December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Reputation currency
by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From my column... -Rishab --====(C) Copyright 1995 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED====-- Electric Dreams Weekly column for The Asian Age by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh #70, 21/August/1995: Implicit transactions need money you can give away Information is often given away at no loss to its owners, while recipients gain, because it can be duplicated. For some purposes, it could be paid for in money that behaved in the same way - adding to the recipient's wealth, while not reducing that of the donor. This money would have to be quite unusual; but so is the commodity being traded. Buying and selling knowledge is full of implicit transactions. One doesn't stop to write a cheque every time one hears industry gossip, however useful, in the corridor. More importantly, one doesn't even need to think about doing so. So much of the knowledge traded in the 'real world' could only be done so informally. Trade is no less valuable for this - the world runs on the chats with senior colleagues, the friendly advice over lunch, the learning and experience gained from working with a client. Formalizing it all would kill it. That's as far as we can get with knowledge outside the distance-eliminating domain of cyberspace. The most promising aspects of a world with fewer geographical impediments in the flow of information include the translation of the gossip in a corridor to an electronic mailing-list, the ability to be advised by friends never seen over a virtual lunch, or to chat with a senior colleague across continents. But the limitations of geography had advantages. People now begin to wonder whether they're not being cheated, when the corridor-mailing-list can have thousands of people. The narrow confines of office buildings provide a sense of community, and an assurance that the consumers of the knowledge traded there are worthy of it, being likely producers too. But restricting access to electronic corridors will negate their advantages, of connecting more minds across space. The main option being considered these days is not just overtly tied to economics - it must be, as that's what the knowledge trade is about - but also tangled with hard cash, with dollars. This is not only unnecessary, much of the time, but also harmful. With the safe assumption of secure international digital cash transactions in the near future, the hard-currency solution to the electronic corridor problem would be to charge every consumer a small amount for everything - a cent a word, say. This may work with traders in diversity, the indexers of the world to whom you pay for anything you need to find. It works rather less well for the traders in consistency, to whom you would pay much more than a cent a word for continuous, reliable content. But for those who lurk in the electronic corridors of the infosphere - and all the implicit cooperatives that form between individual contributors to cyberspace's live, people resources - the hard cash model is useless. Among others, there is the question of who takes the money. The Department of Corridors? The Treasurer of Electronic Mailing Lists? It certainly wouldn't be fair to pay just the individual author of the particular piece you read and found useful, as it built upon the unpaid work of others. After all, the informal nature of these gatherings of minds is for a reason. They, or at least the active participants, contribute not for cash but in return for the contributions of others. They only take exception to the one-way consumption by stray, if numerous, visitors. The alternative to hard cash in these implicit transactions in cyberspace is the equally implicit currency of the real world. The currency that is used almost solely in the trading of knowledge and which, like knowledge, extracts no direct cost to the buyer at the seller's gain. A currency that can be paid equally to corridors full of industry gossip as to colleagues who throng there. Indeed, a currency that is, and is traded like, information itself: reputation. Reputation may not, at first glance, resemble money. But it is the implicit reward of good products, and their producers. It certainly adds to - or subtracts from - the worth of those who receive it. And it is the ultimate free market currency. Traded as a commodity like other data, reputation is based on, and influences in turn, the average of 'prices' set by individual consumers - what individuals think of a producer. Reputation encourages improved production as much as, or more than, cash does - at least in the informal knowledge trade. And reputation will be a very important aspect of the knowledge economy, with the increasing anomie of cyberspace as e-mail replaces firm handshakes. There are, of course, problems with transporting the informal reputations outside cyberspace to reputation systems within it. But work does continue on the necessary technologies. This progresses at a slower pace than that on automatic cent-a-word payment systems, because developers don't realize the importance of informality in the information age. This will have to change - the knowledge economy is actually a people economy, and its most common currency should reflect that. Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab(a)dxm.org) is the editor and publisher of The Indian Techonomist. --====(C) Copyright 1995 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED====-- This article may be redistributed in electronic form only, PROVIDED THAT THE ARTICLE AND THIS NOTICE REMAIN INTACT. This article MAY NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES be redistributed in any non-electronic form, or redistributed in any form for compensation of any kind, WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION from Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab(a)arbornet.org) --==================================================================-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Indian Techonomist - newsletter on India's information industry http://dxm.org/techonomist/ rishab(a)dxm.org Editor and publisher: Rishab Aiyer Ghosh rishab(a)arbornet.org Vox +91 11 6853410; 3760335; H 34 C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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I am not a cracker
by Zooko Journeyman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Several journalists have approached me at HIP and afterwards for quotes about cracking. It is interesting that merely by showing up at HIP and by having a suspiciously pseudonym-like name (hey, my parents were inspired by New Age psychology or something, okay?) I have apparently gained the instant reputation of being into cracking. So in case any journalists out there were considering asking me how to crack Tamagotchis (I kid you not-- that was the topic): I work in computer security. I devise systems. I write code. I examine systems for weaknesses. I test systems. But I don't crack. The last time I wrote a Trojan log-in screen was in 9th grade. When I made a phone call at HIP I used my pre-paid phone card instead of using the cracked phone booth for free. I pay for most of my software, other than Microsoft operating systems. So look elsewhere for your cracker quotes. Sincerely, Zooko, Journeyman Hacker

