December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

CoS Raid on "Copyright Terrorist"
by futplex＠pseudonym.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Some CoS news: This past Saturday (95/08/12) a prominent Church of Scientology litigator, Helena Kobrin, and some U.S. federal marshals raided the home of Arnaldo Lerma, seizing pretty much all his computer hardware, disks, etc. It seems that back in 1993, CoS was suing someone named Steven Fishman. As part of the legal proceedings he filed a "declaration", which routinely became part of the public record of the business of the court. This happens to have included some of the OT documents which the CoS claims as both copyrighted trade secrets and sacred texts. As with other unsealed court documents, copies of the Fishman declaration are available by snail mail from the court for 50 cents/page. Lerma ordered a copy from the court, then posted it to alt.religion.scientology. Now CoS is claiming copyright infringement. Helena Kobrin apparently wants to advance the state of the art in Infocalypse hyperbole; she is quoted in a wire service story as saying, in reference to Lerma's posting, "What he was engaging in was a form of copyright terrorism" Meanwhile, various sites have started carrying copies of the Fishman declaration, made available by http, ftp, gopher, finger, etc. A site in China was one of these data havens, until the resultant traffic load forced it to shut down. David Touretzky, a member of the CS faculty at Carnegie-Mellon, had a complete copy on his Web pages at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/ until CMU's legal counsel received a fax from Helena Kobrin, demanding their removal. Pending review by the CMU legal staff, he has taken them off. However, he is maintaining a list of links to sites that still carry copies of the declaration, along with pointers to some other relevant sites, and his own comments on the situation. Apparently quite a few other a.r.s folks and their ISPs have received similar warning letters from HKK. Someone did a fairly competent forgery on a.r.s of a version of the warning letter, purportedly from Helena Kobrin to the entire net. I found it disturbingly plausible. Also, someone forged cancels of various articles including parts of the Fishman declaration, and of at least one which quoted no more than Touretzky's URL. A couple of other interesting sources for information on the Scientology/Net situation I've found recently are: http://amazing.cinenet.net/scientology.html and http://www.clark.net/pub/jcblal/jcbcos.html Freedom Magazine Vol 27, Issue 4, published by the CoS RTC, has some articles online dealing with copyright, anonymity, privacy, and cryptography. As I've said before, I'm scared of getting slapped with a frivolous lawsuit by some arm of the CoS, so I won't quote anything from the articles. Perhaps some of the other vocal people on the list who think CoS wouldn't hurt a fly will distribute some choice Fair Use quotes. http://www.theta.com/goodman/hijack.htm argues for pre-emption of new govt. regulation of anonymity on the net by application of existing law, although it fails to recognize some of the protections for anonymity in said law. It also quotes some criticism by Bruce Koball of the 40-bit export restriction on RC4, and Clipper. The article editorializes against govt. suppression of strong crypto. http://www.theta.com/goodman/lies.htm is entitled "Solutions to On-Line Lies", and advocates forcing remailer operators to know the identities of their users/customers, and holding them liable for the content of remailed messages. It generally urges intolerance of unpopular online speech, and remarkably laments Microsoft's inability to sue for defamation over the Microsoft-to-buy- Catholic-Church spoof. http://www.theta.com/goodman/crime.htm offers some case histories of net.criminals (according to them), including Kevin Mitnick, some guys accused of rape (stuck under the moniker of `child pornographers'), and Dennis Ehrlich, subject of a CoS-inspired February raid by the copyright police. The juxtaposition of these figures is strikingly absurd. There's more, but this should give you a taste for what's there. -Futplex <futplex(a)pseudonym.com>

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Data Secrecy Rift
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This seems worth posting in full: ---------- The New York Times, August 14, 1995, pp. D1, D8. Rift Emerges Over Computer Data Secrecy Issue By John Markoff Some of biggest names in the computer industry sent separate letters to the White House last week in pre-emptive moves aimed at a proposed regulation originally intended to insure that law-enforcement officials have access to encoded telephone and computer communications. The proposal may be released as soon as this week. But as the Government's task force on the encryption issue prepared to disclose the closely held details of the proposal -- the latest version of a measure revealed more than three years ago but subsequently reconsidered in the face of industry opposition -- unexpected divisions emerged from the