December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: PC-Expo
by rarachel＠prism.poly.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> (quit, not retired :-), technician, programmer, etc. If you don't want an > editorial article, let me know what you'd like. Anything you can write will be file. Letter or Op-Ed or slap the NSA kinda article. Just keep one thing in mind. Assume they know nothing about crypto or the NSA or clipper.. Add tons of Fear Uncertainty and Deception. Make'em want to rise up and bitch to Uncle Sam.. If you can include quotes from various "Info Liberated articles", please do! > Or, I can do this. Anything you can help. Please. You don't have to do just one thing. :-) > Or, I can do this. (hey, I'm flexible, and wanna help :-) Welcome aboard and loads of help. Just send me whatever ideas you have in email to my other account rarachel(a)photon.poly.edu and I'll see if I can help you with ideas or provide some "liberated" articles. :-) Really appreciate your willingness to help.

1 0

Magic Money at pub/mpd
by anonymous＠extropia.wimsey.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Magic Money DOS client is at /pub/mpd, not /pub/mpj, on Netcom.

1 0

Re: Announcement RE: Lobbying...
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Arsen Ray Arachelian says: > And they can kiss my fat ass for all I care. As long as crypto > is legal there ain't a thing they can use that list for > except to deny you jobs. Section #120.9 of the ITAR defines "Defense Service" as: (1) The furnishing of assistance (including training) to foreign persons, whether in the United States or abroad in the design, development, engineering, manufacture, production, assembly, testing, repair, maintenance, modification, operation, demilitarization, destruction, processing, or use of defense articles; or (2) The furnishing to foreign persons of any technical data controlled under this subchapter (see #120.10), whether in the United States or abroad. Section #120.17 defines "Export" as: [paragraphs 1 - 4 skipped] (5) Performing a defense service on behalf of, or for the benefit of, a foreign person, whether in the United States or abroad; or [paragraph 6 skipped] I expect that most on this list know that cryptographic software and systems with the capability of maintaining secrecy or confidentiality of information (excluding systems using cryptography for authentication purposes only) are considered export controlled defense articles. (See section #121.1, Category XIII) Posting instructions on how to use and/or build cryptographic software to a mailing list containing foreign persons could be interpreted by some as a violation the ITAR regulations. However, I think they would have to stretch the point quite a bit, considering the fact that it is legal to export cryptography books and discuss cryptography with foreign nationals in an academic setting. Also, the posted instructions could be considered "information in the public domain" (section #120.11), which is *not* subject to the ITAR regulations. My hypothesis: The TLAs could shut down the cypherpunks mailing list (as it now exists) by dragging all the U.S. list members into court. The TLAs would probably lose the case, but they would still do a lot of damage to the lives of the U.S. list members. Jim_Miller(a)suite.com

9 9

Lobbying. ..etc etc..
by Julietta 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > Jim Miller says: > > > > My hypothesis: The TLAs could shut down the cypherpunks mailing list > > (as it now exists) by dragging all the U.S. list members into court. > > The TLAs would probably lose the case, but they would still do a lot > > of damage to the lives of the U.S. list members. > > > > > > > ::Gulp:: Don't give 'em any ideas.. > > -- Jane Doe, subscriber, Cypherpunks List :) ;) > > ________________________________________________________________________ > Julie M. Albright > Ph.D Student > Department of Sociology > University of Southern California > albright(a)netcom.com > > --VAA01187.768025029/nunki.usc.edu-- > >

1 0

No Subject
by catalyst-remailer＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