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Re: A glance at the future of missing child identification
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:48 PM 8/28/95, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote: >>>>>> "TCM" == Timothy C May <tcmay(a)got.net> writes: > >TCM> At 8:52 PM 8/20/95, Hadmut Danisch wrote: >>> These transponders are already used for many year. They inject them in >>> pigs and cows to identify them. And some car manufacturers put the into >>> the ignition keys as theft protections. > >TCM> There has so far been no known uses of this on humans, at least as a >TCM> matter of routine. Possibly some developers have tried injecting >TCM> themselves, for the usual reasons. > >Believe it or not, something like this is being used (or is being prepared >for use) in breast implants. An article in the Houston (silicone city) >Chronicle about a month ago (sorry, I can't produce a more exact reference) >stated that new soybean oil breast implants are being manufactured to >accept an identification device to track information on the patient and the >implanting doctor. > >It's not exactly big brother (bigger sister?) but it's the first >human-implanted ID device that I've heard of. I don't know if any have >actually been implanted. Big Brother? Big Sister? Naw, it's "Big Tits." It's a way for we males to scan the females at the bar to see if they're naturally well-endowed or silicone-enhanced. Part of the "truth in advertising" laws recently passed. ... Seriously, I'm awfully skeptical that any kind of remote sensing device is to be placed in the breasts of women seeking enhancement. The technology just does not currently support small devices, though I suppose some of the 55GG strippers could support an active transmitter (or, "transtitter"). Conceivably, when the women go down to their local doctors to have their tits inflated there can be some kind of "taggants" added, a la the taggants added to some explosives, but this is a far cry from an electronic identificaton device. Some boob must've come up with this one. --Tim ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Sendmail Bugs
by don＠cs.byu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- This has nothing to do with crypto, and is only remotely related to remailers. However, I thought I'd send it along to demonstrate to our conspiracypunks friends how to shorten the length of an off-topic post. There is a document on alt.security which describes exploitable sendmail bugs. The reference is <809544856snz(a)hacknet.demon.co.uk> I saved a copy in case anyone would like one. SEE! Now wasn't that easy! Don -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMELCW8La+QKZS485AQGWMQL8DycUwDwZ9ACaLo27o6fUrqoz3KAXJB4C fz6FHp6LLBbTDpPQoSgYfhcYtpySs7IuXvr5ja+/qNFi6Jq6M98WBvFMuLug8HsR 8IFvu+KVF1VSJ8EOAcdQ9MEAs3m+Zbk0 =YZjS -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- <don(a)cs.byu.edu> fRee cRyPTo! jOin the hUnt or BE tHe PrEY PGP key - http://bert.cs.byu.edu/~don or PubKey servers (0x994b8f39) June 7&14, 1995: 1st amendment repealed. Death threats ALWAYS pgp signed * This user insured by the Smith, Wesson, & Zimmermann insurance company *

