December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

BXA Meet in Portland OR
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Any chance someone NW can attend this and report? Federal Register: August 25, 1997 (Volume 62, Number 164) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE Bureau of Export Administration Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee; Notice of Open Meeting A meeting of the Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee will be held September 23, 1997, 9:00 a.m., in the Plaza Room of the Portland World Trade Center, 25 S.W. Salmon, Portland, Oregon. The Committee advises the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Export Administration on implementation of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and provides for continuing review to update the EAR as needed. Agenda 1. Opening remarks by the Chairwoman. 2. Presentation of papers or comments by the public. 3. Update on Bureau of Export Administration initiatives: <bullet> Draft encryption regulation. <bullet> Status of Wassenaar Arrangement implementation regulation. <bullet> Efforts to harmonize the Foreign Trade Statistics Regulations and the Export Administration Regulations in regards to the filing of Shipper's Export Declarations. 4. Discussion of European, Japanese, and U.S. export controls in regards to ``catch-all'' proliferation controls, Wassenaar Arrangement controls, encryption items, and the hiring of foreign nationals. The meeting will be open to the public and a limited number of seats will be available. To the extent time permits, members of the public may present oral statements to the Committee. Written statements may be submitted at any time before or after the meeting. However, to facilitate distribution of public presentation materials to Committee members, the Committee suggests that presenters forward the public presentation materials, two weeks prior to the meeting date, to the following address: Ms. Lee Ann Carpenter, TAC Unit/OAS-EA, MS: 3886C, Bureau of Export Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C. 20230. For further information or copies of the minutes, contact Lee Ann Carpenter on (202) 482-2583. Dated: August 19, 1997. Lee Ann Carpenter, Director, Technical Advisory Committee Unit. [FR Doc. 97-22425 Filed 8-22-97; 8:45 am]

2 1

Re: Forgery, bills, and the Four Horsemen (Articles and Comment)
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: shamrock(a)netcom.com (Lucky Green) > So it is harder to compile dosiers on people. Big deal. The recipient can > still determine who gets the goods paied for by the "anonymous" ecash by > conventional means (hint: shipping address), so the payee anonymity is of > little value as far as protecting the privacy of the payer (most likely > the recipient of the goods) is concerened. This would be true for physical goods in any payment system, no matter how anonymous, unless physical remailers are used (and they have their limitations). However software (including music, video, etc.) would be easier to deliver anonymously. It is generally agreed that more of our economy is moving towards information exchanges and so ecash-like systems can play an increasingly larger part in protecting privacy. To me, this is indeed a big deal. Even for physical goods, the use of ecash is better than credit cards because the information about purchases is distributed rather than centralized. Every time I look at my credit card bill I feel dismayed at what the company is finding out about my family. Ecash could also be used as a cash replacement in smartcards. Consider as an alternative a fully traceable payment system, where you use your debit card at the supermarket, the bus station, the snack bar, the drug store. I suspect that if we don't get something like ecash then this system will be the alternative. It opens up possibilities for dossiers that will fulfill Big Brother's dreams. Virtually every move of every citizen will be recorded in just a few centralized places. IMO the protection of payor privacy that even Chaum's limited ecash provides is very important. > Ecash of course is of *no* value for the various assasination markets, > drug dealing, money laundring, etc that routinely get mentioned in the > same paragraph as Ecash. The reason is the *full traceability* of the > payee that has been deliberately built into the current version of Ecash. > A "feature" that you may rest assured will be part of all future versions > backed by anyone with even marginal reputation in the financial markets. Well, I have never fully accepted the notion that crypto was going to usher in an age of anarchy. As long as we deal with physical goods in the physical world it seems to me that anonymity will be difficult. On the net it is easier but man does not live by bits alone. For me, protecting privacy is a difficult enough problem. Transforming the world into a libertarian/anarchist utopia is somebody else's job. Hal P.S. Without seeing the technical specs it is hard to describe in detail, but generally Chaumian ecash allows fully anonymous coerced transfers. The payee/coercer supplies the blinded coins and forces the payor to use them to make withdrawals from his account. The resulting signed tokens are passed to the coercer who unblinds them and now has fully anonymous, untraceable cash tokens which he can spend.

