December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Remailer Abuse?
by nobody＠cicada.berkeley.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

hh(a)cicada.berkeley.edu says: > Harassing other users is considered abuse, and sending chain letters is a > form of harassing other users. However, it's not a very serious form of > abuse. If I found conclusive evidence that someone were sending something > like childporn through my remailer, I would take some pretty drastic > actions. Interesting. I wonder what those drastic actions would be? People sending serious death threats and the like through anon remailers should be aware that those actions are considered seriously anti-social and may cause them some problems. But I don't view "kiddie porn" the same way. Its very definition is VERY ill-defined, and there is widespread disagreement on how much of an evil threat to truth, justice, and the American Way it really poses. This makes me start to think that borderline policies like this should be well publicized by the operator of the remailer. I don't support the kiddie porn witch hunt going on in the U.S. currently, and would not have assumed that posting what many people consider to be harmless photos of kids under 18 would get someone automatically turned in to the cops. (Again, keep in mind that the definition is very fuzzy. Some people who have been busted as kiddie pornographers have been busted for extremely mild and un-pornographic material that no reasonable person would consider harmful.) .....Cindy

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Mark Abene (Phiber Optik) sentenced
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article <9311080705.AA15339(a)toad.com> newsham(a)wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu writes: > I have heard that tapping high speed modems can be a little tricky > because of the adaptive filtering done. The modems both have > adaptive filters that adjust to the line as they see it. If you > are tapping at some other point the filtering will not be optimimal > for your case. I believe these filters take care of smearing and > echos and things of that nature. > > Maybe someone in the know can elaborate and clear up all the > bad data I probably just spewed :) Dunno if this is how they did it, but you get *perfect* data tapping if you record digitally off the exchange trunks... G -- Personal mail to gtoal(a)gtoal.com (I read it in the evenings) Business mail to gtoal(a)an-teallach.com (Be careful with the spelling!) Faxes to An Teallach Limited: +44 31 662 4678 Voice: +44 31 668 1550 x212

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Bits-n-Bytes Online
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anyone have the address of Bits-n-Bytes Online newsletter? I think Jay Machado is putting that out, but I don't recall... -- -=> mech(a)eff.org <=- Stanton McCandlish Electronic Frontier Foundation Online Activist & SysOp "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood of ideas in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." -JFK NitV-DC BBS 202-232-2715 Fido 1:109/1103 IndraNet 369:111/1, 14.4V32b 16.8ZyX Join EFF! For more information about membership, send mail to eff(a)eff.org

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Private and Public
by an41418＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In response to Eric Hughs: I disagree that income tax is a bad thing. What other way does the government have of maintaining fairness across income tax levels. Someone who only makes 15k a year should not be expected to pay as much as someone who makes 200k. Income tax generates too much revenue to be that easily dispensed with. Given the financial trouble our country is already in, I hate to think of the consequences to the budget if income tax disappeared. Note: I do not enjoy paying this tax, but I'm glad to know that the people making a lot more than I am are contributing more. Wonderer ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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RE: Private and Public
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

But of COURSE the government has a right to know how much money you make - It OWNS you; why else would it protect you and educate you? (Up Ahead - be prepared . . . you have now crossed into the Twilight Zone). Blanc ---------- From: Arthur Chandler Subject: Private and Public Date: Monday, November 08, 1993 9:31AM I'm sure that few folks want to unsheathe the pro- and con- spoofing arguments again. But Patrick's last post got me thinking: Does the government have the right to know how much money I make, and from what sources? The IRS says yes, absolutely. But Eric Hughes, in a talk given at San Francisco State University, said, in response to a question from an audience, that international digital banking will make it very difficult for a national government to track monetary exchanges, and thereby tax them. Furthermore, I deduced from the gleam in his eye that Eric thought that this was a Good Thing (correct me if I misconstrued you, Eric). Right now, there seems to be a kind of social contract between us and the government: it protects us, provides free schools, etc etc, in exchange for which we have to pony up a fair share of our earnings. It follows, doesn't it, that the government has a right to enforce its laws saying that everyone must pay that fair share of taxes? To enforce that rule, it has a right, under certain conditions, to rummage around in our records to see if we have hidden any income source from them. This may or may not be Big Brother. But it does seem to be the modus operandi of every government that ever was. The point: concerns of privacy often come in conflict with the larger obligations of public good. We can't say categorically that one must always predominate. What do you think?