last-minute, scattershot lobbying. The splits are developing at a crucial moment, with the Government's interagency task force also apparently divided between those favoring maximum governmental access to communications and those who support a loosening of export restrictions. Most industry executives had hoped to present a united front in favor of the more liberal position -- a goal that now appears to be in jeopardy. The two major groups sending letters to Vice President Al Gore, the Administration's point man on technology issues, were a group of computer hardware manufacturers and a group of the largest makers of software. In a letter sent to the Vice President last Thursday, eight executives, including James Treybig, chairman of Tandem Computers Inc.; Gil F. Amelio, chairman of the National Semiconductor Corporation; Edward McCracken, chairman of Silicon Graphics Inc.; Eugene Shanks Jr. president of the Bankers Trust New York Corporation, which conducts international electronic commerce, and Stephen T. Walker, chairman of Trusted Information Systems, urged that the Government immediately establish a new standard to control the export of technology that is used to encode communications, so that outsiders cannot tap in. A day later, however, a group of software publishers, including William H. Gates, chairman of the Microsoft Corporation; Jim P. Manzi, president of the Lotus Development Corporation and a senior vice president of I.B.M., Robert Frankenberg, chairman of Novell Inc.; Mark B. Hoffman, chairman of Sybase Inc., and Carol Bartz, chairwoman of Autodesk Inc., wrote arguing that the possible restrictive regulations that may soon be offered by the Government would fail to remove the current obstacles that keep American companies from competing in lucrative international markets. Many off-the-shelf programs cannot be marketed abroad without alteration under current regulations. For example, before American publishers can sell the popular Lotus Notes program abroad, they must replace its encoding system with a weakened version so that foreign communications can be monitored by American intelligence agencies. These restrictions date to the 1970's when advanced computer technology was treated as the equivalent of military technology and subject to the same strict controls. The software publishers have been able to sell their highly effective communications encoding products in this country, while sales abroad, they contend, have been hurt. Their letter also said that although the Administration agreed last year to work with industry toward a compromise, "there has been only minimal consultation with the software industry with respect to basic questions." "We're worried the Government is about to announce the son of Clipper," said Robert W. Holleyman 2d, president of the Business Software Alliance, referring to the Government's original proposal for changing the standard. This proposal, released in April 1993, would have replaced the cold war-era restrictions with a coding standard that allowed sales of strong encryption programs, but would have given United States law-enforcement agencies access to all communications through a back door with a numerical key. "The Administration has been trying to resolve how to keep U.S. companies competitive, but there remain individuals in the Government who want to do anything they can to slow the proliferation of new encryption technologies," Mr. Holleyman said. In April 1992, the Administration proposed a hardware-based system for protecting the privacy of telephone calls and computer data transmissions. The standard, known as the Clipper Chip, included a special "backdoor" that would permit law-enforcement officials to listen to conversations and monitor data exchanges. The original Clipper system called for a two-part key for decoding scrambled conversations. The two parts of the key -- actually two large numbers -- were to be held by two independent Government agencies. Under the plan, when a law-enforcement agency had a warrant to listen to a conversation encoded by Clipper, it would obtain the keys from the separate agencies. By merging the keys, it could obtain a key that would unlock the coded conversation. The Clipper proposal met with angry opposition both from advocates for civil liberties, who argued it would undermine the right to privacy, and by high-technology executives who said Clipper would be unacceptable for foreign users who would not want their conversations to be readable by the United States Government. The announcement of the new proposal may be imminent. Two trade associations, the Software Publishers Association and the American Electronic Association, are planning a conference on cryptography policy for Friday. Several people familiar with Administration policy discussions said the Government had until recently remained divided and that the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Louis J. Freeh, has been the most vocal advocate of placing strict limits on any use of unsanctioned encryption technology. After the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City, the F.B.I., circulated a proposed antiterrorism bill on Capitol Hill that would have banned even the domestic use of coding software except for systems approved by the Government. [End]

