December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Anonymous phone calls.
by daily%cbpi.UUCP＠DMC.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Is there any way to make a phone call anonymously? Caller ID can be >blocked somewhat with one of those *## numbers dialed before the call >is made. Is there a way to route a call through a series of phone-type >remailer systems? This would allow one to make a call that would be as >hard to trace as anonymous mail. > Any ideas? < G.C.G. The best way to make a truly anonymous call is to hack a pbx. Most of them have a feature(This feature is turned off by default on AT&T pbx) that allows you to call into the pbx from any phone and get a second dial tone. Sometimes there is a code(4-8 digits on AT&T) you must enter to get the second dial tone. Also, you might have to dial the trunk access code (usually 8 or 9) to get an outside dial tone. The first dialtone lets you enter an extension # in the pbx. The reason that this is the best way is because if you are using a 900 service to make the anon call, you get billed at the number you are calling from, so if there were a trap on the line you were calling, they'd have the 900 service provider's number, the 900 service provider would have your number, and you'd no longer be anonymous. With the pbx hack, the likely hood of a trap being on this line is next to nothing. If there were a trap on the number you were making the anon call to, they would only get the number of the trunk that your call left the pbx on, not the number you were calling from. jim(a)cbpi.com

1 0

MFC, was [Visual Basic (yes, Basic!), and "VBX" tools
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message Wed, 4 May 94 13:36:38 -0700, hughes(a)ah.com (Eric Hughes) writes: >> fortuitous decision to incoporate Windows "foundation classes" (a C++ >> notion, of course) into Visual Basic > > Classes are C++. Foundation classes are Microsoft Foundation Classes, > are just a large library that Microsoft wrote which is also included > in the C++ compiler products. It is correct that MFC is simply a set of C++ classes, which are included (and their source) in the Microsoft Visual C++ environments for Windows and Windows NT. But there are significances to MFC that should be mentioned. (They are also included in the Samatec [sic] compiler products. Probably others RSN) First, MFC (and related parts of MSVC) makes writing Windows applications orders of magnitude easier than using the old SDK approach. Just as with the Borland class suite, no one who has used MFC will ever go back to hand-coding SDK calls, except for the occasional wild hack. Secondly, and IMHO more importantly, MFC 2.5 makes it easy to write OLE 2.0 compliant applications. OLE is the foundation of Microsoft's "component software development" approach (see last month's Byte for a good overview). OLE is how Microsoft expects folks to hook applications together in a seemless way. OLE is used currently in Office to make Word, Excel and Powerpoint interoperate transparently, and its use will grow when Chicago is released (RSN, I know) With little work, a programmer should be able to make an OLE server that allows users to drop Word, Excel, or other documents into an "encryption server" or write an OLE client that uses the server. Most of this can also be done with Visual Basic, which is a cool tool. But Visual C++ is still C, so it makes grabing parts of PGP or PGPTools and building them into the servers and clients is much more "native" Thirdly, MFC effectively isolates the programmer from the OS. As a long time assembly hacker, I wasn't too keen on this. But MFC makes porting trivial for most Windows and Windows for Workstations (aka NT) apps, and RSN we are supposed to get MFC for the Macintosh. This will cover some huge portion of the desktop computing universe. Once you are above 95% of the market, I don't care about arguing the last percent or two. For those on this list that like to "write code" and speak some C or C++ I strongly recommend looking at Visual C++ and MFC. At $129 for the "competitive upgrade" it is even pretty cheap. Please followup off list if you need more info, like recommended configurations, etc. 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>

1 0

Re: The Value of Money
by werner＠mc.ab.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 17:24:13 -0400 (EDT) >From: Llywelyn <samman(a)CS.YALE.EDU> > >Unless of course you have a $ bill that is a specie note. I have a few ten >dollar bills that state that they are redeemable for specie. I have some funny money, myself. I have several of the original federal reserve notes, that came out after the U.S. went off the silver standard. They look just like a silver certificate, except they say they are redeemable in "lawful money" instead of "silver". A couple of years later, once the fuss had died down, they changed them to say that they ARE "lawful money". Of course, if you took one of the original federal reserve notes to a federal reserve bank to redeem it, they just gave you another one, but the impression they gave the public was that you COULD get silver (i.e., what the public considered to be "lawful money") if you really wanted it. I had an interesting experience in the late '70s with a torn $50 bill. A friend's pit bull had chewed it, but it was mostly still there. Neither of us had a bank account, as we were trying to pretend we were bigshots (no paper trails, etc.). Since I was travelling occasionally to Wash, DC, I told him I could take it to the treasury department and get a good one. They took the bill away from me, and gave me a check for $50! I had to get my girlfriend to cash it. tw

1 0

Re: EFF Summary of May 3 1994 Clipper and Digital Telephony Hearings
by pcw＠access.digex.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr. Farber suggested that at >the very least Congress weld into law a guarantee that Clipper remain >voluntary, that the Judiciary be an escrow holder. He cautioned, in the >words of Benjamin Franklin, "They that can give up essential liberty to >obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Ben Franklin also said, "Three can keep a secret if two are dead."