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Mostly offline digicash
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>After-the-fact detection probably won't fly, because organized multiple >>spending could kill it. There are people who are dumb enough to write >>their PIN numbers on their ATM cards. >Nevertheless, millions use ATM cards, with substantially less loss to >fraud than with credit cards. Improvement in privacy and reduction >of incidence of fraud over credit cards are sufficient goals for a >digital cash system. True, but if someone swipes your ATM card and PIN, they can only get what's in your account, and only $300 or $500 a day. If someone swipes your digi-coins, they can spend them hundreds of times, obtaining merchandise worth much more than the coins, before being detected. That's the hazard I'm worried about. A few such heists could make people back away from digicash. The problem with credit cards (and cellular phones) is the "replay attack." Some kind of authentication is needed. As I understand it, ATM's use DES with the PIN being used as part of the DES key, correct? >For Pretty Good Digicash, which would probably far exceed those >goals, how about a "mostly offline" system as follows: I like this approach. It does require the "online infrastructure" to be present at every shop, but it would generate less bandwidth than fully online systems. Offline processing could be done at night when the system is otherwise idle. The Russian-roulette aspect of trying to cheat would certainly discourage it. >I envision a decentralized credit-rating system, so that the >integrity of ratings cannot be jeopardized by corrupting one or a >related few credit rating agencies with false information. (The IP >paradigm: an economy should be able to route around node failures). Definitely. The goal of digicash, at least in my opinion, is to destroy centralized power. An online system should have multiple servers, and an observer-based system should have multiple suppliers of observers. The only secret in the observer should be the key. --- MikeIngle(a)delphi.com

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Re: ID of anonymous posters via word analysis?
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Perry E. Metzger" <pmetzger(a)lehman.com> said: >Astonishing how far urban legends go. This keeps getting distorted >further and further. I've heard this go further and further and >further from the version I first heard. I wonder if there ever was a >real story to begin with. Good question. I just checked a terse history of machine translation, and it didn't mention any version of this. I suspect that its origin was as a hypothetical example of the kinds of problems that can arise, and that it didn't actually happen in any real life situation. Examples like that have always been common in linguistics papers on such subjects. Doug

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Re: Modem taps/Caller ID
by ljenkins＠mv.us.adobe.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Does anyone here know more about this? I would dearly love to set up a > program on the PC in my basement that could capture Caller ID data and There is a number of modems that will do this for you automatically. The Supra comes to mind, and I believe the Zyxel also does it. I do have the specs for CID somewhere, but off the top of my head I don't recall how it is transmitted. There was an intersting thread in comp.dcom.telecom about something called the "Presto Chango!" box, that transmits bogus CID information after the call is answered, so you can easily confuse most CID boxes in the market. Luis

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UPDATE: Internet "whitepages" database of addresses
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

_____ Begin forward ______________________________ Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1993 09:56:28 pst From: "JS McBride & Co. PostMaster" <jim_mcbride(a)netmail.com> Subject: InterNet Mailing List Here is the CORRECT info on the InterNet Mailing List. Addresses are extracted from news feeds, list servers, and other sources. NO personal information is collected. The following is the ONLY information we collect. 1. Electronic mail address 2. User name 3. Search keywords 4. Date info was collected The search keywords are limited to products. Example: xwindows,unix,dos,ms-windows,emacs To have your name removed from the list, send a message to DELETE(a)NETMAIL.COM Please place ANY addresses that you wanted removed from the list in the body of the message. To get more info on how and why we are building the list, send a message to LISTINFO(a)NETMAIL.COM . [Just see next message. PGN] Comments should be sent to TMANNING(a)NETMAIL.COM Thank You, James McBride, NetMail, 415-949-4295 Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1993 22:11:07 From: "JS McBride & Co. PostMaster" <jim_mcbride(a)netmail.com> Subject: Auto Reply [What you get from LISTINFO. PGN] Thank you for your mail to Jim McBride at JS McBride & Company. Due to the volume of mail be handled by this account, this is an automatic reply. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY!! 1. JS McBride is NOT collecting demographic information on email addresses. Due to the controversy surrounding this practice, we have discarded the product demographics we collected. We are however still collecting email addresses and user names. 2. The information collected (name and email address) will be offered in a printed white pages directory and in a white pages server on the net. 3. You DO NOT need to ask to have your name removed. BEFORE your name is used in the directory, you will receive mail asking for your permission. If you reply to the inquiry, your information will be used. If you do not reply, your name will NOT be used. 4. Comments regarding the white pages should be sent to Tom Manning at JS McBride & Company. <tmanning(a)netmail.com> 5. Mail to Jim McBride should be sent to <jimm(a)netmail.com> 6. Information regarding the purchase of the white pages directory should be sent to <listinfo(a)netmail.com> or telephone us at 415-949-4295 Thank you for your time, Jim McBride Thanks to all of you (too many to note) who forwarded this to RISKS. PGN] ------------------------------

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Modem taps/Caller ID
by jon＠balder.us.dell.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The recent discussions of tapping modem transmissions reminds me of > a scrap of data I saw about Caller ID [the service provided by the > phone company that displays the caller's phone number whenever your > phone rings]. Supposedly, the phone company transmits the caller's > number as a burst of 1200 or 2400 baud ASCII between the first and > second rings; if your modem is set up 'just right,' you can capture > the number with a PC. I don't know if this is particularly true but you can purchase modems that recognize caller-id and distinctive ring data. The caller-id information is printed between the RING and CONNECT strings. In particular, I have re-written the UNIX getty program in order to take these strings and put them in an environment variable before calling login. Since the getty actually uses ATA to answer the phone rather than setting S0=1, we have considered building a database of known troublemakers' phone numbers and then have getty let the phone ring away to NO CARRIER when said tarbs call. ZyXEL makes such a modem. Jon

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