December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: The Thread That Wouldn't Die (Was: Re: McCoy is Right!)
by L. McCarthy 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Jim McCoy writes: > L. McCarthy writes: > > Jim McCoy writes: > > > Actually this "dumb flamewar" has produced some good discussion regarding > > > actual implementation issues. > > I beg to differ. If you think that was a good discussion, I'd hate to see > > what you'd classify as a bad discussion. Crypto relevance was minimal, too. > A bad discussion contains very little signal. Right. We went through dozens of messages to establish that some people like MIME and others don't, just as we did several weeks ago. What a surprise that not much has changed since then. Bleeding wonderful. > The crypto relevance to the MIME discussion was quite apparent to me, > it is a shame you missed it. If it was "quite apparent", it's a shame you didn't make that clearer at the time, rather than claiming it now. I saw plenty of flaming about various people's mailers and net connections. If someone was making points about crypto there, they were doing a damn fine job of hiding it. > Every argument that was used against MIME will one day be > used to discourage the widespread use of cryptography. By this reasoning we should resurrect all the old firestorms about gun control and child pornography. Analogies can be drawn, perhaps, but I don't feel those discussions are appropriate here. > Additionally, MIME > is a necessary standard for encapsulating cryptographic messages in a > package that can get through some of the stranger transport mechanisms used > on the net, Good standards are good. There's a revelation. Yep, we sure needed dozens of messages to rehash that. Right. > > > Everything that has happened with MIME will happen again when people > > > try to add cryptography to the structure of the net. > > It seems to me that people are *already* trying to add cryptography to the > > structure of the net, and that would actually be worth discussing. > Yeah, like the PGP-MIME draft, which will open up the ability to > effectively use PGP to more people than anything the cypherpunks have ever > done :) So why not talk about that instead ? > Standards are important and instead of trying to tilt at > windmills to no purpose perhaps it is worthwhile to examine how existing > standards can be effectively marshaled towards cypherpunk goals. Exactly. - - -L. Futplex McCarthy - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQCVAwUBLvF4X2f7YYibNzjpAQHmKQQAj9Sn16yJw2p52wH5IDca45MR1LYHAt0b YHndPHHD9ktpOgc4aoOBBnduItNgj6Z0hkuMRIoSB/Zy7P+Q11nMIcZwAiiocqlO /DA8pZ6WNEoZ47dUGX7+PrfJLkecJaxaCeZihFqqUUegaqhLSTRa6oX3QCgtXRfW UD4NMJ/mQu0= =feNH - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- - --- [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 iQBFAwUBLvF5uioZzwIn1bdtAQHi4AGAy25SDZwylW/AWgX1YYPMOEb8BHrilE5V a8SlvxhpX0uEAy0HqfjSIlGfTO7+WpBY =Y17/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: HTML "printenv"
by danisch＠ira.uka.de 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> A while back, there was mention of a WWW URL that gave back all the > details passed between one's client and a server. > Can anyone remember the URL? I remember it ended in "printenv" Try these: http://www.mit.edu:8001/machine http://www.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/printenv Hadmut

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Mr Anonymous' ignorance and 10 threads
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mr. Anonymous the Anti-Mime should be very embarassed indeed: > I think the point Tim is making is that at the current time, our lives > are not made easier or enriched by "MIME". If I want point and click > spreadsheet opening, I can use other systems that have worked for 5 > years or more, with apps that are already configured and easier to use. Mr. Anonymous seems to believe that MIME is a way to associate documents with apps so that they start up on double-click! :-D I don't really understand the need for such a huge 10% thread (SNR 1:10) on MIME of all things (with most of it concentrating on transmitting pictures and using dumb terminals). I have my own domain name and access the Net at 24+ kbps from multiple platforms all capable of running MIME, but I don't post in MIME. I agree with Tim that it's only rarely that MIME could add value to posts on this list. When MIME readers do PGP nicely, then it would be something for Cypherpunks to scream about. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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MIME, VT100, SLIP, TIA, And All That