10365851 10365863 10365889 10365911 10365917 10365923 10365959 10365973 10365983 10366003 10366019 10366033 10366061 10366087 10366091 10366117 10366163 10366177 10366189 10366193 10366199 10366201 10366207 10366211 10366231 10366249 10366259 10366271 10366297 10366303 10366309 10366313 10366319 10366331 10366339 10366351 10366357 10366417 10366439 10366471 10366529 10366561 10366567 10366597 10366607 10366619 10366621 10366627 10366667 10366669 10366673 10366687 10366691 10366693 10366739 10366777 10366793 10366801 10366817 10366823 10366841 10366849 10366871 10366897 10366903 10366969 10366981 10367003 10367009 10367023 10367039 10367041 10367081 10367087 10367101 10367107 10367117 10367173 10367177 10367191 10367221 10367233 10367243 10367309 10367321 10367323 10367327 10367339 10367341 10367351 10367353 10367359 10367389 10367393 10367443 10367449 10367453 10367459 10367473 10367477 10367479 10367507 10367531 10367557 10367563 10367573 10367611 10367627 10367639 10367663 10367677 10367689 10367713 10367719 10367729 10367737 10367783 10367789 10367813 10367827 10367831 10367837 10367839 10367843 10367869 10367873 10367879 10367887 10367891 10367897 10367911 10367921 10367927 10367933 10367947 10367969 10368037 10368073 10368077 10368097 10368107 10368131 10368133 10368139 10368157 10368161 10368179 10368187 10368191 10368199 10368209 10368227 10368269 10368287 10368301 10368313 10368349 10368361 10368373 10368389 10368401 10368403 10368439 10368467 10368493 10368499 10368511 10368517 10368551 10368557 10368563 10368577 10368581 10368587 10368599 10368637 10368641 10368643 10368647 10368649 10368667 10368697 10368727 10368739 10368749 10368763 10368773 10368779 10368797 10368803 10368821 10368823 10368857 10368877 10368881 10368899 10368923 10368931 10368937 10368949 10368961 10368971 10369001 10369013 10369033 10369039 10369081 10369091 10369103 10369109 10369127 10369129 10369147 10369157 10369171 10369189 10369217 10369241 10369253 10369259 10369313 10369339 10369363 10369369 10369391 10369399 10369409 10369417 10369441 10369453 10369483 10369487 10369511 10369517 10369519 10369529 10369543 10369547 10369549 10369553 10369561 10369589 10369613 10369627 10369631 10369633 10369637 10369699 10369721 10369727 10369729 10369739 10369741 10369747 10369759 10369769 10369783 10369789 10369823 10369859 10369867 10369873 10369889 10369901 10369943 10369951 10369967 10369981 10369999 10370011 10370039 10370053 10370069 10370071 10370077 10370099 10370111 10370117 10370141 10370167 10370177 10370179 10370203 10370209 10370231 10370237 10370273 10370279 10370281 10370317 10370329 10370341 10370389 10370413 10370419 10370431 10370441 10370443 10370467 10370483 10370509 10370513 10370531 10370537 10370593 10370609 10370617 10370627 10370641 10370653 10370681 10370687 10370699 10370741 10370747 10370753 10370779 10370791 10370797 10370803 10370807 10370809 10370813 10370821 10370837 10370839 10370849 10370887 10370897 10370911 10370923 10370939 10370959 10370981 10370993 10371007 10371029 10371043 10371059 10371077 10371089 10371103 10371107 10371113 10371121 10371149 10371167 10371187 10371191 10371203 10371209 10371227 10371247 10371269 10371271 10371287 10371293 10371301 10371307 10371313 10371323 10371331 10371371 10371373 10371409 10371419 10371421 10371461 10371469 10371497 10371521 10371541 10371553 10371563 10371583 10371593 10371601 10371607 10371611 10371629 10371637 10371659 10371671 10371679 10371719 10371721 10371727 10371733 10371743 10371817 10371839 10371841 10371847 10371863 10371899 10371943 10371947 10371979 10372003 10372009 10372049 10372051 10372067 10372121 10372129 10372151 10372171 10372183 10372207 10372211 10372213 10372223 10372231 10372237 10372249 10372267 10372273 10372277 10372283 10372357 10372367 10372381 10372391 10372403 10372421 10372429 10372433 10372441 10372447 10372489 10372511 10372541 10372559 10372591 10372619 10372627 10372639 10372657 10372673 10372679 10372699 10372709 10372741 10372751 10372763 10372781 10372787 10372829 10372837 10372903 10372919 10372939 10372951 10372963 10372997 10373017 10373021 10373047 10373053 10373057 10373059 10373063 10373087 10373089 10373093 10373101 10373113 10373117 10373119 10373137 10373149 10373173 10373177 10373201 10373239 10373243 10373249 10373261 10373263 10373267 10373269 10373309 10373339 10373347 10373353 10373371 10373413 10373453 10373459 10373479 10373491 10373507 10373521 10373551 10373567 10373581 10373591 10373603 10373617 10373633 10373641 10373647 10373651 10373681 10373683 10373687 10373717 10373719 10373771 10373773 10373789 10373819 10373833 10373899 10373917 10373939 10373947 10373953 10373977 