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Decoder ring
by dmandl＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

High-Tech Company Goes Back to the Future with Decoder Rings The Stuff of Cereal Box-Tops Becomes Real Repository of Data and Computer ID By Carlos Tejeda Staff Reporter of the Wall Street Journal Once, the only way to get a decoder ring was to carve up cereal box-tops or comic-book covers. Now Dallas Semiconductor Corp. is creating its own high-tech version of the "decoder" ring. Although this one doesn't break any codes, it can unlock some doors of information. It consists of a 64000-bit microchip, embedded in a silver ring made by class-rings titan Jostens Inc., of Minneapolis. The rings can be implanted with a replica of a driver's license, credit-card numbers and even a digitized photograph. Company officials say they hope the ring's data-carrying capability will help bring personal information literally to one's fingertips. "My wallet's stuffed with a dozen different plastic cards," said Hal Kurkowski, Dallas Semiconductor's group manager for auto-identification products. "It's an awful mess. You could put all that and more into the ring and not have a four-inch-thick wallet." The ring is triggered when the metal piece at the head of the ring comes in contact with a data reader. To prevent theft, the ring can be formated so that it only can be used in conjunc tion with a password, Mr. Kurkowski said. The technology already is being used at Dallas Semiconductor's headquarters, as something of a company ID card, said Syd Coppersmith, director of public relations. "I use it to get into my office, and it records who I am and when I went in," she said. "There's a reader on my PC, and I use it to get into my files." The rings cost about $60 each, while readers that can be plugged into a computer can be purchased for about $80. Ms. Coppersmith said several security companies already have the technology to install such readers for their clients. She said the system also has been tested commercially at a warehoiuse, where employees used the ring to record inventory changes. -- Dave Mandl dmandl(a)panix.com http://wfmu.org/~davem

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Re: HIP hip hooray
by Zooko Journeyman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A million monkeys operating under the pseudonym "Mark Grant <mark(a)unicorn.com>" typed: > > Hey, Zooko! You were the only Cypherpunk who made the article in the > 'Independent' (by that blonde reporter who was wandering around), though > Lucky Green was mentioned by name. Wow. Oh how the mighty have fallen, from an adulatory spread in Wired to a mention in The Independent. And to think that Lucky was the fellow who was supposed to get the most benefit from the situation in the first place! > '"[hacking] can be a wonderful thing", explained Zooco, a member of the > CypherPunks. "Pretty much every useful aspect of modern computing was > devised by hackers -- like the Internet and email."' > > So did she spell your name wrong, or were you using a pseudonym ;-) ? I sound like an idiot, so I'm glad she mispelled my name. Also that's a pretty darn loose quote. The "--" there, for example, spans several sentences of conversation... Did the article print her e-mail address? Thanks, Z