by JEFF LICQUIA (CEI) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Allow me to inject a "phenomenology of access" to the raging blaze... I am sitting, at the moment, at a 486DX2/66 running Win 3.1 and PC/TCP. The Ethernet on this thing is connected (somewhere) to a fiber link which is itself connected to some serious bandwidth (I believe multiple T3s are involved). This is an on-site job I'm doing for my company which is in the process of wrapping up, so soon I'll be returning to my regular workplace. It's running a small net, with a Linux box routing mail via UUCP and SLIP (depending if someone's decided to pull SLIP up). We have to use net tools directly on the Linux box; our other computers (various types and operating systems, all high-powered) have no ability to access the world except through mail and the limited feed we can afford. Finally, as this list is high-bandwidth, my boss has told me to use a different account for 'punks. That is a local freenet account, no shell access, no TIA. (And before you ask: I do volunteer work for the freenet, and I know that there are *legal*, not technical, reasons why things like TIA will never be allowed.) I must use this through dialup; I have pine (no elm, no mailx, no mh, no X tools, etc.). With SLIP, I can POP my mail somewhere else; I'm getting ready to set up so I can do this from work, but it's running into bandwidth problems. There is no local SLIP provider that provides to home users. Thus, I am trapped in a VT100 environment, where a shell would be a great luxury. If and when I get SLIP, I'll have to do it on a 386SX/20 with 4M of RAM, not exactly your speed demon kind of machine. Many of the people I've talked to, and have convinced that crypto is a Good Thing(tm), are complete newbies. They might have a Prairienet account, they might not. Most of them are a bit intimidated by PGP, especially when I start talking to them about the hassles necessary to get PGP to work with dialup mail. And I can't blame them; I've yet to get a good setup running which will allow me to PGP-ize at home through my dialup, even with Linux running on my poor beast of burden. My point? Actually, I've got a few: 1. While I, too, have experienced the head rush that comes with fully graphical interfaces to high-bandwidth Net, I am also painfully aware of the reality that too many people are stuck with less. Given a few weeks, I may be one of them, and the prospects of this may be enough to cause me to, regretfully, follow Tim in his exodus from the list. (Forget the problem of signing!) 2. MIME (the standard) causes my heart to flutter. It is a wonderful standard. The implications are simply staggering, and for more than just crypto. I yearn for the day when Joe Average User can experience Amanda's MIME utopia in the comforts of his/her own home. It will, however, be a while before this can become a reality. Perhaps in California, where there are POPs every few blocks, it seems silly to suggest that we limit ourselves to the failings of the VT100; out here in central Illinois, however, where just establishing a single POP is an exercise in frustration (you don't want to know how I know this), the VT100 is here to stay for a long time. 3. I note with sadness the loss of one of our top propagandists ;-) over this issue. I respected his ability to see beyond the glitter of the possible into the cold darkness of the available, especially considering his comparative riches access- and hardware-wise. The issues he raised about MIME, he did from a personal standpoint, but he also was able to speak for many who don't have such great access. Noting the treatment he was given ("you don't fuckin' know what you're talking about"), I also wonder about my own fate when I am deprived of my own connectivity riches; considering that technical reasons alone just might necessitate my exit from the list, my resolve to stay might be undermined by the prospect of a list devoted to a technological elitism rather than a practical and grassroots effort to promote cryptography on all fronts, whether "technologically challenged" or not. Tim, I've CCed this to you, frankly, in the hopes that you'll come back soon. Not all of us think your middle name is Ludd. Happy vacation! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLvG3XTER5KvPRd0NAQEUDAP8D0e78hsqgHT8HPWZZTH3HJ6t80muA+cQ lRcL1hVVlPGLBrQWiuwlVTf5qCbL+oRKXSK5njce5hcLEayzgFfFXW4NpmS28qHq 1NBcdfSB8YfNmMUWSw2g78hDkZqAKuS2PUFr8x6L/BfbJYrLVvtHXEjWsb28cF3j zGCaDSDZ0ac= =4q7K -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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the whole list