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List of reliable remailers
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I operate a remailer pinging service which collects detailed information about remailer features and reliability. To use it, just finger remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu There is also a Web version of the same information, plus lots of interesting links to remailer-related resources, at: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html This information is used by premail, a remailer chaining and PGP encrypting client for outgoing mail, which is available at: ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/cypherpunks/premail/premail-0.33.tar.gz For the PGP public keys of the remailers, as well as some help on how to use them, finger remailer.help.all(a)chaos.taylored.com This is the current info: REMAILER LIST This is an automatically generated listing of remailers. The first part of the listing shows the remailers along with configuration options and special features for each of the remailers. The second part shows the 12-day history, and average latency and uptime for each remailer. You can also get this list by fingering remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu. $remailer{"vox"} = "<remail(a)vox.xs4all.nl> cpunk pgp. post"; $remailer{"avox"} = "<anon(a)vox.hacktic.nl> cpunk pgp post"; $remailer{"extropia"} = "<remail(a)extropia.wimsey.com> cpunk pgp special"; $remailer{"portal"} = "<hfinney(a)shell.portal.com> cpunk pgp hash"; $remailer{"alumni"} = "<hal(a)alumni.caltech.edu> cpunk pgp hash"; $remailer{"bsu-cs"} = "<nowhere(a)bsu-cs.bsu.edu> cpunk hash ksub"; $remailer{"rebma"} = "<remailer(a)rebma.mn.org> cpunk pgp. hash"; $remailer{"c2"} = "<remail(a)c2.org> eric pgp hash reord"; $remailer{"penet"} = "<anon(a)anon.penet.fi> penet post"; $remailer{"ideath"} = "<remailer(a)ideath.goldenbear.com> cpunk hash ksub reord"; $remailer{"hacktic"} = "<remailer(a)utopia.hacktic.nl> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek"; $remailer{"flame"} = "<remailer(a)flame.alias.net> cpunk mix pgp. hash latent cut post ek reord"; $remailer{"rahul"} = "<homer(a)rahul.net> cpunk pgp hash filter"; $remailer{"mix"} = "<mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord"; $remailer{"syrinx"} = "<syrinx(a)c2.org> cpunk pgp reord mix post"; $remailer{"ford"} = "<remailer(a)bi-node.zerberus.de> cpunk pgp"; $remailer{"hroller"} = "<hroller(a)c2.org> cpunk pgp hash mix cut ek"; $remailer{"vishnu"} = "<mixmaster(a)vishnu.alias.net> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord"; $remailer{"crown"} = "<mixmaster(a)kether.alias.net> cpunk pgp hash latent cut mix ek reord"; $remailer{"replay"} = "<remailer(a)replay.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek"; $remailer{"spook"} = "<remailer(a)spook.alias.net> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"gondolin"} = "<mixmaster(a)gondolin.org> cpunk mix hash latent cut ek ksub reord"; $remailer{"rmadillo"} = "<remailer(a)armadillo.com> mix cpunk pgp hash latent cut"; catalyst(a)netcom.com is _not_ a remailer. lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu is _not_ a remailer. usura(a)replay.com is _not_ a remailer. Use "premail -getkeys pgpkeys(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu" to get PGP keys for the remailers. Fingering this address works too. 21 Apr 1995: The new version of premail (0.33) is out, with direct posting, perl5 and better MH support, and numerous bug fixes. Last ping: Mon 14 Aug 95 6:00:15 PDT remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- spook remailer(a)spook.alias.net **-*+--+--- 1:32:10 99.99% bsu-cs nowhere(a)bsu-cs.bsu.edu +#**-#####*# 4:15 99.98% portal hfinney(a)shell.portal.com #******#.-*# 1:42:00 99.98% replay remailer(a)replay.com ************ 9:36 99.97% alumni hal(a)alumni.caltech.edu ****-***.-*# 2:05:47 99.97% hacktic remailer(a)utopia.hacktic.nl ************ 11:33 99.95% crown mixmaster(a)kether.alias.net ----------- 2:07:40 99.95% rmadillo remailer(a)armadillo.com +-+**++** 1:06:24 99.95% vox remail(a)vox.xs4all.nl ....-.-.--- 14:52:58 99.99% penet anon(a)anon.penet.fi -++*++++++*+ 1:45:24 99.76% hroller hroller(a)c2.org #**+*---##* 35:04 99.65% syrinx syrinx(a)c2.org ----------- 2:30:12 99.61% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com --------++- 2:30:54 99.53% c2 remail(a)c2.org +++-+---+++ 1:24:36 99.49% flame remailer(a)flame.alias.net ++++++++++++ 51:10 99.11% vishnu mixmaster(a)vishnu.alias.net **------ - 2:38:17 98.91% ideath remailer(a)ideath.goldenbear.com .--_.---.- 7:32:04 98.59% gondolin mixmaster(a)gondolin.org +***+ +*--*- 1:03:25 98.52% ford remailer(a)bi-node.zerberus.de **-** ***#*# 5:31 96.93% rahul homer(a)rahul.net ++**+#*##**# 3:42 99.99% extropia remail(a)extropia.wimsey.com -.-.-... 21:12:59 83.13% rebma remailer(a)rebma.mn.org ..