December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

PGP on a VAX
by peace＠BIX.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ViaCrypt PGP is now running on a VAX. It will be released after all quality control is complete, in about 2 weeks.

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Re: Oceania?
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>They find government by Singapore particularly comforting >because Singapore has demonstrated expertise in minimizing >the dangerous infection of freedom that accompanies >capitalism. Here's something kinda spooky. An OSF staffer doing consulting with the Singapore gov't was asking about how well the DCE security server scales. They're starting a pilot program to make, from birth, every Singaporese an entity known to their server. Based on other questions, I gather the DCE identity card will be used by all gov't services. /r$

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Re: Remailers, RSAREF for PERL
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Gah! I guess Mike won't send _me_ a copy of his Perl RSA routines... Oh well, I'll wait for some courageous soul to ftp it to garbo. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "In between the breaths is rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in the space where we live" rishab(a)arbornet.org - Lawrence Durrell Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Digicash and currency markets - Economist
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Alex Strasheim <alex(a)omaha.com>: (?) > Yes, it is granted that Digicash is in beta, and not polished. But > beta testing usually happens after all significant functionality is > present. The Digicash beta isn't moving real money, and that's a > significant functional deficit. So far I haven't seen much discussion on the monetary effect of e-cash. The best (and only) analysis I've seen was in last week's Economist (no, I don't work there, I'm only a fan) of which John Young (jya(a)pipeline.com) was kind enough to offer e-mail copies. I excerpt: The Economist November 26, 1994, pp. 21-23 [NO INTEREST ON E-CASH:] The more disputed aspects of electronic money's future are those that relate mainly to money's other role, as a store of value. ... If, to command confidence, electronic money had to be convertible into legal tender on demand, then for every unit of electronic money there would have to be a unit of cash reserved in the real economy ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ...which is pretty much how the fledgling CyberCash, for example, plans to operate, requiring banks working with it to hold money converted into e-cash in an escrow account. It follows that, in an efficient system, if each e-cash unit represents an immobilised unit of real cash, then positive balances of e-cash will earn no interest, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ because the interest they might earn would be offset by the interest foregone on the real cash that is backing them. It also follows that, in such a system, there would be no purely virtual lending: for this would increase the stock of digital money without a corresponding increase in the stock of real money, and so undermine convertibility. The virtual economy in this phase of its development would be free from usury. [BYPASSING REGULATED CURRENCY MARKETS:] If you pay yen for electronic dollars in Tokyo and buy something from a merchant based in Paris who cashes them for francs, a currency conversion has taken place. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That, however, is an activity towards which most governments feel highly defensive; and if e-cash started to bypass regulated foreign-exchange markets by developing its own grey market for settlement, then governments might be provoked into trying to clamp down on it. Probably, therefore, e-cash will, at least in its early forms, be denominated in single conventional currencies and exchanged at conventional market rates. [Which wouldn't be much fun. For example, in India it's not easy for _me_ to convert rupees into dollars; 75% of dollars I earn must be converted into rupees. Assuming DigiCash takes off; I sell copies of Electric Dreams and become an e-cash millionaire. I can then buy stuff in dollars, which according to regulations I am not supposed to have. Similar problems arise in even less tightly regulated countries. [ON A TOTALLY DIGITAL CURRENCY WITHOUT PAPER BACKING:] It is possible to imagine the development of e-cash reaching this point, and no further. But it is also possible to imagine that the temptation to move away from a fully-backed digital money would prove irresistible. Instinct argues that people will want virtual credit, and that it must therefore find a price. ...there will come a ... stage towards a single overarching monetary system in which convertibility into Legal tender ceases to be a condition for electronic money; and electronic money will thereby become indistinguishable from -- because it will be the same as -- other, more traditional sorts of money. Money will be money whether it is constituted as a string of digits or a piece of paper or an entry in a ledger. Some electronic money might be backed by governments, some by private issuers.... Ideally, the ultimate e-cash will be a currency without a country (or a currency of all countries), infinitely exchangeable without the expense and inconvenience of conversion between local denominations. It may constitute itself as a wholly new currency with its own denomination -- the "cyber-dollar", perhaps..... Either way, it is hard to imagine that the existence of an international, easy-to-use, cheap-to-process, hard-to-tax electronic money will not then force freer convertibility on traditional currencies. "We know everything about you that we need to know" - Coleta Brueck, IRS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "In between the breaths is rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in the space where we live" rishab(a)arbornet.org - Lawrence Durrell Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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(Fwd) Re: GATT and RSA
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- With Rishab's permission today I forward his answer to my query about GATT's effect on copyright of software for those of you who may want to know. Forwarding mail by: rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) on Sun, 04 Dec 11:59 PM - ------------------- Rishab writes to another poster: > >So GATT is unlikely to affect RSA. JY asked: > May I assume that your remarks above indicate that you have > details of the GATT agreement that would clarify the following > general summaries in my local rag, The New York Times (I have > not been able to obtain a final copy of the agreement): US software companies benefit because GATT enforces _copyright_ including for software. Not software patents - something totally different, which is what makes PGP 2.3 illegal in the US but not so anywhere else. Rishab - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBLuNl3ioZzwIn1bdtAQG1eQF9FoWSiCdVoG7zUMnwD8oy1aCrDx+88UZY wtW29fP6+mLWl3pqC0smBebiVLmSRzme =Ph6r -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Dupes?
by Johnathan Corgan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- This morning I seem to be getting two copies of many of the messages that have come through. Anyone else getting this? ======================================================================= Johnathan Corgan "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" jcorgan(a)netcom.com -Isaac Asimov PGP Public Key: http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bal/pks-toplev.html Or send email to: pgp-public-keys(a)pgp.ai.mit.edu Subj: GET jcorgan ======================================================================= -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLuNpnE1Diok8GKihAQG/tAP/WVzEfrjUkaNOubRKcBg5E+FISzYCQw7z 8Lf+TB+n+Fhm9pmghYKADIcq1UYH4xhKu71FlRAEbNVqYrgh6Rfa71h+gdWouDIg 6wcm3ZNQmVhE3zbDGFpE/hUgNm6N28/CIWIdmPLeapBjb1JXDOPM5OOQ7XlvFFe1 kvN3vZgcgyw= =osLm -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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better than Oceania
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