by Jeff Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I would like to be added to the list

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SecureWeb
by nobody＠myriad.pc.cc.cmu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We'll just see.... =========Begin forwarded message========= >Date: Fri, 16 Dec 94 07:51:27 -0800 >From: more(a)newsmaster.tgc.com >To: SQUEAL(a)eek.eek.com >Subject: 4989 Web Security Toolkits Available Late December from Terisa >Systems Dec. 16 > >Web Security Toolkits Available Late December from Terisa Systems Dec. 16 >SUPERHIGHWAY REPORT HPCwire >============================================================================= > >A news release from Terisa Systems and SPRY -- > > Washington, D.C. -- Terisa Systems has announced that its SecureWeb >Toolkits for World Wide Web transaction security will be available later >this month. > > The company also said that CyberCash Inc., Open Market Inc., O'Reilly & >Associates, SPRY Inc., Spyglass Inc. and Verity Inc. will be the first >companies to use the toolkits to build Web servers or clients with security >features. > > Terisa Systems was launched earlier this year by RSA Data Security Inc. >(RSA) and Enterprise Integration Technologies Corp. (EIT). The company's >toolkits provide an implementation of Secure HTTP (HyperText Transfer >Protocol) for commercial products. Secure HTTP (S-HTTP), which was developed >by EIT, is a security-enhanced version of the World Wide Web's internal >communications language. > > David Pool, president of SPRY, said S-HTTP will be incorporated into the >company's Internet software -- Internet In A Box, the AIR Series and AIR >Mosaic Express -- in the first quarter of 1995. Consumers using Internet In >A Box will be able to purchase products safely over the Internet with a >credit card. In addition, companies or publishers using the AIR Series and >AIR Mosaic Express can market, sell and support their products. Pool said, >"Currently, the Internet is a vast, untapped marketplace still lacking >security and payment services. However, the S-HTTP protocol addresses both >encryption and authentication making electronic commerce a reality for our >customers." > > According to Douglas Colbeth, president of Spyglass, his company will offer >S-HTTP as a module in its Enhanced Mosaic Security Framework, making Mosaic >suitable for applications requiring confidentiality and authentication. >Enhanced Mosaic is the commercial version of NCSA Mosaic, the popular World >Wide Web browser from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at >the University of Illinois. Colbeth said, "Our customers see the huge >potential in commerce on the Internet, but are very concerned about security. >An industrial strength solution such as Secure HTTP will let Mosaic handle >a wide range of applications requiring uncompromising security." > > At O'Reilly, Dale Dougherty, publisher for the Digital Media Group, said >S-HTTP will be used for a secure version of the GNN Direct service, that >allows subscribers to order from publishers or advertisers who market and >sell products over GNN Direct. He said, "We've been looking for a security >solution that will allow our subscribers to order safely online. Secure HTTP >provides the capabilities needed for our GNN service." > > Concerning plans of other licensees, CyberCash will use the technology to >provide a system for safe electronic payments over the Internet and Open >Market, a developer of electronic commerce solutions, plans to sell a Web >server that incorporates S-HTTP. Verity is introducing Verity Mosaic, a >Mosaic client offering user authentication and secure communications for use >with Verity's Topic Information Server for the World Wide Web, also announced >today. > > SecureWeb Toolkits include an implementation of EIT's Secure HTTP, which >ensures the authenticity of transactions and the confidentiality of >information exchanged via the World Wide Web. With a secure HTTP-enabled >application, users and information providers can encrypt and sign messages >and other material digitally. Binding agreements are possible because >communications are secret and tamper-proof and cannot be repudiated. > > SecureWeb kits incorporate RSA public key cryptography technology to permit >spontaneous, secure communications between unfamiliar correspondents. >SecureWeb also supports other cryptography systems such as traditional shared >password and Kerberos. A SecureWeb