December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Laundering money through commodity futures
by tim werner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: Mon, 18 Apr 1994 10:01:52 -0400 >From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)snark.imsi.com> >tim werner says: >> A man went to the casino with several suitcases full of money and proceeded >> to play roulette using the progressive betting strategy. Eventually he >> broke the bank. That's when casinos started imposing house limits on the >> tables. I don't think this story is apocryphal. > >In that case, please provide the time, place, and location -- also >provide references to original sources so that we can look it up >ourselves. I took a probability class in the early '70s. The prof explained the progressive betting system and told us the Monte Carlo story. As I recall, it took place in the late 1700s. That's all I can remember, except that he made it clear the system was not guaranteed to work even with no house limit unless you have unlimited funds. Just that someone actually did break the bank at Monte Carlo. I have used the system twice and won both times. The second time I almost got burned when red came up 6 times in a row. On the 7th time I had $320 riding on black and it came up black. My profit on the 7 spins: $5. I was only 1 spin away from the house limit. If it had come up red, I could have bet $640 on black one more time, but that would have been the end. The limit was $1250. I almost switched the $320 to red. After that experience I decided to do some analysis of the system, and finally managed to convince myself of something that I should have known all along: the house limits are set so that you will lose the same amount of money in the long run if you bet progressively as you will if you just bet $5 on black each time. Next time I get to a library I will see if I can find out anything else about it, if you are really interested. >> I don't think the commodity exchanges have the same sort of limits set up. > >You don't know anything about the commodities market, then. That's not entirely true. I do know that the commodities market is another place where you can lose a lot of money real quick. :) Actually, when I said 'the same sort of limits', what I meant was limits that are specifically designed to ensure that you will lose eventually, like they have at casinos. For instance, the house limit at a casino is generally such that you can only double your bet 7 times (e.g., $1250 limit on a $5 table, or $500 limit at a $2 table). Is the same sort of low limit placed on commodities trades? tw

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Key Eater Needed. NOT!
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Matthew J Ghio <mg5n+(a)andrew.cmu.edu> writes: > How about people just keep their keys, and the signatures, but they > re-sign their own keys every six months or so? In order to keep their > keys on the keyserver, they must submit a PGP signed message to prove > that they still have that key. If they don't, the key is assumed to be > lost, and it is deleted. I have no problem with periodic deletion of keys from keyservers. They are interesting, but not a very important part of strong crypto (IMHO). My objection is to anything that makes the key itself invalid over a period that I don't chose. I'm not sure what problem you are trying to solve. Loading the whole public ring from the servers exceeds my definition of reasonable procesing now. Since the number of keys keeps growing, I expect that it will never be SOP to munge all of them. You will get keys directly, or get a few specific ones on demand. If you're just trying to save disk space on the keyservers, I'm not all that sure it is worth the effort. Disks are cheap, and getting cheaper. But your approach is as good as any. I know there are lots of keys on the servers that are no longer active -- I collected a few hundred that I exchanged with Phil K two years ago, and know many are unused starting with strnlght, the folks at CERT, and Brad Cox's key of that vintage. Even if a fair percentage, say 25% are dead, the savings are pretty trivial. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Re: Key Eater Needed
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike Ingle says: There is no way to know now when a key was sent to a server, so it is hard to know when to delete it. One way would be to keep track of when new keys are sent or updated, and delete any key which has not been updated within a certain time, such as one year. All existing keys could be given six months to live. Those who wanted to keep their present keys could send them again, and others could create new ones. <- Why not a note sent from the server to the key address to the effect: Your key has been deleted.... etc. Not only will this fish out some of the changed addresses and thus non- updated keys, but also remind the legitimate user who just hasn't gotten or looked to get a new signature in 6mos - Years to think about a new key and a revocation. I assume revocations will be kept for good?

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RE: Warrantless searches -- A sign of things to come?
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 17 Apr 94 13:39:39 paul(a)hawksbill.sprintmrn.com (Paul Ferguson) wrote: >A Page 1 story in The Washington Post Sunday (94.04.17) reads, >"Clinton Lets Police Raid Projects," "Warrantless Searches Said to Be >Needed For Tenants Safety." > [Deletions] What really gets me here is the alienability of the rights in question. One of the prevailing arguements seems to be "the tenants are willing to sacrifice their rights for more safety." This of course misreads the question. If it were only a questions of relinquishing your own rights then there are procedures for the waiver and consent to search. What drives me up the wall is some tenants saying they are willing to waive their own rights for safety when what they are really doing is waiving EVERYONES rights for their safety. This is merely another load of whiskey for the toothache. Bust down some doors and we will solve the nations problem of violence. I have to hand it to the administration, they managed to divert the attention of the media from the other major screw-ups and cast a "fight the violence" spotlight on it. At least this cluster-fuck is (in the current atmosphere) defendable. What a crock. The ease with which this nation disregards its own fundamental principles disturbs me. -uni- (Dark)