10373999 10374011 10374031 10374037 10374041 10374047 10374071 10374101 10374109 10374113 10374121 10374139 10374187 10374193 10374197 10374227 10374229 10374269 10374281 10374289 10374313 10374341 10374349 10374389 10374391 10374407 10374409 10374443 10374473 10374479 10374487 10374493 10374557 10374563 10374571 10374631 10374647 10374667 10374671 10374691 10374701 10374731 10374761 10374769 10374773 10374781 10374823 10374839 10374853 10374877 10374899 10374901 10374907 10374937 10374967 10374971 10374989 10375003 10375033 10375051 10375067 10375097 10375129 10375153 10375163 10375171 10375177 10375181 10375187 10375193 10375199 10375201 10375213 10375223 10375237 10375241 10375247 10375259 10375283 10375289 10375319 10375373 10375403 10375441 10375447 10375481 10375493 10375511 10375523 10375529 10375571 10375597 10375633 10375639 10375643 10375657 10375667 10375711 10375733 10375751 10375753 10375759 10375801 10375811 10375817 10375837 10375879 10375891 10375901 10375907 10375927 10375949 10375961 10375991 10376017 10376053 10376077 10376083 10376123 10376131 10376141 10376167 10376183 10376203 10376207 10376209 10376221 10376257 10376291 10376309 10376329 10376339 10376363 10376371 10376419 10376449 10376453 10376467 10376479 10376497 10376503 10376521 10376533 10376543 10376557 10376563 10376609 10376617 10376621 10376623 10376627 10376633 10376651 10376659 10376669 10376671 10376683 10376689 10376699 10376701 10376719 10376741 10376797 10376827 10376833 10376837 10376857 10376881 10376917 10376929 10376939 10376957 10376959 10376969 10376981 10376999 10377001 10377007 10377011 10377019 10377047 10377053 10377067 10377079 10377091 10377113 10377119 10377139 10377151 10377179 10377197 10377239 10377247 10377277 10377307 10377313 10377317 10377329 10377337 10377349 10377371 10377379 10377383 10377391 10377397 10377421 10377457 10377473 10377487 10377509 10377511 10377517 10377527 10377533 10377539 10377583 10377617 10377637 10377671 10377673 10377683 10377691 10377707 10377793 10377811 10377817 10377821 10377827 10377833 10377863 10377919 10377931 10377943 10377949 10377953 10377967 10378021 10378031 10378061 10378063 10378073 10378091 10378103 10378111 10378133 10378139 10378163 10378219 10378223 10378229 10378253 10378271 10378307 10378327 10378343 10378363 10378369 10378391 10378411 10378421 10378429 10378439 10378469 10378471 10378477 10378481 10378531 10378559 10378597 10378603 10378637 10378639 10378657 10378673 10378691 10378741 10378751 10378763 10378777 10378793 10378813 10378817 10378829 10378847 10378859 10378877 10378889 10378919 10378931 10378943 10378969 10378987 10379009 10379011 10379021 10379041 10379069 10379081 10379119 10379137 10379143 10379153 10379177 10379179 10379189 10379209 10379251 10379267 10379293 10379311 10379323 10379353 10379357 10379381 10379387 10379407 10379423 10379429 10379441 10379449 10379461 10379483 10379543 10379549 10379557 10379563 10379569 10379581 10379587 10379599 10379617 10379623 10379627 10379657 10379671 10379689 10379701 10379711 10379737 10379753 10379771 10379777 10379839 10379857 10379867 10379879 10379893 10379927 10379959 10379983 10380001 10380043 10380049 10380053 10380077 10380121 10380131 10380151 10380163 10380191 10380197 10380233 10380259 10380263 10380269 10380287 10380299 10380301 10380311 10380343 10380361 10380367 10380371 10380379 10380407 10380451 10380457 10380481 10380493 10380497 10380509 10380529 10380533 10380541 10380547 10380551 10380563 10380569 10380577 10380589 10380619 10380641 10380647 10380653 10380661 10380677 10380701 10380703 10380709 10380719 10380737 10380743 10380763 10380767 10380787 10380793 10380803 10380817 10380827 10380857 10380883 10380907 10380941 10380949 10380959 10380967 10381003 10381009 10381013 10381039 10381069 10381079 10381081 10381093 10381097 10381117 10381141 10381171 10381177 10381193 10381207 10381223 10381229 10381279 10381291 10381297 10381321 10381337 10381369 10381387 10381409 10381421 10381451 10381453 10381457 10381471 10381477 10381519 10381523 10381531 10381541 10381561 10381589 10381597 10381607 10381661 10381667 10381673 10381697 10381727 10381729 10381741 10381751 10381753 10381757 10381759 10381769 10381801 10381823 10381829 10381831 10381837 10381853 10381859 10381871 10381879 10381907 10381909 10381927 10381933 10381949 1038195 ------------ To respond to the sender of this message, send mail to remailer(a)soda.berkeley.edu, starting your message with the following 7 lines: :: Response-Key: ideaclipper ====Encrypted-Sender-Begin==== MI@```$9S^P;+]AB?X9TW6\8W2::P&2&HOVFL%".9D"CDI<8'#>:RI9+ES'K( >#D'/RRZZZN4??'?6ADXC9)5[D`,:O3/L%MV:`)]Y ====Encrypted-Sender-End====

