December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Looking for NII IP "White Paper"...
by Brian A. LaMacchia 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

According to an article in Sunday's _Washington Post_ the final draft of the "Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure" report is going to be released Tuesday morning. You may recall the premilinary draft of this report, a.k.a. the "Green Paper", and its proposed changes to U.S. Copyright Law. Does anyone on the list have a copy of the final draft/"White Paper"? The administration is evidently keeping it under pretty tight wraps, probably because of the intense criticism the Green Paper received. Personally, I expect the White Paper to be just as bad. --bal References: The Green Paper/Preliminary Draft is available at: http://www.uspto.gov/niiip.html Pam Samuelson's critique, which appeared in _Communications of the ACM_ and which you should definitely read, is available at: http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/6095/articles/samuelson-nii-cacm-dec94.html

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WEB pointers for NIS&T Key Escrow meeting
by pfarrell＠isse.gmu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To save list bandwidth, I've put the agenda, attendee list, and the three discussion topic papers for this week's Key Escrow meeting on my web. url: http://www.isse.gmu.edu/~pfarrell/nistmeeting.html I'll add anything else I get from NIS&T, and any pointers folks send my way. Pat Pat Farrell grad student http://www.isse.gmu.edu/students/pfarrell Infor. Systems and Software Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA PGP key available via finger or request #include standard.disclaimer

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Soon the neighbor's dog will be in the act...(Was Re: book talktoday)
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-PGP-Key: <http://www1.shore.net/~sable/info/rltkey.htm> X-Sender: rodney(a)pop3.pn.com Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 09:25:50 -0400 To: dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu From: Rodney Thayer <rodney(a)sabletech.com> Subject: book talk today Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Rodney Thayer <rodney(a)sabletech.com> I was in SoftPro in Burlington (the bookstore) last night and saw they are having an "Internet Cryptography Seminar" today at 6pm, "featuring Dr. Richard E. Smith, author of "Internet Cryptography". I wonder if he'll be digitally signing copies of the book :-) For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "dcsb-request(a)ai.mit.edu" with one line of text: "help". --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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Re: Dumb Question: PGPfone over Appletalk
by Richard.Johnson＠Colorado.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Can someone tell me how to run PGPfone over Appletalk ? The >documentation says that support has been added for this release, and >there's a preferences box to check to use it, but there's no information >I can find in the documentation on how to initiate a call over >Appletalk.. it just says to enter a telephone number to dial. If I >press 'Connect' without entering anything it hangs up the Mac. > >How do I tell it which machine I want to connect to ? > > Mark "Don't know much about Macs" Grant My guess is that you're on a network with multiple AppleTalk zones. The "PGPfone 1.0b4 README" file mentions a known bug that causes PGPfone to freeze when trying to bring up its AppleTalk Browser. The Read Me file then goes on to explain how to connect anyway. Be sure to use a semi-colon, not a colon, between the zone name and the macintosh name... Richard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMEn+T/obez3wRbTBAQHG7gP+J8It6kZTRYhte2ffTSzflQB8ff14a2pR VR81PD0HIjE5cyNTrAlA6FdVGguy21BIK+tUz5rmQBRuZP46OWynBqk4y551M+fg JjnEOk2jXNBZDFdwT9fy5hWc3g38os6vto5/4vsj5Vhw0+6EoVojzJ8AU99ibG7z pKnPhQnpISI= =8lQJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: The Real Bell Issue / Re: Bell, etc
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Duncan Frissell wrote: > He could have been aggressive and fought instead of wimping out. Lots of > people have faced much more serious crimes and won. It's not like Jim had > anything better to do. The fact of the matter is, none of us know what Jim knows, and what he knows is likely only what his government appointed schill has told him. I recall Vin Suprynowicz mentioning a prominent attorney contacting Bell's attorney in an effort to help, and receiving no reply. Neither do we know if Bell has merely decided that he should concede the legal ground in order to be able to pursue the issue later, on turf that suits him better. > In such cases, an aggressive show of strength of character is best. Weakness > invites oppression. We have already seen the results of Tim McVeigh wanting his government schill replaced--a big FUCK YOU. McVeigh's problem is not weakness, but lack of knowledge about the legal system and the quality of his legal representation. Unfortunately, I have no doubt that the government already has lawyers in place whose job thus far has been to gain McVeigh's trust, so that they can screw up his appeals, as well. TruthMonger

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ASN.1 and Kerberos version 5
by jis＠mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Perry E. Metzger writes: >I've heard people associated with the decision to use ASN.1 in >Kerberos V say it was a mistake. Frankly, I think ASN.1 is a blight >which should be exterminated from the planet. I'll say it. I was the person who pushed for the use of ASN.1 in Kerberos version 5. I had this disease at the time that made me think that ASN.1 was a good idea. I got better, unfortunately we have been living with the results of my braino for quite some time now... poor Ted. However, the problem with ASN.1 isn't its waste of space (which actually isn't that bad for a mechanism for encoding arbitrary objects). The problem is that it is the product of a standards making process that didn't (and doesn't) value interoperability. Adherence to the ISO specifications does not guarantee interoperation. Instead regional "workshops" negotiate aspects of implementations to obtain interoperation. What does this mean for ASN.1? It means that the definition of ASN.1 is a bit abstract (as its name implies). Problems result when two organizations (say MIT and OSF!) attempt to implement from the specification in ASN.1 but use different ASN.1 compilers and things then don't work. Arguments then ensue about whose compiler (or manually written parsing code) is "correct" in terms of doing the right thing with ASN.1. This is particularly so when using DER (for Distinquished Encoding Rules) which is itself an after-thought added to ASN.1 later in the process. It is required in order to verify digital signatures (which have to be computed on the "encoded" form of an object because there is no good way to calculate a signature on an "abstract" object). If the Kerberos specification said: "pub this byte here and that one there" none of these arguments and problems would happen. -Jeff -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMEiaf8UtR20Nv5BtAQFzNAP/Q/LuIMbxAPAp64Kn2PSPd600TYlRAUJh QbsuL/iRhGXWrxSjsFzkcr6e3sIpSFggxglFU38TJT/DG2AD8MOid3Uj4pRJVbyo z7Au0Vp1NiotmRBHq2udItzJ7LLPM0j38FHQenqPs9mkX2Cq5kVgGUBO94HabEuE S9XPCgV8E1Q= =kTyw -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Socio-Economic Cults (Re: CypherPunk Cults)
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