---+-- 9:53:43 68.81% For more info: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html History key * # response in less than 5 minutes. * * response in less than 1 hour. * + response in less than 4 hours. * - response in less than 24 hours. * . response in more than 1 day. * _ response came back too late (more than 2 days). cpunk A major class of remailers. Supports Request-Remailing-To: field. eric A variant of the cpunk style. Uses Anon-Send-To: instead. penet The third class of remailers (at least for right now). Uses X-Anon-To: in the header. pgp Remailer supports encryption with PGP. A period after the keyword means that the short name, rather than the full email address, should be used as the encryption key ID. hash Supports ## pasting, so anything can be put into the headers of outgoing messages. ksub Remailer always kills subject header, even in non-pgp mode. nsub Remailer always preserves subject header, even in pgp mode. latent Supports Matt Ghio's Latent-Time: option. cut Supports Matt Ghio's Cutmarks: option. post Post to Usenet using Post-To: or Anon-Post-To: header. ek Encrypt responses in reply blocks using Encrypt-Key: header. special Accepts only pgp encrypted messages. mix Can accept messages in Mixmaster format. reord Attempts to foil traffic analysis by reordering messages. Note: I'm relying on the word of the remailer operator here, and haven't verified the reord info myself. mon Remailer has been known to monitor contents of private email. filter Remailer has been known to filter messages based on content. If not listed in conjunction with mon, then only messages destined for public forums are subject to filtering. Raph Levien

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E-Systems Digitrac 6700
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May writes: >It gets back to the threat model. If the threat model is >interception by the neighborhood kids, then schemes for >frequency-hopping, scrambling, "warbling," and PhasorPhone-like >diddling are OK. If the threat model is the local police >department tapping one's phone, probably not enough, as they >likely can gain access to the E-Systems DigiTrac 6700 and >trivially unscramble the signal. Ok, I'll take the Bait. What else can you tell us about the E- systems Digitrac 6700? "enquiring" minds want to know.......;) Brian D Williams Cypherpatriot

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Re: "Protect the children" as passphrase to Constitution
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:35 PM 8/10/95 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >Now clearly this strategy will be welcomed by many. It's hard to argue >against children and against the "protection of children." Arguing the >Constitutional side is tough when "the children" are at issue. I don't know, I find it pretty easy. All you have to do is say "The Slickster thinks that kids should be able to get government condoms and government abortions at will and should be able to copulate with abandon -- so what's a few cigarettes?" I thought Heillary said that children had a right to sue their parents? If the children's rights movement wants all of the above, it has to allow them to smoke and avoid vaccinations as well. If it's wrong to interfere with kids' autonomy in sex and litigation, than it's wrong to interfere with their autonomy in guns and smokes. I always say that I want to reduce State power "for the children." Putting a really commie-liberal accent on the phrase. It bugs the opposition. It's a null argument since you can argue in favor of anything "for the children." During the '92 campaign, Clinton said "I wake up every morning and worry about your children." I said in one of my .sigs, "Please don't worry about my children because if you do you might feel compelled to do something about them and the ensuing fire fight could cause substantial collateral damage in the neighborhood." >The potential crypto relevance? Look for arguments about limiting access to >strong crypto to be more heavily focussed on "pedophiles" and >"pornographers." Look for calls to have a national I.D. card--which serves >many State-needed purposes (and I don't mean in terms of Revelations). A >national I.D. card could then be tied in to GAK/escrow systems. The current national ID push is for illegal immigration control purposes. The last national ID push was under the Health Security Act. They are certainly anxious to get internal passports, aren't they. Luckily, as long as other nations within our passport control zone (like Canada and Mexico) don't have national ID cards, they will be easy enough to dodge for non work purposes. The Jordan Commission recommendations (calling for SS#/True Name matches as a condition for employment) can be defeated by a direct action program of publishing valid SS#/True Name matches. If you get enough valid pairs out in the public domain (still legal to do), illegal aliens and citizens who prefer not to participate in the system can use them. That would corrupt the control system. I need practice with HTML forms and databases. Perhaps that would be a good project. Writing a simple form to collect and store SS#/Name submissions from the general public. DCF "Government is not healthy for children and other living things."