'punksters, Far more interesting than Oceania is the Millennial Project. It is not only in it's second revised edition, but has a very active BBS and hopes to be a list on the net soon (there looking for an assist with this so anyone who can help them out, would be appreciated) They have also had two national gatherings, and the group has numerous engineers running various planning committees, and they have downloadable spreadsheets on various aspects. It is a definate breath of fresh air from all the doomsayers out there. They also have a healthy respect for privacy and encryption. The book is available at any good bookstore. "The Millennial Project" seven easy steps to colonizing the Galaxy by Marshall Savage. Brian Williams Extropian Cypherpatriot "Cryptocosmology: Sufficently advanced communication is indistinguishable from noise." --Steve Witham "Have you ever had your phones tapped by the government? YOU WILL and the company that'll bring it to you.... AT&T" --James Speth

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Re: ;-) The definitive argument for e$: tainted cash
by merriman＠metronet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- FWIW: A similar experiment done here in the DFW area a few weeks ago. 4 of 11 bills tested "positive" by DEA coke-sniffing machinery. Dave Merriman -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLuN4mcVrTvyYOzAZAQHtZAQAm8b86IuL02BdGihyyuhLExkcntHZozM0 S2iYFik2c9Wl0r5O7qV5XJBRRHcUSmLNTzk6AaaNIj8C0tOKAWqj3/GzqKsC03mU exxtxt7uAr59TL4iL88mL/C4Ne89H3zqIYnTOD8r6p0oIHpOWE5XfGBON5LpTIvw UWuhsvO0VV0= =STRk -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Finger merriman(a)feenix.metronet.com for PGP public key and fingerprint. PGP encrypted Email welcome, encouraged, and preferred. "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." John F. Kennedy