1 0

Re: Forgery, bills, and the Four Horsemen (Articles and Comment)
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 19:32 9/5/95, Bryce Wilcox wrote: >I hope I'm not missing anything here. Only that Ecash has no benefits for transactions that are of an illegal nature. The meaning of "illegal" is of course increasing as new laws are passed every session of the legislature. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

2 1

Re: lack of evolution (So What!)
by Feanor 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Aug 25, 21:41, Ray Arachelian wrote: } Subject: Re: lack of evolution (So What!) > > On Mon, 25 Aug 1997, Peter Trei wrote: > > > One factor which everyone seems to be overlooking in this > > thread is the future impact of biotechnology. > > <much stuff deleted> > > I see someone's been recently reading Beyond This Horizon by Heinlein. :) Sounded a lot more like Sterling/Crystal Express, the Shaper/Mechanist section, to me. -- #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1 lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)

1 0

Re: Scientology and police visit XS4ALL Amsterdam
by an253398＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

announce(a)xs4all.nl writes: [ snip ] > Police and members of Scientology church enter offices of XS4ALL > ================================================================ > > Amsterdam - thuesday september 5, 1995. > > Today at about 14:00, XS4ALL was visited by Mr. S. Braan, > bailiff. He was acting on behalf of the Religious > Technology Centre, better known as the Scientology Church, or > Scientology for short. He was assisted by a local police officer and Mr. > Hermans from the 'Nauta-Dutilh' legal firm that represents Scientology > in The Netherlands. Also present were two computer experts (Mr. Ootjes > and Mr. Van Suchtelen) a locksmith (to enter had we not been present) and > two American employees of Scientology, Mr. Weightman and Ms. Jenssen. [ snip ] This is the second or third time I've seen descriptions of such raids where cult (no, I'm not trying to be diplomatic) representatives were present and participating. Is this legal in Amsterdam? How about in the U.S.? Britain? If a police officer has a warrant then I really don't have much choice about letting him in. Am I also under an obligation to allow the people who filed for the warrant into my home or business? Thanks, Mole Rat ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. If you reply to this message, your message WILL be *automatically* anonymized and you are allocated an anon id. Read the help file to prevent this. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

1 0

Re: Make Money Fast
by Feanor 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Aug 25, 15:02, Bruce Schneier wrote: } Subject: Make Money Fast > This should be fun for someone: > > > HACKERS VIE FOR $1-MILLION REWARD > Austin, Texas start-up Crypto-Logic Corp. has offered a $1-million reward to > whomever can crack its new e-mail encryption system within a year. > Cryptologists generally agree that Crypto-Logic's technology, called a > "one-time pad" is theoretically uncrackable -- each "pad" has a set of > uniquely random digital symbols that are coded to the actual message. The > recipient uses the same pad to decode the message, and each pad is used only > once. Still, experts are warning never to underestimate the tenacity of > computer hackers: "Anyone who says their system is bulletproof is either a > liar or stupid," says one. "If I'm wrong," says Crypto-Logic's VP and COO, > "we're out of business." http://www.ultimateprivacy.com I've looked at this, there are two problems: 1. The message is in [A-Za-z0-9!@#$%^&*()] ASCII. The translation scheme is undisclosed. 2. The message is, apparently, compressed to some proprietary standard. So, someone's going to have to hack disassembly to get this message into binary. Once that's done, we can start bruting it. -- #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1 lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)

1 0

Non-Delivery Notification
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

What is this shit? Got about ten today. --- begin forwarded text From: sysop(a)dkmail.dkeep.com To: shamrock(a)netcom.com Subject: Non-Delivery Notification Organization: Dragon Keep (904) 375-3500 Date: Wed, 06 Sep 95 00:05:41 EST NON-DELIVERY NOTICE ------------------- The message you sent on: Unknown to -unknown was undeliverable. ========================= !!! Automated Notice !!! ======================= E-mail replies to this user should have the following on the first line of message text: TO: -unknown ========================================================================== --- end forwarded text -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

1 0

Re: Growth of actions definded as crime. Which math formula?
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 23:56 9/5/95, Black Unicorn wrote: rypted mail preferred. > >Really it's hard to answer this because what constitutes a "NEW" act is a >real question in and of itself. > >For example, wire fraud. Is it a "NEW" crime? Or just a subset of >fraud, or mail fraud? If they guy would have gotten away before the new law was passed, it is a new crime. That's the stats I am looking for. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