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Re: My pseudo-anonymous dream list
by theilman＠umsmed.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >There are, however, a great number of internal improvements that could be >made that would both improve user-end usefulness AND improve overall >security. I use Private Idaho, Eudora, and an account on alpha.c2.org. Let's see how the wishlist compares with this setup. >1) Multiple Remailers: >I'd like to see multiple (maybe >12) remailers that utilize the same >database, upgraded by batched processes once or twice a day or "broadcast" >realtime to all the reamilers in the web (probably the latter is better). Probably could be done by sharing the alpha.c2.org database to other remailers. I don't see any security problems with this as long as people use encrypted remailing blocks. >2) Encrypted Databases: >Any properly designed 'nym' server should have a totally >encrypted database. alpha.c2.org doesn't require this, but a smart user will arrange to have their reply block encrypted with the key of several different remailers. >3) Limited ID lifetime >Another failing, IMHO, with penet.fi is that ID#'s have an unlimited >lifetime. Is this really a problem? Makes sense from a housekeeping point of view, though. >4) Chained Mailings >Because you have many remailers operating, all messages should be randomly >chained through them. You can set up your reply block for chaining, although it isn't random. >Before a chaining is done, the remailer should ping the target remailer to >make sure it is up, so that mail isn't sitting in the queue. Hmmm. May be a problem if you are using latent time. >All chained mail should also be encrypted. alpha.c2.org can do this >5) Encryption/Signature Validation >Any message that is emailed PGP signed should be validated by the remailer >(with the User having to email in their public key as part of the >registration process, if they so choose, or remailers can use the >keyserver). Does this present a security problem, perhaps in conflict with suggestions #2? >6) Two-way I can do this now, although sometimes the reply is delayed a few days. >7) Option Validation >In order to change any of the options on your ID (ie, the expiration date >of your ID, or to expire it immediately, or to set the number of "hops" >you want to chain through), you should have to submit a PGP Signed command >message. Then, similar to a LISTSERV that confirms subscriptions and >unsubscriptions, a message is sent back asking you to "ok" these changes. >This return message is sent as PGP encrypted email to your public key. >When you decode it, you are given a, say, 10digit code string that you need >to mail back to confirm the changes. If you don't, it doesn't. A password is required for alpha.c2.org to make changes. And any message containing command changes must be encrypted with the remailer's key. >8) Robust Web of Remailers >Remailers come and go daily. Any pseudo-anonymous remailer web needs to >be able to handle that fact. Thus, a mechanism needs to be put into place >to allow for easy adding of a new machine (if it's easy, more people will >do it) with minimal maintanence. In addition, if a remailer disappears >(say, because somebody caught wind of it and ordered the student to turn >it off :-), the rest of the remailer web needs to be able to survive. Of >course, that particular address will be dead, but with apprpriate FAQs >posted around, people should be able to quickly find another address that >uses the same database. I regularly check the pinging service at remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu to do this. > >9) Proper PR Agreed. GREAT SUGGESTIONS! I think that alpha.c2.org comes closest to fulfilling your wish list, although it has several problems. The greatest problem is ease of set up. It took me several tries before I figured out how to set up and send an encrypted reply block in such a way that it could not be traced back to me. It also suffers from tremendous overload, much like anon.penet.fi. As a result, it can be slow. I would add a few more suggestions of my own to your wishlist. 11) Seamless integration with existing mail programs, such as Eudora. 12) Notification that your message has been received (I'm not sure how to do this and maintain anonymity) 13) Ability to handle very large encrypted files (binaries). 14) Perhaps increasing security by breaking messages into several parts, routing them through different chains, and reassembling them just prior to transmission to recipient. Keep up the good work! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMC+JEFQVGHmq7kxdAQEWOQQAvKO3kZp6uMoYdRgEohWFk8PpPdw27iSB si2hFqZOm72581sEo2OXCmCSM9pn193XSOSqZJ1yYALi1OfQ2UrzuNbpteyE2rP8 koz72XU7OIs+8eLJ4+lp02gCq4/0no/simB9fWO+cAIp5zWB30jaHdp2lca37Z8Y 7vuiMuT3Pxc= =4X+7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Gary D. Theilman, Pharm.D. University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy Department of Clinical Pharmacy Practice Finger for PGP Public Key