run-time license is required; run-time >license pricing is volume-based. Toolkits will be available on a limited >basis in December 1994. > > Additional information on Terisa Systems is available at URL >http://www.terisa.com. Those interested can also send e-mail to >infoterisa.com or telephone 415/617-1836. Additional information on Secure >HTTP is available by sending email to <shttp(a)infoeit.com>. > > For more information, contact Deanna Leung of SPRY, Inc. at 206/442-8231 >or email her at: <deannaspry.com>, or contact Nancy Teater of Terisa Systems >at 415/321-0252, or email her at: <nrthamilton.com>. > >***************************************************************************** > H P C w i r e S P O N S O R S > Product specifications and company information in this section are > available to both subscribers and non-subscribers. > > 900) Ampex 915) Genias Software 905) Maximum Strategy > 912) Avalon Computer 930) HNSX Supercomputers 906) nCUBE > 921) Cray Research Inc. 902) IBM Corp. 932) Portland Group > 907) Digital Equipment 904) Intel SSD 935) Silicon Graphics > 909) Fujitsu America 916) MasPar Computer *931) Sony Corporation > > *Updated information within last 30 days >***************************************************************************** >Copyright 1994 HPCwire. >To receive the weekly HPCwire at no charge, send e-mail without text to >"trial(a)hpcwire.tgc.com". ==========end forwarded message========== ==================Thomas Jefferson================== The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. ==================================================== _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/

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Hey Martha! It's "The Invasion from Outer First Virtual" -rated Y (for Y-not)
by nsyfrig＠wppost.depaul.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

eric(a)remailer.net (Eric Hughes) wrote (among other things): Regardless of the security, users need to understand what it gives them. This is orthogonal to the choice of security, as well as to the persistence of thick-headedness in society. _________________(non-automatic divider line)___________________ I believe this is definitely a proverbial nail, and it has just been hit where it counts! Some evangelizing, education, and teamwork is definitely in order here. As implied, it doesn't just apply to the virtual world, but the real one as well.

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Low power/bandwidth machines
by xpat＠vm1.spcs.umn.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"JEFF LICQUIA (CEI)" <JLICQUIA(a)mhc.uiuc.edu> writes: >this from work, but it's running into bandwidth problems. There is no >local SLIP provider that provides to home users. Thus, I am trapped in >a VT100 environment, where a shell would be a great luxury. If and whe >I get SLIP, I'll have to do it on a 386SX/20 with 4M of RAM, not exactl >your speed demon kind of machine. >1. While I, too, have experienced the head rush that comes with fully >graphical interfaces to high-bandwidth Net, I am also painfully aware o >the reality that too many people are stuck with less. Given a few week, If you have access to a SLIP line, but frustrated with perhaps less of a machine than you would like, give MINUET a try. It is a DOS based tool designed for students with cheap/old computers so they can access the Internet. It includes embedded POPmail, news, ftp, telnet, ping etc. It is available anonymous FTP from boombox.micro.umn.edu /pub/pc/minuet/beta16/minuarc.exe or /pub/pc/minuet/shaky/minuarc.exe <--beta17 SLIP software that goes with it is at /pub/pc/slip/latest/sliparc.exe The beta17 has caused no problems for me yet. Beta17 has some performance advantages. A 386 should be no problem at all. --------------------------------------------------------------- P M Dierking xpat(a)vm1.spcs.umn.edu

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Re: Tim May the Luddite--His Last Message for A While