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Re: Pre-allocating key segments
by ab411＠detroit.freenet.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This was supposed to go out yesterday, but I mistyped the address. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Piete Brooks <Piete.Brooks(a)cl.cam.ac.uk> writes: >I wrote: >> ... but I still think the >> prefetching of some more segments would be useful. > >I'm seeing calls from calpoly.edu and albany.net taking less than a second. >Are you **REALLY** worried about wasting that sort of time, when even a single >segment usually takes a quarter of an hour even on the faster machines ? Wow, I knew it had been sped up, but I didn't realize... You've convinced me. :-) >[ Getting down to the implementation details > 1) it would be hard for brloop to know that brutessl is 3/4s done. > 2) I can't think how to do prefetching in a safe way, and without disc use >] Good points. Never mind the pre-allocation. Abashed, -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMEKVMREcrOJethBVAQENBQP5AeM1crT8+fqAkWKtFPQHi+ljbP2cwnIy 36jcC4WCQVdKtor5hZZu+0yfyENAirGI6SKFesJFrRi9avMHmOYTo2QTvnhZQYy/ patw2wRXDwrfWY6ndklmssROM59pLhZmngkMlIzEd1QVrmy2YGbKnJOvzIrUwaYL rGzztIzvLVo= =UAte -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- David R. Conrad, ab411(a)detroit.freenet.org, http://www.grfn.org/~conrad Finger conrad(a)grfn.org for PGP 2.6 public key; it's also on my home page Key fingerprint = 33 12 BC 77 48 81 99 A5 D8 9C 43 16 3C 37 0B 50 Jerry Garcia, August 1, 1942 - August 9, 1995. Requiescat in pace.

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Re: Florida Drivers Permits and a Hello
by ab411＠detroit.freenet.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Scott Brickner <sjb(a)austin.ibm.com> writes: >What possible value could the LEAs get by having your thumbprint digitally >encoded on your driver's license? It's not like the average cop-on-the-beat >is qualified to lift a fingerprint and compare it. Even if he was, how >does it benefit that the fingerprint is on the license? One benefit to law enforcement, quite apart from the ability to verify a license, would be the accumulation of a database of thumbprints of all citizens, or at least all those who drive. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMEOxbBEcrOJethBVAQGnjAP/dPUwWKt+c5+wbg4O4aqoOSQrVjyXiM1j Vh/devoIQmLuVnTD8AAoUFahLtUmEByyKa/uz2hnJgIu1+y0OJevbALrjFdex6Wm xqGr70d6ShN65DMOcMVeRvg9MtbhHAt1ktk4+92vUt7AttgqQ5DKsFoAyBVs0SRL gAQ12b71Hfs= =AMKA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- David R. Conrad, ab411(a)detroit.freenet.org, http://www.grfn.org/~conrad Finger conrad(a)grfn.org for PGP 2.6 public key; it's also on my home page Key fingerprint = 33 12 BC 77 48 81 99 A5 D8 9C 43 16 3C 37 0B 50 Jerry Garcia, August 1, 1942 - August 9, 1995. Requiescat in pace.

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Autoresponder Crypto Export / Re: Fuck the usenet cabal
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > Now, suppose some non-US person sets up an auto-responder that sends out > strong crypto software, and another non-US person requests it and gets it. How about hacking spammer's systems and setting them up so that their autoresponders send out copies of strong crypto? Everyone in the world would have a copy within days. Make the enemy your best friend. Sun Tzu

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Re: Florida Drivers Permits and a Hello
by Jonathan Zamick 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:15 PM 8/29/95, Mark wrote: >>What possible value could the LEAs get by having your thumbprint digitally >>encoded on your driver's license? It's not like the average cop-on-the-beat >>is qualified to lift a fingerprint and compare it. Even if he was, how >>does it benefit that the fingerprint is on the license? > >Here it is possible to walk into a suitably equipped police station, put your >fingertips on a sensor pad and a few seconds, if records exist, have the appear >on the computer screen. Extrapolating this it isnt a big step for a patrol >car, already equipped with a packet radio link to HQ and a data terminal, >scan in your fingerprint and check it. If the system was offline they could >easily take your rpint and compare it to that on your license. It's just a >little more proof that the license is linked to you. > My only question though is why help them create more records about the average citizen? Jonathan ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ..Jonathan Zamick Consensus Development Corporation.. ..<JonathanZ(a)consensus.com> 1563 Solano Ave, #355.. .. Berkeley, CA 94707-2116.. .. o510/559-1500 f510/559-1505.. ..Mosaic/WWW Home Page: .. .. Consensus Home Page ..

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