December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Super Bills and the US gov.
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This message is in response to the person who implied that the "Super Bills" were created by the US government as a device to get Clipper implemented. I just thought I should put things in perspective. I refuse to beleive the US government would do such a thing for several reasons. <- I thought the implication was that the government had ANNOUNCED such a thing at an appropiate time to lay the seeds. Consider the most recent CIA scandal. The crime bill and digitel go through the pipes pretty easy after that. It's reason enough to think that if our skill-less spy had used IDEA or TDES, government would be shouting to high heaven about how we NEED CLIPPER NOW to get this crime scourage UNDER CONTROL. The contention that the federal government would mint billions of dollars of "bogus" money to implement an admittedly important but less than crucial scheme is just silly. -uni- (Dark)

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HELP! Address for getting off the list?
by wallace＠cs.widener.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Could someone send me the address for removing myself from the list? plz? thnx. - DW -

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gore
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I think there was some misquoting The message should have read: > "When I saw [the latest public opinion results] I said 'Wow. >That is not right,' and [after consulting the Public Relations people] I >raised hell about that," Gore said in an interview Thursday. -uni- (Dark)

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REPLY TO COMMENT
by THOMAS E. KADISH--WILSHIRE II 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > > From: IN%"catalyst-remailer(a)netcom.com" 14-MAR-1994 22:55:35.29 > > To: IN%"cypherpunks(a)toad.com" > > CC: > > Subj: RE: NY UNIX Clipper Article >> > > > "When I saw that I said 'Wow. That is not right,' and I raised > > > hell about that," Gore said in an interview Thursday. > > > > > > I'm glad the VP jumped on this right away. 8-| > > > THRILLED THAT A POLITICIAN EXISTS WHO GIVES A DAMN ABOUT THE CHECKS AND > BALANCES ASPECT OF OUR GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM. AMAZING THAT NOBODY PICKED UP ON > THIS PROBLEM OF THE KEYS BOTH BEING HELD BY THE SAME BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT. JUST > GOES TO SHOW THAT WHAT JEFFERSON SAID IS TRUE. " THE PRICE OF DEMOCRACY IS > ETERNAL VIGILANCE". > > --Boundary (ID R6RsVVF/HwUKVqN+x2vqcg)--

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reply to comment
by m＠BlueRose.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"THOMAS E. KADISH--WILSHIRE II" <TKADISH1(a)vaxc.hofstra.edu> writes: > JUST GOES TO SHOW THAT WHAT JEFFERSON SAID IS TRUE. " THE PRICE OF > DEMOCRACY IS ETERNAL VIGILANCE". The original quote is: "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance." John Philpot Curran (1750-1817) M Carling

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Magic Money promissory notes
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In the never-ending search for legal bases for digital cash, I thought of promissory notes. A promissory note is basically an unsecured promise to pay back a loan, generally by a specified time with a specified interest rate. My wife's college loan was based on such a note. I think these can be transferred from person to person, with the bearer being eligible to redeem the note. I recall old stories where a person's note was passed from hand to hand, ending up in the hands of the villain. Perhaps a digital cash system like Magic Money could serve as the basis for digital promissory notes. You send me money, I'll send you a certain amount of digital cash. That particular denomination and issue date (determined by the exponent) will be redeemable in one year for X+delta dollars. You can hold the note and redeem it in a year, collecting the interest, or you can pass it on or even sell it. This might make people willing to accept the digital cash as valuable, since they would know that it would actually be worth something in a while. And I don't think there are a lot of laws relating to promissory notes, since I've heard of them being used in very informal situations (scribbled on scraps of paper and such). I will try to look into the legalities in a few days. Hal