1 0

Re: Clipper and Congress
by pcw＠access.digex.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

><In mail Stanton McCandlish said:> > >> Unlike the Senate panel, there seemed to be some support for the Clipper >> proposal on the House Subcommittee. Rep. Dan Glickman (D-KS), > > I wonder if these Representatives (and Senators for that matter) would be > so supportive of Clipper if they were reminded that for it to be effective > even THEY would have to have the chip on THEIR HOME PHONES, THEIR OFFICE > PHONES, THEIR CELLULAR PHONES... > > I doubt many Congressional members are "clean" enough to support a chip > with such a threat over their lives. > > "Hey, Rep. Joe Smith, did you know that if someone wanted to make a few > dollars they could get the key from escrow and blackmail you about that > affair you've been having!?" > > Just a thought > Jim > At one of the earlier CSSPAB board meetings, a bunch of law enforcement officers came to speak about Clipper. They pointed out that 13 states do not allow their state and local police to use wiretaps. Some officers surmised that this was because wiretaps are really valuable in cases of bribery and corruption. I.e. where crimes can be committed through talking. >-- > Tantalus Inc. Jim Sewell Amateur Radio: KD4CKQ > P.O. Box 2310 Programmer Internet: jims(a)mpgn.com > Key West, FL 33045 C-Unix-PC Compu$erve: 71061,1027 > (305)293-8100 PGP via email on request. > 1K-bit Fingerprint: 8E 14 68 90 37 87 EF B3 C4 CF CD 9A 3E F9 4A 73

1 0

Re: The Value of Money
by joshua geller 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The idea is to create a unit of currency whose value is convenient for > typical transactions. Some amount that is easily grasped by the average > person. Originally the US dollar was 1/20th of an ounce of gold. That > amount of gold, today, has the buying power of US$18, or so. A bag of > groceries more or less. The amount of gold determines the total value of > the money supply, but the number of people and transactions in which it > must take part determines the number and denomination of bills and coins > to be printed and minted. in 1875 you could get a colt .45 for a $20 gold piece. you still can. I am sort of confused by all these folks talking about precious metals as if they still have something directly to do with currency. I thought they hadn't for some decades. josh

1 0

Re: EFF Summary of May 3 1994 Clipper and Digital Telephony Hearings
by joshua geller 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The Administration continues to maintain > that the market would accept the Clipper standard based on the > assumption that it is the strongest encryption scheme, regardless of who > holds the keys. but that is just an assumption if the algorithms are not available for study. > NSA's Clinton Brooks expressed support for Congressional Consideration > of the Clipper issue. He argued that Clipper is a sound technological > solution to a legitimate law enforcement and National Security dilemma, > and that a public debate on its merits would eventually remove the > misinformation and mistrust of government, and would prove Clipper to be > in the public interest. and 'a public debate on its merits' is difficult when details are secret. josh

1 0

Re:The Value of Money
by rah＠TIAC.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

GRABOW_GEOFFREY(a)tandem.com asked: >Didn't Nixon take the U.S. off of the gold standard? > Sort of. The market made him do it. Any real bankers out there can answer this better than I can. The way I remember it, the Bretton Woods agreement made the "dollar as good as gold", which was intended to stabilize the postwar economy and back up the Marshall plan, I think. In the late '60s and early '70s, the european economy was good enough that people (Charles DeGaulle's government in France, among them) started to call the US Treasury's bluff, and cash in dollars for gold. I believe Nixon made two changes. First, he decoupled the dollar from the price of gold, thus making the dollar more explicitly a part of the floating exchange rate mechanism (or more so, anyway). Second, he started making it legal for americans to own gold again, something FDR outlawed during the depression. Moving it more towards crypto here. . . IMO, someday there *will* be a strictly digital, anonymous, liquid medium of exchange, a currency, simply because computer transmissions are just another means to transmit promises, like metal and paper. However, the next real step in that direction is to develop "securities" like money market instruments, which are denominated in an existing currency, but are "traded" not by institutions, but by people and/or business on the internet, in order to meet very real needs, like selling software, information, entertainment, etc. I guess that's why I subscribed to this list, and why I'm somewhere in the middle of the stream cypher section of Schneier's book. :-). Bob ----------------- Robert Hettinga "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02313 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

2 1

Re: Keyserver service outRAGE
by Tom Allard 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- gtoal(a)an-teallach.com (Graham Toal) sez: [...] > The restriction on what new keys they accept was part of the deal, but > stop and think what it really means - is it going to affect *anybody*? Yes, it will effect those not in the U.S. Or did you forget about them? > And what's to stop you fetching 2.5 and loading/re-dumping your old > key from that version? ITAR. [...] rgds-- TA (tallard(a)frb.gov) I don't speak for the Federal Reserve Board, they don't speak for me. pgp fingerprint: 10 49 F5 24 F1 D9 A7 D6 DE 14 25 C8 C0 E2 57 9D -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLcjYyKAudFplx0TNAQH+cgP9EG7/jn0XdD1ZmCZTK4mk+VEjie13LXwH V927mWRLLgSu11Tj+6SsdNg9g9R2xIpXt47mMGetr3n6A6hB35UshaGAxyMPNI4V bBetgRTZUx2wzKbd2V3Gyi8hxw6Kf64FuCZnUZNe5Ds6Jg2w8Do8a4AYCbV5Ua/M 1s/MtSUY9Dk= =1vax -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

2 1

Re:The Value of Money
by trestrab＠GVSU.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Robert Hettinga writes: > GRABOW_GEOFFREY(a)tandem.com asked: > >>Didn't Nixon take the U.S. off of the gold standard? >> >I believe Nixon made two changes. First, he decoupled the dollar from >the price of gold, thus making the dollar more explicitly a >part of the floating exchange rate mechanism (or more so, >anyway). Second, he started making it legal for americans >to own gold again, something FDR outlawed during the >depression. The US$ was devalued from $35 to $38 /oz gold and the Treasury stopped redeeming dollars from anyone other than central banks in '69. This created a two tier market. The US devalued again in '70 (0r '71) to $45 /oz, and then threw in the towel and stopped backing the currency with anything other than "the full faith and credit of the US government" [:)]. US citizens were permitted to own gold bullion again as of Jan '75, under Ford. Jeff trestrab(a)gvsu.edu

1 0