December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Sex & Crime TV filter
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <ac425d4208021004ef6c(a)[205.199.118.202]>, tcmay(a)sensemedia.net (Timothy C. May) wrote: >However, to help derail this V-chip being mandated, what if we (I mean >activists, writers of columns, etc.) "insisted" that _commercials_ be >similarly labelled? I love it. Great idea, Tim! - -- - -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMB1pgCoZzwIn1bdtAQFwRgF/YBsyqIwF34uxmZgxwzSfTeVcxOtnYe+J ISSPgnB97QQqPUjYF0oO7T70wLXVwL21 =MEBo -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: Sex & Crime TV filter
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <199507311827.NAA25455(a)snoopy.vetmed.auburn.edu>, fstuart(a)vetmed.auburn.edu (Frank Stuart) wrote: >I hadn't thought of that before. I wonder how many kids will get >zapped trying to bypass the chip on the inside. Not half as many as will be arrested and convicted for "illegal consumption of adult TV while underage" once bypassing such chip will ineviably made a crime. - -- - -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMB1qGyoZzwIn1bdtAQFiSQF/WUIZE345ZeNS7sy90zMUaZ9OoagnJSmn VV2ZwXq20Ch+kbUmDTjf70twbKnu/i29 =s8TG -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: Sex & Crime TV filter
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Yesterday I heard in the radio that someone in America has developed > some device which darkens the TV screen if there is sex or crime on TV. > Does anyone know whether this is true and how it works? It's called the 'Off' switch...

1 0

Re: Sex & Crime TV filter
by stewarts＠ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Yesterday I heard in the radio that someone in America has developed >some device which darkens the TV screen if there is sex or crime on TV. It's the "V-Chip" for blocking television programs marked as "Violent" by the broadcasters, which some politicians are proposing to require that all TV makers install in new TVs and all broadcasters label all programs. The descriptions in the press have made it sound like there's one bit of control info, which would be very stupid; multiple bits would at least allow parents to block programs separately for violence/sex/nudity/nasty-words/political-correctness. That would also be offensive, and more likely to be used. Unlike VCR-plus, which is a complex hash of the time and channel for a given program (complexity included so you have to buy TV Guide magazine), any V-chip codes could be handled automatically. (Also, V-chip is designed to turn the TV off, while VCR-plus is designed to turn the recorder on. If the designers were clever, the V-chip mechanism can probably also block video-tapes with V-chip codes?) If somebody wanted to develop a free-market rating service, the most convenient mechanism would probably be to broadcast VCR-plus codes with detailed information about programs to a set-top box, so you could sell features like - block speeches by annoying politicians - record all football matches but not other sports events - record the closed captioning from infomercials and parse for telephone numbers so you can order things automatically! - turn on the Nintendo whenever Barney the Dinosaur is on. Blocking commercials would be fun, but would probably be illegal :-), or at least stations that supported it would have trouble getting advertisers. (It would almost certainly be illegal to block the "Enhanced Underwriting" on public broadcasting, since otherwise you wouldn't get to hear "The Environmental Correctness Show has been brought to you by a grant from BigOil corporation, lubricating the Alaskan shoreline for 15 years!".) #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #--- # Crypto in 3-4 lines of perl --> http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/

2 1

Re: a hole in PGP
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:08 PM 7/31/95, Dr. Fred said: >it is impractical to verify that there >are no subtle back doors Ah. I knew my undergraduate philosophy degree from good ol' Mizzou would come in handy some day. In the sophistry biz, the above is an informal fallacy. It's called a disproving a negative, more popularly called the "Flying Saucer" fallacy, as in, "prove to me that flying saucers (or PGP trap-doors) don't exist". I would put the rest of your rejoinder in the same class of tinker-toy logic, Doc. You're testing my patience. Feeling flush from my New Orleans road trip, I went out and bought the commercial version of Eudora, filter-feature and all, which means I'm just itching to test it. In other words, it means you are flirting with the kill-file, the bozo-filter, more rudely, a <plonk!ing>. Play nice, Doc, or don't play at all. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- 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 <<<<<

5 5

Commercial killers
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

God help me, all of this reminds me of a Carl Sagan book, of all things. One of his science fiction characters was said to have made his first fortune by building a commercial zapping chip for VCRs. Butthead Astronomer, indeed... Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- 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 <<<<<