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Re: PGP Tools under Linux (Pr0duct Cypher)
by lcottrell＠popmail.ucsd.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: Pr0duct Cypher Pr0duct Cypher writes: >I wrote: >>I am using PGPTools to handle all the crypto functions in the second >>generation remailer that I have written. All the copies of PGPTools that I >>have found seem to be set up to compile on SUN workstations only. > >That's interesting, because I developed it under Linux and MS/DOS, and there >was a lot of trouble at the beginning with it not running on big-endian >machines. It sounds like whoever "fixed" it for sparcs broke it for >little-endian machines. The original should still be on ftp.csn.net; get it >there and it should work. > >>Mixmaster is both a remailer and a front end, and therefor must run on many >>different platforms. I have been able to compile PGPTools on Linux and >>FreeBSD, but PGPTools produces invalid RSA blocks. If you (or anyone else >>reading this) have ported PGPTools to other platforms could you send me the >>source and makefile, or point me to them. If not, could you help me do it, >>the source code is a tangle, and it will take me a long time to do on my own >>(I am a brute force programer, not a C wizard). > >Get the original, test it, and post the results. > <SNIP> > - Pr0duct Cypher Ok, I grabbed second oldest version (this included a bugfix). I compiles and seems to work fine when I use it with PTD. It fails when run under Mixmaster. The failure is deep inside pgptools. When I call pgpk_findkey to get a key from a public key ring (by name not number), it chugs along checking each key id in the ring. Each time it checks a key, it uses a pair of fifo's which it then destroys. After checking the second id, when it is destroying kc (k is destroyed without problems both times), I get a segmentation violation in the line nfb=fb->next; Since kc was simply a copy of k kc=fifo_copy(k); I suspect the problem lies in fifo_copy. These are all mem fifo's. If you want to look at the source code I am playing with (with tons of debugging printfs in it) let me know and I will stick it on my ftp. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAwUBLuOBVFVkk3dax7hlAQGYNAP9GvDMvdSKA1vUsmJB/xitPVsiazNeZjXJ NrjwouMg85VR1ri1rm1y2NuKbHEljGfwNB7z8euy7e1clptRsN4WWrP+ASSfrire 9Clan80Ep4lEA+83caArQv3Hcdb8+8FnLpXd/zrPI2V/3TVM2OrfU7/RtUo+3Pr3 JE2d0s6Jn+E= =jlbs -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Lance Cottrell <lcottrell(a)popmail.ucsd.edu> http://nately.ucsd.edu/~loki/ Home of the remailer chaining script "chain". PGP 2.6 key available by finger or server. "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come." --Nietzsche

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Re: AA BBS - Thomases are going to jail...
by frissell＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:30 AM 12/5/94 PST, hkhenson(a)cup.portal.com wrote: >Part of the Federal Government's law enforcement mechanism is under >the control of the Religious Right. Stuff about the AA BBS bust elided. One should note that this prosecution is similar to others carried out against the sellers of physical visual pornography for years. The stings have been carried out by both Republican and Democratic federal prosecutors usually in border states. They started before there was an official Religious Right. The US Attorney in this case may have been a Democrat since most Republicans were replaced by Clinton. He, she, or it is probably not a member of the RR. >I find the situation intolerable--without having a clear idea of how >to deal with it. There will be an appeal. >Certainly *any* system which carries alt.sex.* is subject to the same >treatment by the Religious Right (in the guise of the Memphis Feds) as >AA BBS. In fact, the very .gifs that were found obscene in Memphis >were made "freely distribute," by Robert and have been posted *many* >times to the net. That will be an interesting case. DCF ************************************************************************* ATMs, Contracting Out, Digital Switching, Downsizing, EDI, Fax, Fedex, Home Workers, Internet, Just In Time, Leasing, Mail Receiving, Phone Cards, Quants, Securitization, Temping, Voice Mail.

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