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RE: Warrantless searches -- A sign of things to come?
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The ease with which this nation disregards its own fundamental principles > disturbs me. A government official was quoted in today's LA Times as saying approximately, "I'm sure we can square this with the Fourth Amendment... this is an emergency situation." Eli ebrandt(a)hmc.edu To which I reply: Then declare a national emergency and suspend the constitution. Any emergency not sufficent enough to do this isn't a national emergency. The only thing that bothers me more than the use of rhetoric like "The War on Drugs" or "The War on Crime" or "The Health Care CRISIS" to cover up the fact that rights are being circumvented or outright eliminated is the willingness of the population to buy into the game. -uni- (Dark)

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MS Word - don't email documents
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From Apr 11 Computer Currents: Windows Magazine Uncovers Word "Time Bomb" Ever wonder if someone could read your mind? Well, if you use any Microsoft Word version 2.0 through 6.0 you may have unwittingly provided someone with your thought processes. If you ever create documents which are sent digitally, be aware that your client might be able to read your earlier drafts. This is due to the fact that in Word's default mode, with options Prompt for Summary Info off and Allow Fast Saves on, deleted text portions are retained in the internal document structure. This enables anyone with a file viewer to check your earlier passages -- such as a lower price you were originally going to quote. (Incidentally, you can do the same thing with the Macintosh version and a utility like CanOpener. -- Ed.) By turning Prompt for Summary Info on and Allow Fast Saves off, you can prevent a potential disaster. Since this is not a bug, Microsoft says there is no fix.

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Warrentless Search
by Jeff Davis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Black Unicorn states: >The only thing that bothers me more than the use of rhetoric like >"The War on Drugs" or "The War on Crime" or "The Health Care CRISIS" >to cover up the fact that rights are being circumvented or outright >eliminated is the willingness of the population to buy into the game. >-uni- (Dark) The average citizen operates from a paradigm of self interest, perhaps extended to his/her family. If a governmental action does not resonate with this paradigm- (i.e. "what's in it for me?")- the government action goes largley unnoticed. When the Reagan administration exhumed the 1888 Law allowing military to assist law enforcement, but not make arrests, I took note of that because it directly affected my life. Almost no one else paid any attention to it. Another facet of human nature one can trust is 75% of the population will follow a direct order without much question, given the person issuing the order appears to have the authority to do so. I am Emergency Medically Trained. When the shit hits the fan, I order people to preform specific tasks, most notibally calling 911. If a person stands there and thinks, I order another to do it. It only takes a matter of seconds to organize a concerted team effort to aid the victim- because I am the responsible person. They are not accountable for their actions anymore in their minds, I am. This isn't civilization, it's gregarious herd instinct ;) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLbG1hV/ScHuGXWgVAQFbfQP/Xy6ZvJDwWAUGpuqUM4nXekBb9oH8wxBD LuXuBTUX3IdZzaG9ZRwFLBrZMSEw8t7GXvSZYTh0+LMqM4B2wM6oIa0p8XDuYe++ iyMO/KdZsh5FpJL/sDS1w9OTQQWfoX4bYUSBRE6S/NOtMlHyIpVGDBl4hrJhvwop GaFgmpq45K8= =UtdX -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- PGP PUBLIC KEY via finger! JAFEFFM Speaking & Thinking For Myself! * eagle(a)deeptht.armory.com email info(a)eff.org * *** O U T L A W S On The E L E C T R O N I C F R O N T I E R **** ***** Committed to Free Public Internet Access for World Peace *****

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hyperdisk
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone remember the application hyperdisk? It had encryption functions and I was hoping someone would recall which method it used... -uni- (Dark)

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Re: rng, anyone?
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> need good RNG WHile Blum-Blum-Shub is probably the cool way to go, RSAREF uses repeated iterations of MD5 to generate its pseudo-randoms, which can be reasonably secure and use code you've probably already got hooks from perl for.

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Key Eater Needed
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hal Finney suggests expiring old keys. The first thing we would need is a way to clear the keyservers of such dead keys. The keyservers are already up to 1.3 MB. Many of those keys must be long dead. In any case, the key servers cannot just accumulate keys forever. There is no way to know now when a key was sent to a server, so it is hard to know when to delete it. One way would be to keep track of when new keys are sent or updated, and delete any key which has not been updated within a certain time, such as one year. All existing keys could be given six months to live. Those who wanted to keep their present keys could send them again, and others could create new ones. The web of trust model does not lend itself easily to key expirations, because this requires you to frequently get people to re-sign your key, and to re-sign the keys of others. This creates the opportunity for the "here's my new key, and I haven't got it resigned yet" attack. There would have to be a fairly long overlap period between new and old keys, during which time the old key signed the new key. Expirations would complicate the system considerably. --- Mike

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