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re: re: digital cash
by Mark Hittinger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>Mark Hittinger says: >> Are you guys going to simply represent dollars with your digital cash >> or will you attempt to create your own currency that may simply be >> converted to/from dollars? Perry responds: >I can't for the life of me understand the difference between a >"representation" of dollars and something "convertable" into dollars. Actually there is a very important distinction. It has to do with time. Suppose digital cash is denominated in dollars. Digital cash then represents dollars. Suppose we have a year with 10% inflation. Your digital cash holdings are reduced in real value because of the behavior of the paper currency. Suppose digital cash is not denominated in dollars but instead is made to represent portions of gold stashed in a Swiss wharehouse. Dollars would then be convertible into digital cash at some market determined exchange rate. Again suppose there is a year with 10% inflation. Your digital cash would convert to a different number of paper dollars. The difference between representation of dollars and conversion into dollars is therefore one of time and one of governmental manipulations. These are very important differences for attentive capitalists. --------- I'd like a 250 Mhz 128 bit hybrid processor with 64 meg of 8 way interleaved memory, a 10 megabyte per second i/o channel, two 3 gig hard disks, two dat drives with compression, and a large diet coke. -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.3a mQCNAiz4FWMAAAEEALBCb7HZS7V4gbsp9yJ7Yty49jQ9wcgRhkLjNNgdyJbrJZCq 5/sv4Ljy/4AhVhjlJyZS8L3owS8l0ClZVzWw4/kO3KN7MPz4YPPR7+qIlPQVM0yv gWpJ43EZZ8b8cvAkE9HATCKWktY2ReRSX5DLnScDH/n5jivw+MD/UO8fURCVAAUR tCBNYXJrIEhpdHRpbmdlciA8YnVnc0BuZXRzeXMuY29tPg== =VbKi -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Re: Hey...
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> well-placed explosive device that destroys even one of the two escrow > databases, and suddenly the government has supplied us with > secure encryption that even they can't break. > Of course, that is assuming that the government didn't lie and make > extra backup copies (just for safety's sake, you understand, against just Any reasonable information-escrow agent *would* take reasonable precautions against disasters like fires, floods, power problems, etc., and the fact that what the government agencies are doing with the wiretap keys isn't escrow, just storage, doesn't change that. Doesn't require any lying, because that's proper care of information and thet'd be criticized very stongly for failing to do so. On the other hand, if there's a mysterious narco-terrorist fire and they *claim* that all the copies were burned up, the little shreds of belief that get past my normal skepticism will have no chance at all..... Bill

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Good article on NII
by fnerd＠smds.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The April '94 "Special All-Fabio" issue of Software Development magazine has a good article on the NII: "Highway to Hell?" by Alex Lane. (He means as in "paved with good intentions.") Analysis of where it's likely to lead given wording of various agenda documents and bills, statements of proponents, and the history of various analogous developments (Interstates, space shuttles, telephones, the census, the War on Poverty, ARPANET-->NREN-->NII...) -fnerd quote me - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - blue pill, Pharm. a pill of blue mass, used as an alterative... alterative, adj. tending to alter... -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a aKxB8nktcBAeQHabQP/d7yhWgpGZBIoIqII8cY9nG55HYHgvt3niQCVAgUBLMs3K ui6XaCZmKH68fOWYYySKAzPkXyfYKnOlzsIjp2tPEot1Q5A3/n54PBKrUDN9tHVz 3Ch466q9EKUuDulTU6OLsilzmRvQJn0EJhzd4pht6hSnC1R3seYNhUYhoJViCcCG sRjLQs4iVVM= =9wqs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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No Subject
by nobody＠soda.berkeley.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ECHOING ECU'S anyone? After a lecture on cosmology, William James was accosted by a little old lady. "Your theory that the sun is the center of the solar system, and the earth is a ball which rotates around it has a very convincing ring to it Mr. James, but it's wrong. I've got a better theory," said the little old lady. "And what is that madam?" inquired James politely. "That we live on a crust of the earth which is on the back of a giant turtle." Not wishing to demolish this absurd theory by bringing to bear the masses of scientific evidence he had at his command, James decided to gently dissuade his opponent by making her see some of the inadequacies of her position. "If your theory is correct, madam," he asked, "what does the turtle stand on?" "You're a very clever man, Mr. James, and that's a very good question," replied the little old lady, "but I have an answer to it. And it is this: the first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger turtle, who stands directly under him." "But what does this second turtle stand on?" persisted James patiently. To this the little old lady crowed triumphantly. It's no use, Mr. James--it's turtles all the way down."

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