2 1

Giving Value to Digital Cash
by anonymous＠extropia.wimsey.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Rant: Creating Value for Digital Cash Someone recently fed me my words from the Magic Money intro, in which I predicted that digital cash could take on value by itself. I knew when I wrote the program that giving the system value would be the hardest part. I'm glad to see interest in digital cash resurfacing. I thought it was dead. Most major economies are using fiat money today, so it is clear that fiat money will work. But you could not create a new economy with fiat money. The money has to start out having real-world value and convertibility. After it has been in circulation for a while, it can be "decoupled" from outside standards. There are three problems involved. 1> Getting people started. From clueless to having a working Magic Money client on their system. 2> Distributing your digital coins. 3> Exchanging your digital coins for something of value. One at a time. 1> Getting people started. The software has to be readily available. The Magic Money server should be able to mail a uuencoded copy of a DOS binary or the source code to anyone who requests it. The binary needs to be compiled with the new pgptupd.zip file. This has a fifo.c dated in April, which fixes a bug in the old fifo.c. I have asked MPJ to integrate this with the pgptl10d on his site. In any case, look for a fifo.c with a date in April. Someone with better Unix skills than me needs to write a proper, system-independent makefile for the Magic Money package and include it with the source code release. Magic Money is not really that hard to use once you get it installed. 2> Distributing your digital coins. The properties you want here are: it should be easy for any newbie to get a few coins to play with, but it should be hard to manipulate this system to stockpile a lot of coins without effort. One way to do this is with a for-pay MUD. Digital coins would be distributed for successful play in the MUD. The free "guest" account would allow anyone to play for a short time (15-30 minutes or so) and get a few coins. The specific actions required would change every time, so someone could not write a program to repeat the same actions over and over to stockpile coins. To get into the deeper levels of the MUD and win more coins, you would have to pay for access. There could be other ways to get coins too. All should be fun or interesting in themselves, but not too easy. For example, hunts through the Usenet. Post a puzzle with some encrypted coins. The solution to the puzzle is the passphrase to decrypt the coins. Post innocuous-sounding messages to various Usenet groups. Each one has a clue to the puzzle, and pointers to further clues. The first one to solve the puzzle and exchange the coins wins them. And how about a digital bookmaking operation, and a simulated stock market? Take real stock prices, and allow users to buy and sell with digital cash. You should also have margin accounts (what was that about developing digicash credit and debt?) with automatic margin-call and sellout if you lose, and short-sale capability. Take bets on sporting events, elections, anything which can be publicly verified. 3> Exchanging your digital coins for something of value. This is the easy part: give away prizes in exchange for digital coins. The prizes paid for, of course, by the profits from the MUD. The best prizes are probably consumer electronics ranging from small stuff like Walkmans to major items (if the system is successful) like TV's and computers. This is really no different from arcades where you put in quarters to play bowling games, and then use the tickets to get prizes if you are good. Or games at fairs. It's not gambling, so it should be legal. This approach could give your digicash value. Some people will play the MUD for the fun of it (make it a good MUD) and will start to collect coins. People will want to win the prizes, either by playing your contests, or wheeling and dealing with other people. Eventually, when your system is seen as trustworthy, your coins will take on a value of their own. Some people will exchange them for prizes, but many more will just use them as money on the net. One advantage of this from the operator's point of view is that the risk starts out small and rises with success. When only a few people are involved and the prizes are Walkmans, the risk is low. When the MUD is making good money and everyone is spending your coins, and you are giving away TV's and computers, the risk is higher but so is the payoff. When you are successful, you can profit by minting and spending your coins. Here you have to be careful to put money into the system only as fast as the digicash economy is growing. Your server needs to be online, and quickly accessible. It can be run through a remailer, since the bandwidth would not be too high. Use a 512 bit key, just in case it becomes popular. And if you are going to publish the address of the server, you will need a firewall between the net and the machine with the secret key. Pr0duct Cypher -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLccohMGoFIWXVYodAQFA+QP7BXXgde3cBGg+HTp3dt8FMbekK00HBuw0 fEINtTCld00e9q1qDH2HiNo5zMQuj1xXWyDbARiEpzAdOgoPcIZ0fkUpLMy/uBpR cJv/g1Ma66t5b1W5rfdiXEeQWZN0vkqPRiPQR8/tNaG9VqzS/dXxPZ6wlSU0L+Ay bcQSB052ODs= =hLUV -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