gturk wrote: >You must be referring to the Cult of Redistribution. Tis true that as these accusatory options for blaming others are displayed here, it becomes hard to tell who's potshotting from what shifting position to gain better fire lines at friend and foe and own foot. As the Bastiat quote shows, the 19th century is a fount of apologies for wizened rapacity, as are those stuck in that time warp of heyday national and indiivudal self-destruction in the cause of unshakeable rigteousness, an affliction far from cured in nations and individuals wanting to be Number One while totally whacked out on ... take your pick from the socio-politico-econo bazaar, most of which derives from the days of pre-Bastiat and now recycled by crazy-lazy-minded 20th century rip-offers of the insecurely rich. Will evolution in action ever kick in, or will the promise of it, like dreams of social justice and faith in the constitution and arms, forever cheat the maniacally despairing with so few other choices for peace of mind? Are there any reliable prefabricated alternatives from history, from today, to self-imposed sheepledom of your sole invention? Now, to move on to the day's news: Is Tim going to be kidnapped by a gang of mixed breed cops and ammo merchants, shot instantly and chained in dugout till his loved redeems his maggoty carcass by redistributing his nestegg? That's the topic of the NYT's lead business story today, the need for secret ransom insurance, so secret that it does not make you a free-for-taking target like the usual unwise display of peacockery. Hide it if you got it, hide your lush affiliations too, the poor reporters advise, or the world's scum with nothing else to do but watch and wait are gonna snag your unsmart ass when you least expect it, now as in ages past, unless, to be sure, more scum-world guardians are hired and more big-nuke prayerbooks and ransom policys are arsenaled bedside, 4X, ankle and thigh.

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NIST attendee list
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The dangers of public attendee lists. Some Cypherpunk might match the list against east cost lawyers and break Black Unicorn's nym. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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heart
by Zooko Journeyman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A million monkeys operating under the pseudonym "Ray Arachelian <sunder(a)sundernet.com>" typed: > > Meethinks (not speaking for Tim) that years under a fascist natzi-like > regime bent on ripping out all out freedoms one by one and confiscating > all things threatening to it would cause any awake person to lose any > compassion for the scum that run our Freeh country. BULL SHIT. This is a cop-out, used by emotionally stunted men to excuse themselves from their solemn responsibility to ethically justify their own actions and to deal fairly with their fellow humans. By reciting mantras to one another emphasizing their sense of having been mistreated and their sense of having _unquestionable_ moral superiority, people in this situation persuade each other to become more and more fanatical in their attitudes, less and less in touch with reality, and less and less compassionate towards the "others" who have been demonized in the process. Note that this process _always_ includes a group of other humans which are demonized in order to serve as a scapegoat and as a concrete focus for the participant's negative emotions. This process is objectively identical to the process experienced by _all_ hate groups, gangs and nationalists. You are standing in the auditorium, Louis Freeh's face is displayed on the screen, interposed with film of jackbooted thugs breaking down your door, and you are screaming wordlessly at him along with all of your brethren during the Two Minutes Hate. THAT should give you pause for thought, Ray. Listen to me: I might take up arms in the trenches next to you someday, if it comes to that. I might murder enemies or civilians in their sleep, if I were convinced that it was the only way to preserve the people and the ideals that I love. I might work to deploy ideas and technologies that threaten to induce social chaos, if I believed that those ideas and technologies were the only way to ensure the blessings of liberty and prosperity for my children. But I will _never_ take one of these actions while intoxicated by a cloud of hatred and self-righteousness. I will _never_ tell myself that I am part of a sacred jihad which absolves me of all guilt, and I will _never_ re-classify my enemies as sub-human in order to justify my treatment of them. So take a fucking BREAK man. Just get up from the computer and go for a fucking walk in the mountains and think about your fucking family and loved ones. Z

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Re: anyone know what this "top secret" code does?
by Tim Magee 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In your message dated Saturday 2, September 1995 : > Does anyone remember the scenario someone suggested awhile back that > hypothesized a scheme by the NSA or other TLAs to encourage the use > of WEAK crypto? It involved spreading a lot of F.U.D. about PGP and > other strong crypto methods, followed by the discovery/leak of a > supposedly "strong" crypto algorithm to replace it. If the YFTLA could diffuse actual source of a method *supposedly* stronger than IDEA and get away with it, could they not equally qell get away with planting their man Zimmermann and having him publish PGP with a cunning trapdoor? Let's see, to lend cred to that though they'd probably have to have him arrested on trumped-up charges and generally harassed ... Many people only THINK they know what cynicism means. Seriously: I've not been round long enough to have a good idea how likely my proposed scenario is. You can all probably tell me things about Z's provenance which blow my little theory sky-high. cheers, tim M. -- "Man is born free, and everywhere he is very reasonable." -- Rousseau (roughly) Tim Magee, e-mail: Tim(a)alia1.demon.co.uk, tel: +44-1225-316785

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