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COS_sak
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

8-14-95. NYPaper [a mote for Futplex's panoptic biblio]: "Dissidents Use Computer Network to Rile Scientology." The Church of Scientology is battling a band of on-line dissidents who have used the Internet to mail out globally its secret scriptures. On Saturday, as a result of a copyright infringement lawsuit, US marshals seized the computer of a former church employee who had electronically posted a 13-page text that he said was available in court records. Helena K. Kobrin, a lawyer for the church, said: "There are people out there who somehow think the Internet has created a new medium where all the rules go away, and it's not true. Things happen faster on the Internet, and we're going to keep up." COS_sak (about 7K)

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CEL_tic
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

8-14-95. NYPaper: "Israelis and Others Feel the Sting of a Cellur Phone Bug." A software bug inside the Alpha digital phone of Motorola has demonstrated an area of vulnerability in the growing web of digital communications systems -- and prompted Motorola to issue a worldwide recall. Motorola wound up asking 150,000 Alpha users in six countries to return the phones to have the software changed. The Alpha adheres to an emerging standard for digital cellular telephones called time division multiple access, or T.D.M.A. The bug caused the phone to lock on to one channel and stay there indefinitely. "There are tremendous risks as soon as you put something in software," said Peter Neumann, a computer security specialist with SRI International. The cellular industry "has foisted a disastrously insecure technology on the public," he said. CEL_tic (about 7K)

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Re: An article for Wired magazine
by Bryce Wilcox 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > First of all, digital money can take various forms. Existence on a hard > drive is one of those forms. But, it is also possible to have digital money > on a card-based platform. Mondex in the UK currently has official government > units of account digitally represented for their Mondex card trial in > Swindon. They have also announced that in the future this card will hold up > to five "official" currencies. Furthermore, they make no secret about the > fact that this digital money is ideally suited to transfer on the Net. Visa > and Mastercard are both working on stored-value cards which will also > digitize official currencies. CyberCash has also announced plans for an > electronic token which will most likely represent an official currency. > Others will announce soon. I'd like to go on record as stating that all of these other systems pretty much suck. Mondex, for example, actually stores non-crypto messages of the type "Hi there I represent one hundred Belgian crowns" in its cards, so if you can hack the "front-door" security (possibly with physical hacking of the card) and convince a Mondex card that your PC is another Mondex card you can transfer infinite money to it. (Well, I suppose you wouldn't be able to transfer more than 2^64 units of currency or some such limit, but you get the idea.) Contrast this with DigiCash's scheme in which each cyberbuck is cryptographically unforgeable. Most of the other companies have similarly weak security. Many of them are not offering any new technology at all, but are simply offering to transport your credit card number for you, encrypted, over the net. Furthermore none of DigiCash's competitors, as far as I have been able to learn, offer any kind of anonymity the way DigiCash does. The closest they come is "confidentiality". Yeah-- right. I can get the same offer from the Ministry of Truth. Finally, be aware that e-cash can be put onto a smart card just as well as on a magentic disk. DigiCash is actually in the process of developing and/or marketing smart cards that hold such things as toll token for toll