3 2

money server up and running
by Matt Thomlinson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

digital coins are flowing! newly minted GhostMarks (tm) now available. GhostMarks are minted in 5 & 10 type denominations, as I felt the efficient binary system wasn't quite as intuitive. I'm offering 20 GhostMarks to the person who most correctly predicts the outcome of the Seattle Supersonics/Denver Nuggets basketball game tomorrow night; deadline is 3pm, 5/4/94. Please include a winner and a point spread. Also, in my next few posts I'll be offering GhostMarks to get my currency established. What follows is worth 10 GhostMarks to whomever redeems them first. -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.2 owEBBQH6/okAlQIFAC3HMbJkhnxaNc7AOQEBOyMEALQGtexjmAY/L2eoLETJ3WNh XQjmFTNmKmqhOBTg0L0LiaJp9gDbYxHABce9Wtej0mtCpQ6QaNcfyAWDVVLn4yP5 MyvXmlhNLcAmmDjPOnCJD91jt7ShYGpOzsHtOqb62mWAPznp/PfHlDi1SiJtkqar IlpLcpSxVBPvmIGWuR0JrGtiDS9tb25leS8xMC5kYXQAAAAAwJSuQj1K3n/cvbzM DI7to7cAEQEACQH7B2KV0HcziU3pxSA6B+Yjse6hqJqLilt2ofZpVemIGONamPmm nCc5Txfyh8GacaDxS+rfekH7JenBO9lcU3j87g== =iEij -----END PGP MESSAGE----- mt Matt Thomlinson University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. phone: (206) 548-9804 Check my home page -- ftp://ftp.u.washington.edu/public/phantom/home.html PGP 2.2 key available via email, or finger phantom(a)hardy.u.washington.edu

2 1

one more thing.
by Matt Thomlinson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You might need this: (the banks' key): -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.3a mQBPAi3HKO0AAAECAMvQjLjmYqiYg2gR3LiAOTWoSbcnMQsZZtzGLDy/tx3B2dwi BwB8GHbBYv43CrFVGEsaiYm1nw9Z7R2oJiKr3fEAEQEAAbQUVGhlIFBoYW50b20g RXhjaGFuZ2U= =znO6 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Matt Thomlinson University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. phone: (206) 548-9804 Check my home page -- ftp://ftp.u.washington.edu/public/phantom/home.html PGP 2.2 key available via email, or finger phantom(a)hardy.u.washington.edu

