. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

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Citizens Guide to Using the FOIA
by bart＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Available from the gopher wiretap.spies.com by selecting 5. Government Docs (...) and then 5. Citizens Guide ... q to quit reading online, m to mail it, and enter your email address. 93Kbytes. Bart

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Key Servers
by an41418＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I don't see what you mean by key servers for only true names. How do you know that a true name isn't just a false identity created with a real account on some system? How do you differentiate a true name from a unix account? Wonderer -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQBVAgUBLOeQFx1kTJuroDD9AQFxbQH/f7Y4uj4xn2eeWFoTmu8Aahp2FxG+7ShV uAvvRpUWkE2Ay9MdB4lKCSjNv5cO92DwbcWRoZgbI7hPJGAe7za37A== =IBrC -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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