December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: PRA_fix
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> 8-4-95. NYPaper: > > > "A Contract Is Awarded To Improve Navigation." [snip] > The geosynchronous satellite would radio a correction > factor back to planes in flight, or any other user. The > plane would also receive signals from the G.P.S. > satellites, calculate a position, apply the correction > factor and fix its location. This is called an active location system, and it was originally disigned by G.K. O'Neill (The Princeton Physics Prof., Space Studies Institute founder, the guy who came up with all those spiffy space-settlement ideas in the late seventies -- see Babylon 5 for a picture ;-) -- and the inventor of the mass driver, among other things), under the name of Geostar, in the early 1980's. It's accuracy was supposed to be 6 inches in 2 dimensions, and 6 feet in 3 diminsions. The FAA didn't like it because they didn't invent it, the DOD hated it because they wanted to commercialize GPS and they didn't want anything so accurate for civilian purposes. The transponders were going to be beensy little things about the size of pagers relying on high-energy burst transmissions. ObCrypto/Privacy: It relied on a fast computer on the ground to calculate where you were, it allowed short messages, and presumably it was going to send them in the clear. It also had a "panic" button function, where someone in trouble could summon help no matter where they were. ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA (617) 323-7923 "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell >>>>Phree Phil: Email: zldf(a)clark.net http://www.netresponse.com/zldf <<<<<

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Re: Java and Safe-TCL security
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>One problem is that safe-tcl >was oriented around email, so it lacks facilities for accessing web >pages. No, it's just that the people who took it over^H^H^H^Hand ran with it were most interested in email. My initial motivation was that I wanted to write a new news server that clients could download programs to. /r$

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SYN_tax
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

8-4-95. W$Japer: "Cyberpoliticking: Presidential Races Are Being Changed By Latest Technology. Internet and Other Sources Can Tailor Information, Sway Voters' Decisions." This kind of campaign foray into cyberspace is but a small slice of a much bigger revolution. The explosion of new avenues of information -- digitized, computerized, cabled and broadcast -- will change the way Americans gather the information they use in picking their leader next year. Campaigns are struggling to figure out how to cope with this static-filled world, in which they can use new technology in unprecedented ways to reach both mass audiences and ever-narrower niches of specific voters. For voters, the difficulty will be to distinguish between the information and misinformation inevitably mixed into the avalanche. LYN_jrk "Silicon Forest: For Oregon, the Boom In High Tech Brings Jobs and Handwringing." The quest for cheap land, cheap labor and tax breaks has led most of the world's biggest chip makers here, more than $13 billion in high-tech construction is either under way or proposed for the 100-mile swath of rural landscape stretching from Portland to Eugene. But surprising resistance is cropping up. In May, Yamhill County, at the western edge of Silicon Forest, rebelled against Sumitomo Sitix Corp.'s demand for an $58 million tax break for its proposed $912 million chip plant. In June, several hundred people turned out to cheer speeches opposing plans by Hyundai Electronics America to build a $1.3 billion chip plant. KIK_but Ev & Ad's kids: SYN_tax

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"The Net"
by monty.harder＠famend.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

TC> logic, especially the notion that one can be "vanished" by having computer TC> records changed--I can believe that such changes would screw things up, but TC> surely even the character played by Sandra Bullock (nicely) would have TC> human friends and associates to vouch for her. I would have thought so, too. But recently, my boss's sister-in-law tried to get a Kansas drivers' license. She had allowed her Missouri license to lapse before she moved, and some glitch in the MO computer left her as a non-person. Now, in order to get the new license, she will need a photo ID (and her expired "foreign" license doesn't cut it, althought if it were a KS license, it would.) The burrocraps at the DMV won't accept any "vouching" whatsoever. * A man's house is his hassle. --- * Monster(a)FAmend.Com *

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Re: Java and Safe-TCL security (was Re: Java, Netscape, OpenDoc, and Babel)
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>the interpreter is made "safe" is to take a fully working tcl interpreter >(with full priveleges) at run time, and use TclDeleteCommand() to remove >offending commands. Safe-TCL is not emasculated at compile time, but at >run time. I have been told by folks at Sun that they are planning on doing it at compile-time as well as at run-time. One of the concerns I conveyed was that I want to make it easy to "pull out" the safe code and give it a security audit. /r$

