December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

NSA on TDC....
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, There is a show on TDC right now (21:09 Ctl.) on the NSA. Has some interesting shots of their CRITIC center as well as a brief discussion of their computing resources. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Letter to Editor on Censorship
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Monday 9/28/1998's San Mateo County Times had a really strong, if slightly naive, editorial in favor of the First Amendment protections on speech and the press. Among other things, it was quite positive about the fact that the Starr Report was able to be widely published in spite of content that would have been censored in the past, and that it would be hard to imagine how we'd explain to future generations 25 or 50 years from now that we'd covered up this important part of the historical record just because its content was vulgar. Heh. Their heart's in the right place... To: Editor, San Mateo County Times, Thank you for Monday's great editorial supporting freedom of speech. Unfortunately, it's a right preserved only by hard work, and getting recognition for all forms of speech beyond just ink on paper is an ongoing struggle. Publishing the Starr Report on the Internet would have been illegal if the EFF, ACLU, and publishers hadn't challenged the "Communications Decency Act", which the Supreme Court threw out 9-0, and unlike Nixon's tapes, a few "Expletive Deleted"s can't clean up the Starr Report. As your editorial says "it would be hard to imagine", but censors are still at it - a Congressional committee just passed a reworded version, hoping they can get away with "protecting minors" as a loophole. Some people contend that the First Amendment doesn't protect rude language, only political speech. But if you oppose campaign finance limits, they'll contend that elections are too important to allow unregulated political speech on TV or newspapers. And Joe Camel? He's illegal too. Meanwhile, the range of opinions on TV and radio is quite narrow - big corporations and government public broadcasting buy up the few TV licenses, while the FCC bans low-power broadcasters who can provide a diversity of opinion, and most cities grant monopolies on cable TV networks. And FBI director Louis Freeh, in his push for expanded wiretaps, has been using Anti-Communist Cold War restrictions on exporting encryption software to keep foreigners and Americans from using tools that allow them to talk privately without censorship. Eternal vigilance is still the price of liberty. ================ Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart(a)pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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Re: cypherpunk license: PLEASE STEAL ME (Re: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction) (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 03:22:27 +0100 > From: Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> > Subject: Re: cypherpunk license: PLEASE STEAL ME (Re: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction) (fwd) > Yes, I know, I have read LGPL a few times, and it does include the > sorts of exceptions you describe. But I said GPL, and GPL is the > license which I was suggesting causes problems. As I said, LGPL is > sort of useable. GPL and LGPL both support fully this model of commercial use of L/GPL'ed code. > Right, this is the major sticking point for commercial people I find. I find most commercial people lack imagination, though they make up for it with a desire for money. > Yes, but the more interesting, less restrictive case is where they > really want to modify the code. cf the example I gave of say adding > pgp5 compatibility to pgp26ui. There would be no significant problem if you include the necessary stubs and make them L/GPL'ed. By both the L/GPL the use of 3rd party code (L/GPL'ed, PD, or proprietary) hanging off those stubs would NOT be L/GPL'ed. > I think that if you modify to any significant extent a GPL peice of > software, and try to sell it you could run into problems. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the L/GPL that prevents me from selling such code at whatever price I can manage to charge for it, I could even change it significantly. I, however, MUST include the source code or provide it for a reasonable fee if requested by the end user. Your point is irrelevant. Now if I try to sell it as (my) *copyrighted* code then I'm in for a world of hurt and justifiably so. This, again, desire to take advantage of others work is the hallmark of thieves and marketing droids (if there is a difference between the two). > Your legal > bill for trying to work out how bad it is will be expensive. Will be nil. The L/GPL themselves clearly state they don't override previous copyrights of material that might be used with L/GPL'ed products. That L/GPL subsumption ONLY applies to code that is built using L/GPL'ed source. In other words for the L/GPL to be inovked on your code requires that you use somebodies elses L/GPL'ed code in (NOT with) your code. This is clearly understood by businesses that do use gcc/egc in that they use no libraries, headers, etc. from L/GPL sources, develop them in-house or buy them from 3rd parties. They only use the compiler/linker/tools to get hooked together. > If you want to be creative, you could do what you want to it ignoring > the license, then provide a binary patch from their binary to your > binary. Or whatever. Commercial lawyers are cautious animals though, > so because you could theoretically hack around things does not mean > that some company's lawyer is going to recommend that they do it. The goal of the L/GPL is NOT to stop commercial programming, it is to return to the end user a level of control and understanding (at least in principle) so they may build a system to do what they want and not some marketing droid at a multi-national. This is NO hack, it is specificaly detailed in the L/GPL as a legitimate use of such licensed code. > That aspect of LGPL (availability of source) is useful to the extent > that it encourages people to make source of the crypto parts > available. No, it suggests they should make the API definition available. As to it being useful, it is critical to the long term stability of systems and the continued development of imaginative software. > Use of GNU development tools is a different, and more straight forward > issue than using GNU licensed code. Only if you don't understand the L/GPL. > The point remains: the simplest and best thing to do about licenses if > you are more concerned about crypto deployment than source > availability is not to use GPL, and probably to avoid LGPL also. No, the best thing to do is build your copyrighted libraries and release the API's via headerfiles or whatever in the GPL'ed code. > Use BSD, use PD, either is better than GPL for the purpose. No, they're not because in PD you loose ALL control of your code and if somebody else uses it in a commercial app or not then you're pretty much screwed as they laugh their asses off on the way to the bank. Considering the extend of BSD that would be the last choice of an OS that I would bank my business on. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb 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: Cypherpunks defeat? (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: Eric Murray <ericm(a)lne.com> > Subject: Re: Cypherpunks defeat? > Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 19:56:16 -0700 (PDT) > using plastic. But it's ok for the merchant to offer 'discounts' for > buyers who use cash instead of credit cards. That 'discount' > is the real price of the goods with the credit-card surcharge > subtracted. Often that's 3-4%, sometimes as low as 1.2%. I haven't seen that in 10 years or more. I doubt that anyone will find this approach very widely. > Visa and MasterCard don't have massive staffs and huge office > buildings because they're dumb. You don't know big corporations very well do you. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb 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: [salman rushdie]
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 9/27/98, A Cypherpunk Who Wishes Not To Have His Name Used Here wrote to me: > In article <3.0.5.32.19980926215457.00ad1510(a)idiom.com> Bill Stewart wrote: > > If there's cypherpunks relevance to this, it's that cryptographic > > privacy and digital cash payments make it easier to publish > > controversial material without the threat of violence against you. > > On the other hand, privacy and digital cash payments make it > easier to hire and reward hit men. > > You may not like it, but there's no sense in pretending it isn't so. True enough, though in Rushdie's case, the social environment provided enough protection that the murder could be called for, the reward could be offered, and several of Rushdie's associates could be murdered without any resort to crypto. At least if you want to publish something that you _know_ will annoy people enough that they want to kill you, you can do it more safely if you've got a range of options for anonymity. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart(a)pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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Re: Cypherpunks defeat? (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 21:13:36 -0700 > From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd(a)echeque.com> > Subject: Re: Cypherpunks defeat? (fwd) > At 10:06 PM 9/28/98 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: > > I haven't seen that in 10 years or more. I doubt that > > anyone will find this approach very widely. > > I find this invariably happens with buying computers or guns > from cheap sources. If you have never encountered this, you > are paying too much for your computers and your guns.=20 What in the world do you mean 'cheap sources'? I doubt I'm paying too much for my hardware. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Army Plonks
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Now that the terrified US Army has axed its Web sites, and NSA and several other mil sites seem inaccessible and "temporarily unavailable" this morning, could this portend a dual-use of the Internet, a closed one for porkbarrell mil and secret gov sweethearts and a sappy infotainment one for civilians to gameboy infofoolery? That would be a tri-power-gov implementation of dual-use terror-scare to hide perkbellied privileges of natsec obsession.