roads and civic credits for coffee houses in Europe. See their home page for more detailed (and probably more accurate) info. Source of facts behind these opinions: Perusing the web pages of the principals. DigiCash home page http://www.digicash.com/ FIRST VIRTUAL Holdings Incorporated http://www.fv.com/ Mondex Home Page http://www.mondex.com/mondex/home.htm CyberCash, Inc. Home Page http://www.cybercash.com/ CommerceNet Home http://www.commerce.net/ RSA Data Security, Inc.'s Home Page http://www.rsa.com/ Net1 Home Page http://www.netchex.com/ Electronic Commerce http://www.zurich.ibm.ch/Technology/Security/extern/ecommerce/ The NetCheque(SM) system http://nii-server.isi.edu:80/info/NetCheque/ NetMarket Homepage http://netmarket.com/nm/pages/home Downtown Anywhere - Front Street http://www.awa.com/ Internet Shopping Network http://www.internet.net/ Cash, Tokens, etc on NII http://www.cnri.reston.va.us:3000/XIWT/documents/dig_cash_doc/ToC.html NetBill Project Home Page http://www.ini.cmu.edu/netbill/ NetMarket Homepage http://netmarket.com/nm/pages/home NexusBucks http://www.c2.org/nexbucks/ Economics and the Internet http://gopher.econ.lsa.umich.edu/EconInternet.html Security First Network Bank, FSB http://www.sfnb.com/ Commerce on the Internet http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/credit.html A History of Money http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/llyfr.html Wenbo Mao's Presentation http://www.hpl.hp.co.uk/projects/vishnu/main.html Internet Casinos http://www.casino.org/" ADD_DATE="801367759 The E-cash Market http://www.c2.org/~mark/ecash/ecash.html > Stand-by though: governments and central banks will do everything in their > power to discourage and prevent this for the power to issue and coin money is > one of THE most cherished privileges of the Crown ! ...and it seems like the first step that they are taking is sanctioning inferior, less secure, privacy-decreasing technologies over DigiCash's superior alternative. And so it goes... Bryce signatures follow: + public key on keyservers /. island Life in a chaos sea or via finger 0x617c6db9 / bryce.wilcox(a)colorado.edu ---* -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Auto-signed with Bryce's Auto-PGP v1.0beta iQCVAwUBMC+gSPWZSllhfG25AQHe+gQAhiPQ8GN+cg4Q6lLe6c8UQovOVN301lop tAthnw7qbLDY/dKItCy9AzImDGn2WFTwx3i+nouWbDSWwGUw0Zlc6ajdRlCviX9a BihtvGJaaujxv13ERI6jjmmfkvbctDfqUrDvrgjQB/0kOhSxt5VTkA2tNdzGiEK9 4EA3f+0Cah0= =cJy2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Are we forming the "social sector"? FYIntrospection...
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded-by: sbb(a)well.com (Stewart Brand) To: telecom_ir(a)rand.org cc: Frank Fukuyama <fukuyama(a)rand.org> Subject: Re: Cyberspace Security and the Internet Metaphor Date: Sun, 13 Aug 95 12:12:46 PDT From: David Ronfeldt <ronfeldt(a)rand.org> The discussion has assumed a familiar ring, as though the responsibilities for and answers to cyberspace security lie in the usual two realms or sectors: government or market, public or private. Is that the only range of choice? It pretty much has been for decades. But I still say there is a new realm/sector emerging out there now, which, for lack of a more acceptable term, amounts to what Drucker terms the social sector. "the post-capitalist polity needs a 'third sector,' in addition to the two generally recognized ones, the 'private sector' of business and the 'public sector' of government. It needs an autonomous social sector." (Drucker 1993) Many Internet-related NGOs (like EFF) and individuals (like Zimmerman) fall in this sector. They aren't government or market; they are nonstate, nonprofit actors. And besides just having a lot to say about cyberspace security issues, they have some roles to play--e.g., distribution of encryption techniques, watchdog and warning activities. For now, these roles are minor. But my guess is that they will get increasingly bigger, probably in ways we do not yet foresee. Whether their roles will soon be as significant as those of government and market actors is less important than whether they are, and increasingly will be, contributing something significant to the overall design mix. My presumption is that advanced societies develop mixes that distribute "the solution" across various realms and their actors. What I would like to know and discuss--and I ask you all--is what these nonstate, nonprofit actors are doing at present that amounts to their being part of the solution(s)?

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