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Re: Java and Safe-TCL security
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Ray Cromwell <rjc(a)clark.net> > Hal, > One of the designs I have one the drawing board is to store per-script > persistent data in a dbm file, and allow scripts to import/export data > from/to a shared tuple-space. I would limit the data storage to 1024 > bytes (to make it portable, some DBM libraries have this limit) > Scripts could store variables via a new command added to the interpreter > like 'SafeTcl_putvar varname value', and access valuables with > 'SafeTcl_getvar varname', 'SafeTcl_varlist'. Also, there would be a > 'SafeTcl_read_variables' which could be executed at the beginning of > the script to reload all stored variables. > Scripts could talk to other scripts by means of a > > SafeTcl_export -value value scriptname1 scriptname2 ... > > The other script(s) could check for any incoming imports and use > SafeTcl_import to retrieve the value. (when the last import is done, > the data is garbage collected. Also, there would be a timestamp so that > old data would be purged after a time limit anyway) This sounds like an interesting approach. I hear that Telescript uses a remote procedure call concept for inter-script communication. So one script gets to call the public methods of another script. I don't know how it finds out what other scripts are arround for it to talk to, though, or decides whether they have anything of interest. The tuple space idea sounds good and is not too dissimmilar from the get/setconfigdata in safe-tcl. There are some problems about security though. Who gets to delete tuples? How do you prevent a malicious script from messing up the data? Maybe it depends on the application, what you want to use this data for. BTW what kinds of facilities are there in Java for scripts to have access to disk files? I know there was some discussion of using scripts for cryptography. Presumably the user would want to give "read only" access to the (public) keys he used. And how about other forms of I/O, email and the like? Can Java scripts do this? What are the restrictions to prevent abuse? Safe-tcl has a concept where a script can send mail, but the implementation pops up a window and asks the user first if it is OK to send. (Unfortunately that doesn't work for a telescript like application where there is no user around to vet the messages.) > The problem with all safe "agent" designs is that the programming language > itself isn't enough. There needs to be a meta-agent language for > querying capabilities of local environments. Yes, there was some discussion about this on the safe-tcl list. There is also an agents list I was on for a while but they couldn't even agree about what an agent was so not much progress happened there! There have been various proposals for standard ways agent scripts could specify what capabilities they need to run, etc. Doing web searches on "agents" will track a lot of these down. However most seem concerned with traditional issues like compute cycles, memory usage, etc., and not with the more difficult and important issues of knowing whether there is another agent there (or a local database) which has the specific information my agent is after. Hal

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IPng6, SWIPE, ssh, etc.
by sdw＠lig.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I would like some summary opinions of the state of various efforts to enable full IP encryption. I'm looking for progress reports and hints as to which technologies are the closest to being implementable. After playing with ssh, I've been thinking of what it would take to start migrating certain links to full encryption, possibly using a VPN-like arrangement. I'm interested in hacking Linux, loopback userspace drivers for other Unix's, and thinking about what would need to be done for MS-BLECH. Of course, firewall like conversion of IP<->IPng6 would be great. Of course now that Linux has IP aliasing, IP masquerading (partial I think), ipfw, and IP over IP tunneling, it has much of what it needs. I'm just considering development and migration paths. I haven't kept up on IPng6 docs, so succinct pointers would be helpful. One interesting tact might be to start running a dual IPng6/IP stack where it learns to tunnel packets over a well-known IP udp/tcp link if an address doesn't respond to IPng6. sdw -- Stephen D. Williams 25Feb1965 VW,OH (FBI ID) sdw(a)lig.net http://www.lig.net/sdw Consultant, Vienna,VA Mar95- 703-918-1491W 43392 Wayside Cir.,Ashburn, VA 22011 OO/Unix/Comm/NN ICBM/GPS: 39 02 37N, 77 29 16W home, 38 54 04N, 77 15 56W Pres.: Concinnous Consulting,Inc.;SDW Systems;Local Internet Gateway Co.;28May95

