December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Article on Cashless Society
by Philippe_D_Nave 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, all! There is an article in Information Week's October 11 issue titled "The Cashless Society" that discusses debit cards, smart cards, etc. This magazine is a management-type trade publication that bills itself as "The newsmagazine for information management." A fair-sized article; it may be of interest. Over the years, I've found this mag to be a fairly good place to watch for trends; they carry the sort of articles that our brass photocopies and gives us with notes like "Can we do this?" attached. FYI. ........................................................................ Philippe D. Nave, Jr. | The person who does not use message encryption pdn(a)dwroll.dw.att.com | will soon be at the mercy of those who DO... Denver, Colorado USA | PGP public key: by arrangement.

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Re: backing?
by swc＠uc1.ucsu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I propose a simple basis for digicash: gold. REAL gold in a depositary, for which the digicash is basically a warehouse receipt. Try this: Alice purchases 10 ounces of gold and puts it in Bob the Banker's account at a depositary institution (like the big one in Zurich that holds much of the world's physical gold). When she makes the deposit, she annotates the transaction with an encrypted message to Bob saying "This deposit from <long random number>." Alice then logs into Bob's public access system with a pseudonymous account (automatically generated by Bob's hacked login software). Alice sends another message to Bob saying "Hey, that deposit you got from <long randome number> was from me: pseudonym." Bob issues digicash to <pseudonym> (not knowing this is Alice), and Alice happily spends the money under a DIFFERENT pseudonym. OK, fire away, my head is down :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stuart W. Card, Consultant, Card & Associates -- Research & Development Box 153 RR 1 Newport Rd Utica NY 13502 315-735-1717 / FAX -8469 swc(a)uc1.ucsu.edu or cards(a)top.cis.syr.edu "Who is John Galt?"

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Re: S Boxx blathering
by jamie＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I've figured it out. He's a Borg. Seems there's more to the story. Borg do exhibit collective intelligence. Punksters, it's such a feeling of raw power over lesser intelligences

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Re: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway)
by peb＠PROCASE.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Go to you local copier store. Pay cash. No one will care. I'm talking about buying the color *copier* itself. In all the copier businesses I've seen, none of them allowed one to make color copies unattended. Is this because they are complicated or expensive per copy or because of some kind of technology restriction (e.g., high quality color copies cannot simultaneously be anonymous and private). Paul E. Baclace peb(a)procase.com

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request for Pgp
by NAME GARY 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm new at this, and i don't want to ask any favors (i've seen what can happen to others that do) but i just need someone to tell me where i can find the pgp program so i can start to learn for myselt. all you have to do is give me the ftp site, and i don't care how much i get flamed because it'll be worth it.

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JUDGMENT PROOFING
by Sandy 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT Reply to: ssandfort(a)attmail.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert J. Woodhead quoted Nate who wrote, in part: Imagine if all your money . . . was tied up in anonymous accounts and that all your property was owned by digital pseudonyms (from whom you rented the property). To which Robert responded: . . . Do not be so quick to assume that these wonderful and interesting techniques we discuss will solve long-standing problems. . . . No assumption necessary, Robert. Non-digital variations of these techniques have been used successfully for generations. The rich and politically savvy have always seen to it that exposure to litigation and the burden of taxes fell only on the middle class. Computers, the nets and crypto technology just make it easier for the rest of us to get in on the same deal. Once critical mass is reached, governments can't survive. The end, not with a bang, but a whimper. As for all the other nasty things governments can do to you: Remember, they have to see you as a threat or a juicy victim before they can focus in on you. If you use traditional and electronic privacy techniques, there is very little likelihood that you will come to their attention. Low Profile = Minimal Hassle S a n d y >>>>>> Please send e-mail to: ssandfort(a)attmail.com <<<<<< ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Re: Canon copier engine
by peb＠PROCASE.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The worrisome item was the statement that the copiers would add > some sort of unspecified marking to each copy made, allowing copies > to be traced back to their source. Steganographic signatures. Similarly, signatures are being put into explosives (although they are somewhat traceable already) by using various mixtures of trace elements. Paul E. Baclace peb(a)procase.com