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Re: Cypherpunks defeat? (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 21:05:34 -0700 > From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd(a)echeque.com> > Subject: Re: Cypherpunks defeat? > On the contrary, it is the server end that is hard. > The problem is that we do not want to force everyone in the > universe to be the clients of a single giant issuer. That > would bring us right back to the old problem of the > tyrannical and oppressive central bank. This would argue that what is needed is a distributed server-less protocol. A peer-to-peer mechanism with a local arbitration mechanism. > Visualize the following situation. I buy tokens from Bob, > who may be my local ISP. I spend them on a server on a site > in Sri Lanka. The owner of the server cashes them with > Evonne. My money, aggregated with a multitude of other > peoples money in a multitude of other peoples transactions > flows by some complex and indirect route to through several > different people, and eventually to Evonne, and finally to > the owner of the server in Sri Lanka. Whatever that protocol is, it should take care of currency conversion transparently. Perhaps the wrong approach has been taken from the get go. As I understand the various approaches every one of the has worried about how to get the users money transfered into digital tokens. What if we approach it from the other end and ask: How can one design a system which focuses on how a users token cache and converting it to the appropriate currency as required can be realized Further, this mechanism should not rely on any centralized server or arbitration mechanism while doing this specie conversion. One potential mechanism (admittedly very roughly described) would be to let each participant in a transaction to agree on the worth of those tokens and not worry if Bob gets the same bank per token from Sam that he gets from Sue. So how many tokens Bob gets from Sam each time Sam buys one of Bob's used CD's wouldn't necessarily be the same number of tokens from Sue, even though Bob charges the same amount to both Sam and Sue. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb 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: Remailers, PGP, and a Project Suggestion
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> So, what you are saying is that you want crypto to protect yourself >from government intrusion, but are unwilling to actually WRITE the code for >fear that the government will lock you up. That's about right. I will write the code for myself. I will not release it since I'm in the U.S. and it gives the thugs one more reason to come after me. That job is better suited for somebody who is outside the U.S. or is actually willing to sit through a long grand jury investigation, possible indictment, trial, conviction, jail time, and life as a convicted felon.

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Toto -- mimic function or the real thing (Re: no subject)
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back writes: >Who knows, if it is Toto, he has been rather careful not to sign >anything recently :-). > >(If he were to sign things it might be helpful for Carl >Johnson... Toto?) He could have been one of the guys sending the insults to the spammers (which I applaud, mind you) and who got into that argument with Paul Meril, but the wording isn't anywhere near what we've come to expect from Toto. The two gay sex responses to one of the Six Degrees of Spam users sounds just like something he might do. If Toto has been here all along, I think this is one of the most clever hoaxes which has hit the list in a long time.

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