December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Collection of personal info
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:07 AM 9/7/95, Rob Lowry wrote: >Again, you both are correct, and perhaps I was overstating my position in >regards to the TRW/etc. groups.. I have a tendancy to do so. Each of us >has the responsibility to monitor the activities in our lives, both ... You mentioned you're a newcomer to the list, so all is forgiven. Seriously, what you'll notice is that people (like me) will respond to arguments made, and, for obvious reasons, concentrate on the points of difference rather than the points of agreement. So, keep posting! --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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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Re: System used for DSS (US Satelite TV)
by Mike Duvos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Anyone know about the security for the DSS system? (A US satelite TV > system with 18" dishes). A buddy disconnected his for an extended > period, and on plugging it back in, got all the channels for about 5 > minutes. > So now I'm all curious if we can reproduce this. > Adam Apparently the content is not strongly encrypted in a way which requires that one be a subscriber to recover it, since there is a "test mode" which displays all the channels, including unassigned ones. I've not seen a document describing their protocols in detail, however. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ enoch(a)zipcon.com $ via Finger $ {Free Cypherpunk Political Prisoner Jim Bell}

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Re: fast modular reduction
by cman＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was very distressed when Josh gave this presentation; apparently patents have been filed, etc., and someone from another company in Europe was claiming they'd _already_ patented it. What is the story here? From my pov, the performance increase doesn't justify the ramifications of dealing with yet another potentially surly patent holder (either Microsoft in your case, or whoever the irate European fellow was who claims to have already patented it.)

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Symbols on the net :)
by Steven Calabro 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If you know of any symbols or acronyms used on the net, please mail them to me. Thanks

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Re: Socio-Economic Cults (Re: Cypherpunk Cults)
by John Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"William H. Geiger III" <whgiii(a)amaranth.com>: >>You stole from me. >>*BANG* > >yep > >>You raped my sister >>*BANG* > >yep > >As is the first two cases the "criminal" has violated my property & >family. Such crimes are worthy of immediate death. You steal, you >assault >or threaten me or my family you have committed suicide. > >It is a quite simple and effective philosophy: > >"You fuck with me, my family, or my property you die. You leave me >alone >and I leave you alone." > >Even someone like you can understand such a philosophy. Well, I can't. It's very confusing. Are there judges in your philosophy, or do you just decide for yourself who to shoot? "You walked on my property." BANG. "Your music kept me awake all night." BANG. "I warned you to cut that tree down, and now it fell on my house." BANG. Or how about escalation: "You raped my daughter" "No way, she wanted it as much as I did" "That's not what she tells me. You die." BANG. "You shot my son" "Bullshit, he had it coming after what he did to my daughter." "Bullshit yourself." BANG. "You shot my pa" "He shot my son" "You're gonna die." "I'm taking you with me then." BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. You know, there's a reason people started using judges to help settle disputes. There's a reason the common law evolved with the idea of proportionate response and restitution. This kind of shoot-everybody-I-think-harmed-me approach just doesn't work. Nobody knows what someone else will consider harm worth shooting over. If somebody disagrees that a shooting was justified, they'll shoot back, and feuds begin. The current system stinks, but your idea is no better. "John ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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Re: e$ sites of interest
by dsc＠swcp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate wrote, >Found these in PC Week and thought I would pass them along... For me, new to this, I found NetBank's Netcash(tm) to be the most interesting even with its little built-in protection from those who spend money twice. NetBank's URL is this: http://www.teleport.com/~netcash/ It is listed with many others in >Network Payment Mechanisms and Digital Cash - http://ganges.cs.tcd.ie/ > mepeirce/project.html > > Overview of trands and techniques, with several useful links for > additional information. Dar (list newbie) =========================================================== Dar Scott Home phone: +1 505 299 9497 Dar Scott Consulting Voice: +1 505 299 5790 8637 Horacio Place NE Email: darscott(a)aol.com Albuquerque, NM 87111 dsc(a)swcp.com Fax: +1 505 898 6525 http://www.swcp.com/~correspo/DSC/DarScott.html ===========================================================