1 0

The Value of Money
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One bill makes you larger, two bills make you small, and the ones that Uncle gives you aren't worth anything utall....... I thank everyone for the explanations I read; they were all quite interesting, informative, and enlightening. I think that asking about the origins of the concept of money supply is a bit like asking about the origin of God or the Universe: it's just there. My question is still unanswered in my mind, and I think the best thing will be to do some further research in the library: Where did Alice get her money initially which she deposited in a bank for its safe-keeping and interim use. It was printed by the government. How did the gov. decide how much to "create" (print) and then assign a "value" to, from their gold reserve (back when it meant something). Too much or too little currency in circulation, and you have either inflation or deflation; I know it's arbitrary, but how was an acceptably correct proportion established initially, beginning from when the US was established as a legitimate nation; how was the process started, based on what sort of relationship between the abstract units and the available "stuff" used as reference to base it upon. The act of assigning abstract numbers to a concrete substance like gold: someone made the initial associations and established an understanding among the intended users. The procedure of using an exchange medium was familiar from centuries before. The medium changed, but the system of exchange remained and has been expanded upon, until now it is very complex. Really, now all that we mostly see are "money-numbers" attached to checks, credit cards, bank account statements, receipts, shares, etc. I don't ever see the gold and if I exchanged all of my checking account for it, I would probably find resistance to its use from the inconvenience and danger of actually handling it. This is now pretty well just an act of assessing value/worth based upon knowledge gained from the past relative to what everybody else has been doing, in terms of assigning any worth to any thing in terms of some number. It all makes sense, now. I understand this much: there is some gold and other actual metal located in a vault, sitting there as a symbolic standard of wealth, worth, value. Everyone stakes a claim to it, and they exchange that claim to others in substitution for something else (dog, rifle, gas in the car, baby-sitting). These claims can circulate as fast as a computer can calcualte & transfer them, and that is all that circulates while the standard continues to sit in the vault, not being used for anything by anybody. As long as you hold a claim to this lump of stuff, you're Somebody - a force to contend with in the Market Place. All you have to figure out is how to *get* some of that Claim in your hands so that you, too, can be involved in the Circulation Business. Something which can be converted from a solid to a liquid so it can be re-converted back to a solid or something similar. But you always want to maintain some Claim, some attachment, to that symbolic reference from which all money numbers derive their assigned worth. It's easy, when you know how. :>) Oh, and. . . uh.. .what this has to do with cypherpunks is... uh . ..uh. . .anarcho-capitalistic control of my destiny based upon fundamental comprehension of currency denomination & free market methodology with future potential within an encrypted digi-cash system? Blanc