1 0

Re: a hole in PGP
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:49 PM 7/31/95, Dr. Fred said: >You might be, but even if you are not, that doesn't mean there are no >back doors. Well, we all knew it would happen, didn't we. I feel like I'm about to shoot Ol' Yeller, but... PLONK! See ya on the other side, Fred. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- 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 <<<<<

1 0

The Two Threads of Dr. Cohen
by cman＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There are two threads to Dr. Cohen's arguments which bear separation. One thread, with the implications of deliberate wrongdoing on the part of Derek Atkins or others unnamed should be dismissed out of hand. His comments regarding the fundamental security properties of PGP and the burden of proof for software security are right on target. One has to draw the line somewhere with regard to what "they" are out to do. PGP may have had weaknesses from the beginning, but to suggest a deliberate change so subtle to escape PGP's original authors is to descend into the realm of paranoia. In addition, such allegations are extremely rude, and I think Dr. Cohen owes Derek an apology. At the same time, I think some apologies are in order with respect to some very good points raised by Dr. Cohen about software security. There is a whole sub-discipline of CS devoted to the construction of trusted computer systems, which if practiced can result in much greater assurances about the reliability and security of the resultant software. This is (I believe) the source of Dr. Cohen's assertion that the burden of proof is on those who claim something is secure. PGP is practically a poster child for how not to write a secure piece of software. It has had a great many authors. It is non- modular. It is large and complex. Simplicity is almost always sacrificed at the altar of even slight performance gains. It is absolutely infested with platform-dependent code. And these are only the problems that directly impact its security... it's also strongly tied to a tty-style interface and implements a poorly-designed format. With respect to "tiger teaming" PGP, I think it is a pretty hopeless proposition. It is never, ever going to be as secure as some people would like it to be. Given the past and current bug discovery rate, it is almost inconceivable that there are not exploitable bugs. This is not to say it isn't "pretty good", but it is not what someone with a formal background in real secure systems developement would ever bless as "secure". PGP needs to be thrown away and rewritten from scratch. This has, in fact, been done, but while this development effort has been incrementally better, it still doesn't qualify as a secure development approach. Also, nobody has this product yet for reasons that I won't mention as we don't need to start another tangential flamewar. In any event, I think it's important for people to realize that in the security community, the burden of proof _is_ on the software developer, not on those claiming security problems. I'm surprised Perry hasn't chimed in on this score yet, many of his posts allude to similar notions of security by design and by construction. Doug

1 0

Re: U.S. Banks are not all that bad
by Michael Froomkin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message <v02120d01ac4219a2e38e(a)[199.2.22.120]> Douglas Barnes writes: > ... > > I must say that I've had some absolutely amazingly bad experiences > with banks in Asia, Mexico and Central America, so I'm a skeptic > when it comes to assuming that non-US banks are light years better. The U.K. banks make the U.S. look awfully good.... > Although I have no direct experience of European banking, I do know that > the European banking industry, taken as a whole, is substantially > behind the US banking industry in automation and efficiency. Most of Oh yes oh yes oh yes...and I've banked with Lloyds on and off for 12 years... > .... -- Michael Froomkin until Aug 6: michael(a)umlaw.demon.co.uk U.Miami School of Law London, England mfroomki(a)umiami.ir.miami.edu <-- this will still find me PO Box 248087 Coral Gables, FL 33124-8087 "Rain in parts, then dry" --BBC See http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/6095/articles/froomkin-metaphor/text.html

1 0

Re: Commercial killers
by tcmay＠sensemedia.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:00 AM 8/1/95, Robert Hettinga wrote: >God help me, all of this reminds me of a Carl Sagan book, of all things. >One of his science fiction characters was said to have made his first >fortune by building a commercial zapping chip for VCRs. > >Butthead Astronomer, indeed... There have been _billions and billions_ of proposals for commercial zappers. (Actually, not such a saganesque number, but dozens at least.) Harry Bartholomew was telling me a year or so ago about some ideas for detecting volume changes. I think, however, the problem of distinguishing commercial from non-commercial signal is, I think, a tough one. My point earlier was not to actually do this, but to suggest that if the V-chip is to code various kinds of content, then the logic is strong for commercial content to be similarly coded. (For example, schools often show taped broadcasts...they might claim that it would be harmful and improper for children to be exposed to beer commercial during school hours...) This would gore the ox of the advertisers, so they might quietly have the whole V-chip thing killed. --Tim May .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)sensemedia.net | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-728-0152 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Corralitos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

3 2