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CFP - Electronic Commerce Conference
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: Ravi Kalakota <kalakota(a)uts.cc.utexas.edu> >Subject: CFP - Electronic Commerce Conference >To: www-buyinfo(a)allegra.att.com >Date: Fri, 4 Aug 1995 12:44:28 -0600 (CDT) >Cc: kalakota(a)uts.cc.utexas.edu >Mime-Version: 1.0 > > > >Call for Participation: > > The First International Conference on Electronic Commerce > --> Conference Theme: Frontiers of Electronic Commerce <-- > > >We are pleased to announce The First International Conference on >Electronic Commerce, which will be held on Monday, October 30 >and Tuesday, October 31, 1995, at The University of Texas at >Austin's IC2 Institute in Austin, Texas. This conference is designed >to address research issues facing academia and industry in the age of >electronic commerce. The conference will bring together experts in >both academia and business to identify and develop a set of critical >issues for research in this area. The dual goals of the conference >include shared learning on electronic commerce practices and >defining a research agenda which will directly address issues >concerning companies today and position them for the challenges of >tomorrow. > >If you have any questions or need more information, contact: Ravi >Kalakota (kalakota(a)uts.cc.utexas.edu) > >or see --> http://cism.bus.utexas.edu/ravi/ecomm.html > >We hope you are able to attend this conference. Registration >information, speakers list and materials are enclosed. > > >Conference Summary >------------------------- >As the fastest growing facet of the Internet and other component >technologies, electronic commerce offers functionality and new >ways of doing business that no company can afford to ignore. The >basis for moving to an electronic commerce is a belief that electronic >markets have the potential to be more efficient in developing new >information-based goods and services, finding global customers and >trading partners to conduct business. Electronic commerce via the >Internet or the next generation network infrastructure -- Information >Superhighway -- will change business institutions, operations and >products/services as we know today, just as the telephone, TV, fax, >e-mail and EDI changed the way businesses and consumers >communicate. > >This conference is aimed at pushing and provoking electronic >commerce research and practice to "go where no firm has ever >ventured before." We expect electronic commerce to obsolete much >of the accumulated research in business. Instead of merely >transforming the way commerce is done today from a non-electronic >world to an electronic platform, the new way of commerce will >create and demand radical changes in the process, product and >promotion to better exploit the digital platform. > >It is no longer sufficient for electronic commerce to be viewed as a >path- breaking technology. Electronic commerce is already playing >an significant role in determining the strategy of today's companies >in providing value to external and internal customers. The challenge >facing companies is to increase the effectiveness of electronic >commerce activities in order to achieve superior business >performance. As successful organizations have taken a process- >oriented view of their businesses, they will have to re- evaluate the >role of the electronic commerce in terms of alignment with corporate >goals. > >Expanded roles for electronic commerce within the business include >activities which support other internal business processes. Questions >such as how this activity should be carried out, how electronic >commerce should be integrated with other organizational units, and >how electronic commerce technology can facilitate the goals of the >organization turn out to be complex decisions for executives making >these investments. > >Likewise, electronic commerce can become a key liaison to >customers. These electronic commerce based organizations are >increasingly taking on activities which expand the service offerings >of the company. An new breed of expertise -- electronic commerce >specialists -- is bound to emerge that focuses on creating increased >satisfaction and stronger relationships with customers. > >However, this emerging electronic marketplace is an unknown and >much like the "Wild West" of the past needs to be tamed. The >challenge is simple: using emerging technology how do we create a >business environment or infrastructure that will ensure efficient >electronic markets? What does it take in terms of new organization >structures like the network structures facilitated by smart and >wireless messaging; new electronic institutions such as brokerages >staffed by electronic brokers or agents; new business processes >better suited for mass customization, global sourcing and logistics; >new financial payment mechanisms and mercantile protocols? > >To achieve exploration and exploitation of new frontiers, we need to >integrate business concerns with the changing technology. This >conference aims at providing this integration by bringing together >leading business researchers who specialize in the various facets of >electronic markets, namely economics, finance, marketing >production and operations management, and technology experts in >the industry who are creating the electronic commerce infrastructure. >In addition, we are inviting experts who specialize in the WWW >browsers, electronic cash, encryption, software agents, MIME- >based messaging, EDI and structured documents. > >In sum, investments in electronic commerce, whether in time or >money, typically introduce far-reaching organizational and >technological issues. The outcome of this conference will be a better >understanding of the shape, structure, and operation of business in >the coming millennium. > >We hope you are able to attend this conference. Registration >information and materials are enclosed. > >The First International Conference on Electronic Commerce > > Conference Sponsors >--------------------------- >-- National Science Foundation (NSF) >-- RGK Foundation >-- IC2 Institute >-- William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Adminstration, >The University of Rochester >-- Center for Information Systems Management and >College and Graduate School of Business >The University of Texas at Austin > > Who should attend >------------------------ >* Academics in information systems, marketing, finance, >organizational behavior, and service management concerned with the >emerging research topics in the electronic commerce domain. >* Software developers and managers in the electronic commerce area >* Executives concerned with developments in banking and finance >* Executives concerned with providing excellent customer service >* Executives who make investments in next generation technology >* Executives who develop internal operations support > >Arrangements >---------------- >Registration >------------- >To register for the conference, complete and mail the enclosed >registration form along with a check (payable to the RGK >Foundation) for the registration fee before October 13, 1995 to the >RGK Foundation, 1301 W. 25th Street, Suite 300, Austin Texas >78705 > >The registration fee is $300 for all attendees. This registration fee >covers the banquet on Monday evening, breakfast and lunch on >Monday and Tuesday, coffee breaks, conference materials, and >scheduled ground transportation to and from the hotel and >conference site. > >Payment must be made by check or money order payable to the >RGK Foundation. > >Please complete and mail this registration form along with >registration fee before Friday, October 13, 1995 to: > >Electronic Commerce Conference >RGK Foundation >1301 W.25th Street Suite 300 >Austin, TX 78705 > >Phone: 512-474-9298 >Fax: 512-474-6389 > >Accommodations >--------------------- >We have reserved a block of rooms at the Red Lion Hotel, 0121 N. >I-35. You are responsible for making your own hotel reservations >and guaranteeing your room for late arrival if necessary. Please call >the RED LION at 512-371-5200 and mention the Electronic >Commerce Conference. > >List of Speakers >------------------- >Dr. Nathaniel Borenstein (First Virtual) -- Electronic Commerce > >Win Treese (Open Market) -- Challenges facing Online Commerce > >Dr. Clifford Neumann (ISI/USC) -- NetCash and NetCheque -- >Electronic Payments > >Dr. Arthur Keller (Stanford University and CommerceNet) > -- Smart Catalogs and Virtual Catalogs > >Dr. Donna Hoffman (Vanderbilt University) -- Hyper-Marketing > >Ravi Kalakota (University of Rochester) -- Intermediation and >Electronic Brokerages > >Dr. Jean-Philippe Favreau -- ECAT -- The Government of the >Future -- National Institute of Standards and Technology > >Dave Croker -- Internet EDI -- Brandenburg Consulting > >Dr. Preston McaFee (MIT) -- FCC Spread Spectrum Auctions using >Game Theory > >Dr. Andrew Whinston and Dale Stahl (University of Texas at >Austin) -- Pricing Internet Services > >Smoot Carl Mitchell and John Quarterman (Matrix Organization) -- >Internet Service Providers -- Changing Dynamics > >Larry Masinter (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center) -- URI, URN >and URLs -- Implications for the Digital Libraries > >Dan Connolly (W3 Organization) -- The evolution of HTML -- >Implications for the Future of the World Wide Web > >Dr. Su Shing Chen (National Science Foundation) -- NSF and >Electronic Commerce > >Dr. Jan Stallert (University of Texas at Austin) -- Supply-chain >Management and Electronic commerce > > > >Registration Form >--------------------- >Name (Please type) >__________________________________________________ > (Prof., Dr., Mr., Ms., Mrs.) First Last > >Title: >______________________________________________________ > >Organization: >______________________________________________________ >_ > >Address: >______________________________________________________ > > >______________________________________________________ > City State Zip Code Country > >Telephone: (_____)__________________ Work >(_____)_____________Home > >Fax: (_____)_______________ Email: >_________________________ > >Which days do you plan to attend? > Sunday, Oct.29 ______ (Reception) > Monday, Oct.30 ______ (Lunch) > Monday, Oct.30 ______ (Banquet) > Tuesday, Oct.31 ______ (Lunch) > >Registration Fee: Before October 13, 1995 ______ $300 > : After October 13, 1995 ______ $350 >(Payment must be made by check or money order payable to the >RGK Foundation.) > >Please complete and mail this registration form along with >registration fee before Friday, October 13, 1993 to: > >Electronic Commerce Conference >RGK Foundation >1301 W.25th Street Suite 300 >Austin, TX 78705 > >Phone: 512-474-9298 >Fax: 512-474-6389 > ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA (617) 323-7923 "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell >>>>Phree Phil: Email: zldf(a)clark.net http://www.netresponse.com/zldf <<<<<