2 1

Email privacy in Dutch constitution
by Alex Le Heux 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Aloha, In the Dutch constitution it says that (snail) mail is personal and private. It is illegal to open mail. Except of course with the usual warrants. And there used to be a special division of the PTT (the Dutch phone/mail company) that had the right to open mail that couldn't be delivered or had other problems. These people had to take all kinds of oaths. On the whole it wasn't easy to (legally) read someone else's mail. There is currently a proposal to change the constitution(1) so that email is specifically included in this. I'll attempt a translation of the article here (the original can be found at http://www.pi.net/computer/multim/21-8-97/mm21-8-97a.html) - --- BEGIN --- Privacy of encrypted email - -------------------------- Email will be part of the 'privacy of letters' (== briefgeheim) as is written down in the constitution, if the proposal passes through parliament, and the new parliament in 1998. The government says this needs to be done as the old law is obsolete. Also, since the Dutch PTT has been privatised there is no minesterial control anymore. The two most important parts are: 1. The right to communicate privately is inalienable, except in cases described by law, by those who are appointed by law. 2. The law describes rules to protect private communications. The law seems strange when seen from a multimedia perspective. Video/images will, in principle not be protected by it, as it is neither written text or spoken word. If the video/images are meant for a limited group of people, for example when communicating through lip-reading (?), it will be protected. Faxes and unencrypted email will not be protected, as those are like postcards. Also information about the communications, like the fact that email has been sent, should not be protected according to the government. The point is that persons can communicate in private, and that this is clear. The sender will have to use encryption to indicate that secrecy is wanted, otherwise the communications will not be protected (by this law). Telephone conversations will also be private, except in the case of someone being withing earshot of it. Changes in the constitution have to be approved by to consecutive parliaments. So it will take at least a year before this proposal will have the force of law. - --- END --- Hmm... Looking back at this translation, I don't think it's very good. But it'll have to do for now. I'll post any other relevant information I find. I wonder if this will be the first constitution in the world that'll mention encryption specifically... Alex (1) To change the constitution in The Netherlands, the parliament has to vote on it, then there have to be new elections, and then the new parliament has to vote on it as well. This is to (try to) ensure that governments do not change the constitution on a whim. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNAF4N9uYAh4dUSo/EQJC2wCeNdu+LscGWu8LVHRviiTuS81kQiQAnAm5 tzI7B5+wPTI6n+Elzoag08PI =WNZ+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: Forgery, bills, and the Four Horsemen (Articles and Comment)
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 22:42 9/5/95, Bryce Wilcox wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >I, Bryce Wilcox <bryce.wilcox(a)colorado.edu> wrote: >> >> >I hope I'm not missing anything here. > > >shamrock(a)netcom.com (Lucky Green) wrote: >> >> Only that Ecash has no benefits for transactions that are of an illegal >> nature. The meaning of "illegal" is of course increasing as new laws are >> passed every session of the legislature. > > >Chaum says that (especially when speaking before U.S. Congress) but I think >he is playing both sides of the fence. He is a die-hard privacy advocate who >allegedly turns down lucrative business deals because he feels they would >dilute his privacy achievements. The truth is that Chaumian DigiCash is a >*lot* safer for criminals than, say, credit cards, and when it is combined >with the other tools in a money launderer's toolbox, I expect it will be a >great boon to them. Chaum is a privacy advocate when it comes to companies compiling dosiers on you. When it comes to criminal use, my conversations with Chaum, his public comments, and last not least the current implementation of his software suggest otherwise. > >Suppose you have acquired a million dollars worth of legal, above-board >DigiCash dollars and you want to surreptitiously transfer this wealth to a >below-board friend. Your friend creates a temporary anonymous account at an >understanding bank. Y Won't work. Ecash, except as used for frequent flyer like points, will exist in only *one* world wide e$ currency, issued by a single entity composed of various major banks and subject to US laws. Getting Ecash accounts will therefore be subject to the same legal requirenments that apply to normal US checking accounts. >Now without active physical surveillance, nobody other than yourself and your >friend will ever know where the money went, and you can't prove that you gave >it to him, either... You or a sting operation can always reveal the recipient by publishing the blinding factor. Besides, your Ecash client keeps a log of the payees. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

2 1