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how to sign on to the cypherpunks listserver
by John M. Keaty 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Can you give me instructions on how to sign on to the cypherpunks listserver? Thanks John Keaty keaty(a)vnet.ibm.com

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updated text of the MTTF paper
by cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

What I sent out was dashed together last June and never polished. Here's text after one re-write... - Carl (Equations haven't changed...) -------------------------------------------------------------------- \documentstyle[12pt]{article} \begin{document} \title{MTTF of Various Systems} \author{Carl M. Ellison \thanks{Stratus Computer Inc., 55 Fairbanks Blvd., Marlborough MA 01752. Email address: {\tt cme(a)sw.stratus.com}.}} \date{October 25, 1993} \maketitle \begin{abstract} Expressions are presented for the Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) of various redundant systems, as a function of the number of nodes in the system, N, and the minimum number of nodes in a working system, K. Failure of a system is defined as having fewer than K working nodes. \end{abstract} \section{Expressions} Redundant systems are employed both to increase availability and to achieve preservation of data. Expressions for the availability of a redundant system are to be found in normal probability and statistics texts. [See for example, Kishor S. Trivedi, "Probability and Statistics with Reliability, Queuing, and Computer Science Applications" from Prentice-Hall, 1982.] These assume that once a system has recovered from total failure, it is as usable as it was before the system failure. Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) is concerned with the case that once a system has achieved total failure, something is lost. This might apply to redundant disks, for example. The expressions presented below are for the MTTF of various redundant systems, as a function of the number of nodes in the system, N, and the minimum number of nodes in a working system, K. Failure of a system is defined as having fewer than K working nodes. Often, K=1 and each node has a complete copy of each database. However, sometimes the data can be kept on multple nodes (as in a RAID-5 disk array) which will tolerate some failures, down to a given threshold, K > 1. It is assumed that as soon as a failure occurs, a repair cycle will be started. There is then a race to see if the repair can be completed before enough additional nodes fail to drop the working number below K. The expressions below were derived from custom Markov chains, each built to model a given choice of N and K. It is assumed that both failures and repairs are exponentially distributed random events (so that the Markov chains remain memoryless). This is a reasonable model for failures but not for repairs. Therefore, these expressions are approximations. The expressions also assume that all failure events are independent. For example, a multi-node system in which all nodes are on the same power grid would not have completely independent failure events. N: number of nodes in a full system K: number of nodes in a minimally functional system $\lambda$: rate of failures (e.g., number of node failures per year) $\mu$: rate of node repair (in the same units as $\lambda$) Each fraction below is the MTTF of the whole system: the mean time until a system drops to (K-1) working nodes. N = 2 ; K = 1 \begin{equation} \frac { 3\lambda + 1\mu }{ 2\lambda^2 } \end{equation} N = 3 ; K = 1 \begin{equation} \frac { 11\lambda^2 + 4\lambda\mu + 1\mu^2 }{ 6\lambda^3 } \end{equation} N = 3 ; K = 2 \begin{equation} \frac{ 5\lambda + \mu }{ 6\lambda^2 } \end{equation} N = 4 ; K = 1 \begin{equation} \frac { 50\lambda^3 + 18\lambda^2\mu + 5\lambda\mu^2 + 1\mu^3 }{ 24\lambda^4 } \end{equation} [etc.] \end{document}

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Re: ADMIN: proposed new policy
by koontzd＠lrcs.loral.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I like the idea of encouraging people to digitally sign messages. I >also decided to try out ripem to see what its signed documents look >like. It seems if transmissions to a list must pass through a server, then the server should be used for authentication. Otherwise, the entire thing is nothing but wasted bandwidth and `visual noise`. (Unless it is meant as make work for a three letter agency).

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