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Re: Java and Safe-TCL security (was Re: Java, Netscape, OpenDoc, and Babel)
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sorry for not being clear: when I talked about compile-time safety, I was referring to safe-tcl.

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Re: Using MacPGP to revoke a key...
by Robert A. Rosenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:13 8/3/95, Adam J. Gerstein wrote: >Sorry to bother y'all with such an amateur question, but I can't find this >in TFM, so I figured I'd ask those who are more in the know..... > >Anyway, I'm considering revoking my public key because it's been out there >a while and I'm feeling the urge to change to a larger key, but I'm not >clear on how to revoke the old one. Do I just make a text file with my new >key in it, explain that I'm revoking the old one, sign it with my new key >and then post it to the list? Or do I just send it to a keyserver? > >Again, I'm sorry to be asking y'all about something so easy. I don't want >to start a whole new thread about this, so if you've got something helpful >to add, please send it via private mail. There is no need to revoke the old key - you just create a new key with both the old and new keys and send it to the KeyServer. The normal PGP "Default" when there are more than one key with the same Email Address is to use the last one (which would be last in the keyring as well as have the latest date). By leaving the old key as NOT revoked it can still be used but will tend to be replaced by the new longer key as people get your key from the Server. If you DO want to revoke the old key, you just send the Revocation Certificate to the KeyServer along with the new longer key (but note that then, I think you will not be able to decode messages sent with the old key).

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