by Amanda Walker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The consensus of the active posters in this latest thread (Perry, > Amanda, Lucky, Jim, others) is that I am a hopeless fuddy-duddy, > unwilling to begin posting in the latest modality. Actually, that's not my feeling at all. I haven't (at least intentionally) been making or intending to make the kinds of "get with the program" remarks that Lucky, Perry, and some other have been. I've just been trying to explain why I think that MIME isn't necessarily bunk. There is a middle ground between "the one true way" and "utter crap," after all, and I found your assertions that MIME was useless to be just as annoying as assertions that it's a panacea. I'm not telling you (or anyone else) to use MIME. Even I don't use the fancy features MIME for most of my off-site email, especially mailing lists, for exactly the reasons you describe. I'm just tired of people deciding the because they're not able to take advatange of something, that it is therefore useless. That's all I've been intending to complain about, and I'm sorry if I've come across more strongly. I certainly don't want to chase you off the list. You're one of the people I take pains to read, even on high-volume email days... > Bluntly, I'm fucking sick and tired of these cheap shots and > personal innuendos. Maybe it's the "young guns" syndrome, with a > codger like me whose first Net account was in 1972 being a ripe target > for the newest pistoleros with their .486-caliber Linux boxes in > their holsters. Well, I came onto the net after the NCP/TCP flag day, so you've got some seniority on me, but I'm hardly a young gun, and I hate Intel processors and UNIX :). I started in the spring of 1982 on a VAX 11/780 with real live DEC VT100s, and an ADDS Viewpoint on a 1200 baud modem (at the time, this was really fast) in my dorm room. I was just awful to come back from a week's vacation and spend a whole hour catching up with Usenet--and that was before you could unsubscribe to individual groups :). To a large degree, it's this dozen years of experience with the net that makes me optimistic about things like encryption, MIME, and so on. Every time the baseline moves up, people complain. It happened moving from NCP to TCP/IP. It happened when moving from A News to B News (my site was actually an A News holdout for a long time). It happened when net.* got broken up into a set of hierarchies (alt.* is a remarkably long-lived fragment of that changeover), and it's happening now with things like PGP & MIME. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Part of the cypherpunks mission, as I understand it, is to help to keep moving that baseline, concentrating on one particular direction (privacy). I'll stop posting on side issues if it will help keep the focus on privacy, and help keep folks like you from giving up in frustration. After all, cypherpunks is far from the only soapbox I subscribe to :). Amanda Walker InterCon Systems Corporation

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something NOT MIME-related
by harveyrj＠vt.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello: Not to distract from the entertaining MIME thread, but I've got a question that's a little closer to a crypto topic (i.e., software psueudo-random number generators). In the aftermath of the Pentium-can't-divide-accurately flap, I modified a random-number generation routine I'd written to check for the presence of the Pentium divide errors. In the process, I put in a routine that did an elementary benchmarking of the chip's performance in both integer (speed to repeatedly execute an empty for-loop 1 million times) and floating point operations (inserting a divide operation in the loop, and adjusting the resulting execution time by subtracting the time required for the empty loop before computing divide-calculations-per-second performance). This is an admittedly very crude benchmark, but I wanted to get some rough idea how many divides could be performed per minute of program execution (i.e., to estimate how long the program could run before a Pentium-problem might occur). Anyway, I found what appeared to be very strange results when comparing performance on my 486/66 versus a 486/25 and 386/20: namely, although the 386 was dead last on both the primarily integer-based empty- for-loop and for-loop-with-divide timings, the 486/25 and 486/66 turned in effectively identical times in the empty-loop benchmark (the 486/66 was about 33% faster than the 486/25 in the divide-based benchmark). All machines were running essentially equivalent versions of Windows for Workgroups). My question is, why would the 486/66 and 25 produce comparable integer- based empty loop performance? I haven't tried a comparable program running under plain-DOS to see if this is somehow Windows related. I supsect there's an easy explanation, but it escapes me. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. rj ------------------------------------------------------------------ R. J. Harvey (mail: harveyrj(a)vt.edu) (PGPkey 0BADDDB5: 82 42 53 EA 97 B0 A2 B2 FC 92 90 BB C2 26 FD 21)

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