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Re: Welfare Solution #389
by Alex Le Heux 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 06:32 8/26/97 -0400, you wrote: [...] >>It's this attitude that creates most of the drug 'problem' for society. >>It's not the drugs. People can function fine while enjoying their hits of >>beer, weed, coke or whatever. It's the ciminalisation of some drugs and >>the attitude of people like William H. Geiger III that make the drug user >>outcasts from society. > >You are making unfounded assumptions of my position on drug use. > I see that I did. No problem, plenty of new stuff here to keep the argument going... >I really could care less about someone who uses drugs on a recreational >basis and is able to buy his drugs with his/her/its *own* money. I think >it is a total waste for those who prefer to spend their life drooling in a >corner with a needle in their arm and/or crack pipe in their hand. Even so >if they or their families are wealthy enough to support this behavior more >power to them. > >What I strongly object to is my hard earned $$$ being stolen from me to >support this behavior either in the form of taxes spent on Welfare & SS or >(for the more ambitious junkie) stolen/robbed directly. > >As a Libertarian I am all for the legalization of drugs. Our current >politicians seem incapable of learning from the past that prohibition >never works and causes more problems than it solves (Econmics 101 supply & >demand). > I suppose you believe that a drug addict has no one to blame but himself, and that he should take _all_ of the blame. I don't. They certainly deserve some credit for the mess they're in, but not entirely. Bad luck has a lot to do with it as well. Just like getting blown off a cliff by the wind. You shouldn't have been there, you should have been strong enough not be blown off, etc.... Also, it being the druggie's fault or not, treating him as an outcast is not going to solve the problem. It'll only make it worse. For him, and for the rest of us. What works much better is treating his addiction more like a disease. This is what we do in The Netherlands. We have few junkies living in the street, rarely does a granny get her head blown off for a nickle and a dime. Also the mortality rate under the junkies is very low, although I suspect you don't see that as a good thing. The 'drug problem' as it exists in most places in this world is the result of the mindboggeling numbers of people living in tiny spaces. It is a problem of us all, so the bill ends up with us all. Procecuting the addict only serves to drive up that bill. Killing him is certainly the cheap option, but a healthy society takes care of it's members, even if they mess up so spectacularly. Several programs, in The Netherlands and Switzerland and probably other places, have shown that by far the cheapest and least painful solution for all is just to give the man his drugs. In fact, Switzerland is doing just that with it's heroin addicts. As it turns out most of them get some sort of life back together, a lot even manage to get and hold jobs and thus become productive citizens dispite their addiction. >I also believe, as a Libertarian, that I have the "GOD given right" to >defend myself, my family, and my property, with deadly force if needed >(and I am the one who gets to decide when such force is needed not some >bureaucrat in DC). > Alex -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNAMoqtuYAh4dUSo/EQK4agCggmF6hyfTkoR8hkEF6Lq7hPP15M0AoKC0 514gFnHTR2QkDuIXFF41S3Q1 =aK4Q -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Collection of personal info
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:49 AM 9/7/95, Mac Norton wrote: >Tim and I have corresponded about this previously, >and again he neglects the distinction between >collection and storage, on the one hand, and >retrival and dissemination, on the other. If you >do the latter, your content better be accurate. > >That's the difference in Tim and TRW. So far.:) I don't really disagree with Mac, at least practically speaking. (At a much deeper level, much deeper in terms of philosophy, I'm not even sure _disseminators_ of information have any real necessity to be correct. This is the issue of truth, reputation, etc. that we discuss so often. But, I admit that the legal system does not support my anarcho-capitalist extreme position, which is why I say I don't disagree with Mac, "practically speaking.") However, even if I were to start distributing the results of "Tim's BlackNet Dossier Service," I don't think there's any justification for people insisting that they have a right to "inspect" my records. I think the current U.S. law is not too far from my own views. The credit reporting agencies have an obvious interest in having accurate information--except for the folks in the Witness program--and will eventually correct errors. (Not everyone is happy with the speed, but this is life in a world of finite resources; and I acknowledge that there are pathological cases of incorrect identity, etc.) I still favor free market alternatives to top-down government "protection." And, lest anyone think I'm lapsing in my basic beliefs, I lean toward throwing out _all_ laws about libel, slander, and false information. After all, "what is truth?," to coin a phrase. --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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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(Fwd) U.S. Judge Rules Encryption Regulations Invalid
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: "Jim Broderick" <jfbroderick(a)hotmail.com> To: RWright(a)adnetsol.com Subject: Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:38:52 PDT Tuesday August 26 9:39 AM EDT U.S. Judge Rules Encryption Regulations Invalid SAN FRANCISCO - U.S. government regulations on the export of encryption software are unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel said licensing requirements for the export of encryption software and related devices were an unconstitutional prior restraint on First Amendment free speech rights. Patel also issued a permanent injunction barring the government from enforcing the regulations against plaintiff Daniel Bernstein or anyone who sought to use, discuss or publish his encryption program. Encryption involves running a readable message though a computer program that translates the message according to an equation or algorithm into unreadable "ciphertext." "By the very terms of the encryption regulations, the most common expressive activities of scholars -- teaching a class, publishing their ideas, speaking at conferences, or writing to colleagues over the Internet -- are subject to a prior restraint by the export controls ...," Patel wrote in a 32-page ruling released in San Francisco. Patel said that, having found the regulations to be invalid, she could have issued a nationwide injunction barring their enforcement. But she said she had kept the injunction as narrow as possible pending appeal because "the legal questions at issue are novel, complex and of public importance." The ruling is important because the computer industry sees use of encryption technology across country borders as essential for advancing electronic commerce and private communications over the Internet. The government has previously cited national security concerns over the export of encryption programs. As a graduate student, Bernstein developed an encryption algorithm he called "Snuffle." In 1992, Bernstein asked the State Department whether Snuffle was controlled by export regulations then in force which classified cryptographic software as "defense articles." The government told him his program was subject to licensing by the Department of State prior to export. Alleging that he was not free to teach, publish or discuss with other scientists his theories on cryptography embodied in the Snuffle program, Berstein sued the State Department in 1995, challenging the regulations on free speech grounds. Bernstein is now a research assistant professor of mathematics, statistics and computer science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Patel ruled last December that the old regulations limiting the export of encryption software violated the First Amendment. But late last year, President Bill Clinton issued an executive order transferring jurisdiction over the export of nonmilitary encryption products to the Commerce Department. Patel's latest ruling was on Bernstein's amended lawsuit which included the new regulations and new defendants. Patel said that her finding that encryption source code was speech protected by the First Amendment did not remove encryption technology from all government regulation. Cindy Cohn, a lawyer for Bernstein, called the ruling a "very big victory" for free speech advocates. "This brings us a step closer to people being able to freely publish ideas about encryption," she said. A U.S. Justice Department lawyer who defended the regulations could not immediately be reached for comment. The government could appeal the ruling. Copyright, Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved =-=-=-=-=-=- Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: (408) 259-2795

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University logging mail to anon.penet
by Jeff Simmons 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This just came up locally, and I'd like to have some comments on it, especially from people who understand the law a lot better than I do: Our local University apparently has been logging ALL mail to anon.penet, including faculty, students, and off-campus users. They maintain such weak security that someone was able to "obtain" the logs and post them to a local usenet group, thus compromising everyone's "anonymous" identities. -- Jeff Simmons jsimmons(a)goblin.punk.net

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