2 1

Detweiler's Back--comments in talk.politics.crypto
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cyphertentacles, I apologize for mentioning the name "Detweiler" here, but I just spent a fair amount of time composing this attached article for talk.politics.crypto, and thought it relevant enough to Cypherpunks to forward here. Many of you apparently missed Detweiler's harassment of our list (with fantasies that several list members were actually "Tentacles" of myself and Eric Hughes and others, etc.), for which you should consider yourself blessed. He has a nasty habit of popping up, though. Tonight, shortly after reading his post where he asked "have you fixed the cypherpunks remailers yet?," I saw that huge list of numbers appear from an anonymous site....and of course I thought "He's baaaaack!" --Tim Newsgroups: alt.security.pgp,talk.politics.crypto Path: netcom.com!tcmay From: tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Re: RSA Data Security Inc. and Pretty Good Privacy...some comments Message-ID: <tcmayCp9qJ9.7r3(a)netcom.com> Followup-To: alt.security.pgp,talk.politics.crypto Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 08:06:45 GMT L. Detweiler (tmp(a)netcom.com) wrote: (commenting on a post of mine) : actually, something I have observed is that you never respond to : ad hominem attacks the way e.g. Sternlight does. If someone calls : you a slimy cryptoanarchist, you don't bother to defend yourself. That's right. I see no point in answering such nonsense, as it wastes my time and wastes the group's time. I'm only commenting here because you've made an accurate observation here...ad hominem arguments are rarely persuasive. : Which is something of a pity, because IMHO all the fun of Usenet : is namecalling. What else is it good for? any medium that does not : reward excellence in posting (the good and the bad scroll off : in the same pace) is asking for mediocrity. Talk.politics.crypto should be, in my opinion, concerning itself with the vital and fascinating questions about crypto policy, the laws of other countries besides the U.S., Clipper, Digital Telephony, and so forth, not with endless acrimony about who said what, who called whom a liar, and who's sleazier. If someone calls me a fool, or a dupe, or a Nazi babykiller, I take satisfaction in letting their words speak to their own reputation. Further, anyone _taken in_ by such idle charges almost certainly _deserves_ to be taken in! A kind of filter, as it were. Most people are pretty reasonable, and learn quickly enough to separate out casual charges and idle assertions from the truth. This is why free speech "works." (When Detweiler begain to attach my name and (non-digital) sig block to his posts, and then to post pro-Nazi rants in soc.culture.jewish and soc.culture.german, with my name at the bottom, then I took the step of letting his site admin know I was pissed off. Eventually, after LD mailbombed more than a hundred newsgroups--before it was stopped at his site--his account was yanked. He's now posting as "tmp.netcom.com," out of the Denver site.) : also, it appears that you are loathe to post any insult under your : True Name but feel free to do so under all the `others' <g>. It appears Yes, I dislike posting insults....even for people I disagree with. (I'm not perfect...I've lost my temper on the Net more than once...) And a lot of times I just see no point in refuting an obviously flawed argument someone makes. The Clipper arguments have gone around and around and most people in this group, not to mention 80% of Americans, dislike the Clipper concept. (As I've said so many times, beginning 5 months _before_ Clipper was announced, my real concern is that the groundwork is being laid for some kind of ban on unapproved crypto use. This has always been the focus of my efforts, including the technical and public relations efforts now underway to undermine key escrow, not the relatively trivial issue of what kind of secure phones the government buys for itself and tells its contractors to buy. Too many issues here to discuss now.) However, as I told you beginning last summer when you started to pester me about my "Tentacles" and my "Pseudopods," I don't post to this or any other group under any name or account name other than my own name, tcmay(a)netcom.com. And I haven't used a reamiler or anonymous posting service for many months (and then it was mostly for experiments, with posts going to the Cypherpunks mailing list). The same cannot be said of yourself, you having posted under the various names of S. Boxx, The Executioner, Pablo Escobar, Jim Riverman, T.C. Hughes, Eric May, Adolf Hitler, etc., via the anon.penet.fi remailer site. And you've even posted with _my name_ attached to your posts. (A good argument for digital signatures, save that I run RSA's MailSafe and MacPGP on my home machine, and uploading to Netcom is an extra set of steps I don't relish.) : that the cryptoanarchist ideology that `true names' are meaningless : is itself meaningless. Well, I think you should consider that you : are really missing out on something. A world where there is no : strong condemnation of evil is an invitation to moral relativism : and fascism (or, maybe that is your point). Condemnation of evil doesn't happen by ad hominem arguments, by anonymous posts, by prattle about the "spawn of Satan" and "sodomites." Nothing to be gained by mindlessly demonizing David Sternlight, Grady Ward, Dorothy Denning, or any other such folks. If there is a developing collision between "privacy" and the putative need for the government to inspect the insides of ones computer files, filing cabinets, business receipts, housekeeper interview logs, etc. (all of these inspections are ostensibly needed for small businesses--and many of us are becoming small businessmen, courtesy of at home consulting, businesses--to allow taxation, detection of money-laundering, etc.), then this collision needs to be discussed. I don't impute evil to the NSA or NIST, or to folks like Dorothy Denning and David Sternlight. I just disagree with them and think the new technologies favor (and "empower") the individual over any particular nation and its band of tax collectors, censors, and authority figures. There are good aspects and bad aspects to this kind of "crypto anarchy" (my term since 1988), but the genie's already out of the bottle. Instead of arguing pointlessly here, in this group, over 700 mostly like-minded (though I don't speak for others) folks are racing to get strong crypto and its related technologies deployed as quickly and as widely as we can. Just to get the genie even _further_ out of the bottle. (Our band of folks, and others, may lack the sheer power of the Agency, but it is _ever so much easier_ to encrypt strongly, to provide untraceable message routing, than it is to break ciphers and track all messages. The old saw, repeated recently by Philip Elmer-Dewitt in an otherwise fine McNeil-Lehrer piece, that the NSA "has never met a code it couldn't crack," is actually almost completely bogus. In fact, most modern ciphers have been uncrackable, for reasons of computational complexity, and there have been few major cipher or code crackings in the last 20 years...the Walker spy case was so serious because key material was being supplied to the Soviets, the kind of black-bag cryptanalysis which works where brute-force methods fail. Fortunately for us, public key cryptosystems have much less key material to protect, and the Agency can't do a black-bag job on very many of us. This is why they're understandably worried, and why Clipper, Capstone, and Digital Telephony are their attempts at solutions. : the delight of Usenet is the back-and-forth. That's why Sternlight : is famous and T.C.May is just a lurking shadow. The latter has mastered : the thrust but not the parry. And? So? In the big scheme of things, it doesn't matter much to me that David Sternlight is much better known than I am. Or that you, L. Detweiler, rate your very own section in the "Legends" guide in alt.usenet.kooks. : hee, hee, T.C.May apologizes to Dorothy Denning. Mr. May, it is clear : that you can't decide whether you want to be a guerilla cryptoanarchist : or the sweet, nice boy next door who brings cookies for the neighbor : Aunt Dorothy. : I'll stop now. Thanks. That's my cue to stop as well. : pseudonymously yours, : tmp(a)netcom.com --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

1 0