December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: The Terrorists are coming!
by jdd＠aiki.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message <Pine.3.87.9408011942.A12890-0100000(a)raven.csrv.uidaho.edu> CatAshleigh writes: > first of all the only "muslim" (NOT ARAB, NO ARABS HAVE NUKES, the only How do you know? > country with nukes in the middle east is Israel) country > with a nuclear program is pakistan, and they're years away from anything > that could be stolen. Ahem. Uzbekistan is Muslim, and is also the third or fourth largest nuclear power, and also is in a part of the world where there is a long tradition of ... how do I say it gently ... greasing the palm. I spent quite a while next door in Afghanistan and am familiar with the culture. A large part of the former USSR was Muslim and there were strategic and tactical nuclear weapons scattered all over the place (tactical weapons are used as mines, fired from artillery pieces, carried by short range missiles, and dropped from fighter bombers). If none of these is unaccounted for, it is a genuine miracle. Also, there has been quite a lot of press coverage here in the UK of the defector from Saudi Arabia who claims that (a) the Saudis backed both the Iraqi and the Pakistani nuclear programs and (b) the Saudis at least have some nuclear materials. > second of all there are more deaths caused by lighting on golf courses, > ask any insurance agency. Also not true. The total number killed directly and indirectly in Japan alone by atomic bombs is certainly over 100,000. I can't believe that that many people have been killed by lightning on golf courses! Then again, we are talking about elementary arithmetic. Yes, the probability of someone being killed by lightning on a golf course tomorrow is much much higher than that of the detonation of a nuclear weapon in a populated area. But when that nuclear weapon goes off, it's not going to be just one golfer that gets scorched. > some call it pork barrel, I call it consperasy theory to protray muslims > as terroists. Pork barrel? -- Jim Dixon

3 2

Re: Philadelphia Enquirer Story on Clipper
by frissell＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:55 AM 8/1/94 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote: >Course the 1st Amend. was specifically designed to eliminate the nasty >British habit of licensing newspapers. Driving licenses weren't mentioned >in that document. Have their been any licensing proposals for the >Information Stupor Highway yet? If the Supremes will let me burn a cross, >isn't it likely that they will let me log on? To further answer myself... Note that we have had telephones for more than 100 years without any licensing of telephones in this country. In fact, the telephone companies were prohibited from denying service save on a number of narrow grounds. And that was in a much tighter regulatory environment than seems destined to exist in the future. DCF "License Communists -- not Workstations"

1 0

Re: Children and the Net
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd(a)netcom.com> Yep. They thought that was really great. > Will you be upset > if they try this at home? At the age of three Jim figured out that death was permanent and extremely serious. It was just a real shame you had to kill your kid's dog with a sharp spike up one nostril to make the point though ;-) G

1 0

Re: Lawsuits Against PKP
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Two lawsuits were recently filed in federal court, northern district of Calif, which may cripple Public Key Partners. Cylink v. RSA Data Security, C-94-02332-CW, June 30, 1994, San Fran. It alleges that the RSA patent is invalid. RSA Data had denied Cylink a patent license. This one is really fascinating -- Cylink is one of the owners of PKP, along with RSADSI...

2 1

Re: Children and the Net
by Graham Toal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Mike Duvos <mpd(a)netcom.com> A doctor at Baylor University Medical Center was asked later why this didn't cause the removal of the children, and said that while such behavior would certainly be considered abuse in a medical sense, it did not meet the legal definition of abuse according to the laws of the State of Texas. Texas, of course, is the leader on the national corporal punishment bandwagon and dishes out over 250,000 state-sponsored beatings every year in its public school system. So far all efforts to ban the practice have been successfully opposed by the teachers union. Come off it, the benefits of a teacher giving your kid the strap at the time of an offence far outweigh the harm done. I find it really hard to believe there are places in the world where it's criminally illegal for teachers - in some places, even parents - to apply corporal punishment when necessary. Anyway, it's biggest benefit is that it teaches kids a healthy disrespect of authority and shows them the pretence behind politics, 'voluntary' taxation etc etc. The people with the physical force are in charge. I think that's a lesson all kids should be made to learn the hard way. G

1 0

Re: Anonymous code name allocated. // penet hack
by jdd＠aiki.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> You have sent a message using the anonymous contact service. > You have been allocated the code name an118905. ... and so forth I did not send any message using the remailer and I would be grateful if the account were killed. Is everybody on the cypherpunks list getting this sort of harassment or is it just me? -- Jim Dixon

9 9

RE: Big Brother's Escrow Systems
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Greg Broiles Humm. Do Microsoft shareholders know that the company is being run in order to empower folks, as oppposed to making money? I must confess that I was (until now) unaware of that. .................................................................... Shareholders only know that software with uncalculable benefits is being produced & being widely accepted for no discernible reason, with profit being an unintended side effect which they can take advantage of. Blanc [Disclaimer: I can't represent my employer from here, but wait till I get my own pc.]

1 0

Re: Lawsuits Against PKP
by sidney＠taurus.apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hal <hfinney(a)shell.portal.com> writes: >That makes my day. The name Schlafly sounds familiar (I don't mean >Phyllis). Roger? Does anyone know a crypto person with this name? I haven't yet seen the details on the lawsuit, but I would guess that it is Roger Schlafly, unless the name is more common than I think. He was at Borland when I used to work there, and was into numerical methods kind of stuff. I was told that he is Phyllis Schlafly's son, but he did not give the impression being someone of her political or cultural orientation, not that I ever heard him talk about political issues. -- sidney <sidney(a)apple.com>

1 0

Re: Children and the Net
by nobody＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

gtoal writes: "Come off it, the benefits of a teacher giving your kid the strap at the time of an offence far outweigh the harm done." i disagree. how do you know corporal punishment wont be 'appealing' to the children, so like when they grow up they cant wait to take a strap to their kids and so on down the line? strapping is not a solution to a childs problems, if you cant help a child work out his problems through verbalization youre a pathetic parent!

1 0

Re: Labeling Usenet articles.
by Jonathan Rochkind 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> OK, so I want to enable the recieving of articles in conjunction with a > censorship service. I guess the way to do this is a sig. of the article [...] > Lets get the tools of crypto out there in advance. How is crypto involved? You want to have everything arrive at your site encrypted, and only be able to decrypt the stuff that you are permitted by the censor to read? Why bother, why not just only send stuff to your site that the censor permits you to read? If you don't want your entire site censored, but just want particular readers at your site to be censored, then the sysadmin should just set something up so users are only allowed to read what the censor has allowed that user to read. I dont' see how crypto comes into it at all. I think you are going to have a lot of trouble getting any help with this plan from this list. For one thing, it doesn't seem to require crypto to implement, and for another, very few people on this list are going to be interested in developing a censorship system. I don't think anyone thinks you should be disallowed from doing so either, but people put their time and energy into developing software that interests them and excites them, and for most cypherpunks I don't think a censorship system does either.

2 1