December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: heart
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:55 PM 8/26/97 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote: > >On Mon, Aug 25, 1997 at 02:20:33PM -0700, Tim May wrote: >> And I think that most of what passes for "help" actually does more harm >> than good, at least in the longterm. > >There is no doubt that sometimes "help" does more harm than good. >There is also no doubt that sometimes help does more good than harm. >Platitudes like these don't really give one much real guidance. > >> For example, sending food aid to Third World countries sounds noble and >> good. But most studies show the real effect of such aid: it destroys the >> local infrastructure of food production and distribution. (Imagine being a >> poor Somali farmer bringing your grain to market, and seeing tons of U.S. >> grain being distributed freely...it wipes that farmer out, and his future >> years of production are gone, even after the U.S. food aid is also gone.) > >So the farmer can die of starvation later rather than earlier. The >problem is not with help, per se -- it's with the specifics of how the >help is implemented. What do you think the farmer would chose -- get >some food now, and take his chances with his food production at a >later time, or die of starvation immediately? > >A current case is North Korea. Of course if you give them food it >will help perpetuate an evil government. On the other hand, if you >don't give them food, lot's and lot's of people would die. Tim's >answer is that you might as well let them die, rather than perpetuate >the government that enslaves them. Others aren't quite as >cold-blooded as Tim. > I would venture to guess that very limited sustanence and more active aid to the faltering industry would be more effective. Then again I have heard of brand new tractors rusting in the field because the local farmer couldn't or wouldn't adapt to it, so even aid to the industry can be ineffective. >> For example, the welfare system. Who can argue that it produces persons >> unable or unwilling to take the available jobs, mostly at or near minimum >> wage? When a welfare mother of two or more children can collect the total >> equivalent (direct payments, food coupons, tax exemptions, day care) of $15 >> an hour, it would be foolish for her to apply for a job at Burger King for >> $6.35 an hour, and then have to pay almost that amount to put her kids in >> some day care center. The longer she is out of the job market, the worse it >> gets. > >The welfare system obviously has all kinds of problems. It's not >easy giving help without creating dependency. That doesn't mean it >can't be done. > I like the idea of reviving the WPA. We have enough county and state jobs that need to get done, and do not require any formal training. Some can even be done by the blind, deaf, mentally handicapped, and wheelchair bound individuals who might actually jump at the chance to pull thier own weight. I believe the idea is called "right to work", but I could be misinformed. >> For example, saving people from their bad choices in life. When we force >> insurers to cover those who do stupid, formerly uninsurable things, or when >> we force the providers of legally and freely-chose substances (tobacco, >> hamburger, guns, breast implants, rock climbing equipment, etc.) to pay for >> the stupid actions of others, even if only imagined, costs rise and choices >> narrow. > >Yep. I don't see this as the same category of trying to help people, >though. Rather, I think this example points out the end result of >our adversarial legal system. Pretty soon every revolver will have a warning label. "Warning, misuse of this tool can result in injury and death. By handling this item you consent to bear all legal responsibility reguarding its use." Never mind that such should be implied.

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Re: Monkey Wrench into the works
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Myron Lewis" <mrlewis(a)keygen.com> > We invite you and everyone on the list (Please send this invitation out to > them as the info on how to do that didn't come through.) to visit the KeyGen > webpage, www.KeyGen.com and learn about Automatic Synchronized > KeyGeneration(TM). If you think you recognize it as something you have seen > before, you're close but wrong. What one man knows, nobody knows. What two men know, everyone knows. Shared secrets just don't work. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: Socio-Economic Cults (Re: Cypherpunk Cults)
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:23 AM 8/27/97 -0400, Anonymous wrote: > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >"John Smith" <jsmith58(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >>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. > >See "The Machinery of Freedom" by David Friedman. (Sorry if this is >old hat to you or other members of this list.) > >Friedman's legal arrangement works something like this: Say you kill >somebody. If you want to protect your life from revenge, you >immediately report what you did to three people nearby who were >uninvolved. > >This keeps you inside the legal system. Afterwards, a compensation >arrangement is made between your protection company and the protection >company of your victim. This occurs within the legal framework. If >you do not comply with the compensation agreement, you are outlawed. >Outlaws receive no legal protection. > >You can change protection companies anytime you like. > >Improbable? This is very similar to the Icelandic legal system of >circa 1000 C.E. Friedman claims that this worked quite well for many >years. Icelanders at that time were murderous pirates, yet in Iceland >they murdered each other much less frequently than Americans do now in >the United States. > >The compensation payments were typically nontrivial - on the order of >twenty years of income. > >Some interesting aspects of medieval Icelandic politics: no prisons, >no standing army, no single political leader, and no taxes. > >Just Another Cypherpunk I got something very similar from a friend who is much higher on the technological food chain than myself. He also told me that there was this big fair/trade-show/political rally that everyone attended. Once a year I think. That in addition to stopping by three houses to report the killing the killer had to report it at the next of these events to occur. It was also suggested that the compensation was a fairly fixed amount but that a person who could afford it and really didn't want trouble from the heirs of the deceased could pay more, thus suggesting that he considered the deceased to be more valuable than the average man. Sort of a post-mortem complement by the killer. Also, according to what I remember, the "protection company" was your extended family. Pay up or face the wraith of all the deceased's cousins, nephews, uncles, neices, aunts, maybe his kids. I would love to get more information on this, however, the friend who told me this much has left this little school for the larger waters of Oklahoma State University where he is in the engineering pod.

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Study sees privacy lacking on government Web sites (fwd)
by Vipul Ved Prakash 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From Infobeat : *** Study sees privacy lacking on government Web sites While the Clinton administration is pressuring companies with Internet sites to respect the privacy of Web surfers, a new survey finds the government itself is far from perfect regarding this issue. Almost half the 70 Internet sites run by federal agencies collect data about visitors, but most disclose nothing about how the information will be used, according to OMB Watch. Privacy concerns arise on the Internet because whenever a person using Web browsing software visits a site, the site can collect information about the person, sometimes without their knowledge. For the full text story, see http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=4638339-daf -- Vipul Ved Prakash | - Electronic Security & Crypto vipul(a)pobox.com | - Web Objects 91 11 2233328 | - PERL Development 198 Madhuban IP Extension | - Linux & Open Systems Delhi, INDIA 110 092 | - Networked Virtual Spaces

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Cypherpunks in "The Guide"
by Mike Duvos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Cypherpunks have gotten honorable mention as the only intellectually honest defenders of Free Speech left on the Net in a "Guide Magazine" article. http://www.guidemag.com/newsslant/vigilante-censors.html Apparently the author reads the list. I seem to have been quoted. -- 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: Socio-Economic Cults (Re: Cypherpunk Cults)
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:18 AM 8/27/97 +0100, Adam Back wrote: >It's a distributed system, it's more resilient to abuse than >governments. > >If one person becomes too much of a nuisance (real trigger happy for >ultra minor infractions -- swearing at them, daring to look at them >when they're in a bad bood) relatives, friends, or concerned citizens >will correct (fill trigger happy person with lead). > >That's how the wild west worked anyway... outlaws didn't last that >long. > >So you're relying on other peoples sense of fairness ... should easily >work out better than governments. > Ever heard of mob violence? Read up on the Salem witch trials when a bunch of people got together and murdered a bunch of thier own on the evidence of the rantings of a few girls. Don't forget hitler, who managed to swing an entire country against a ever growing list of minorities. Granted, this was from within government, but the principle is the same. Anarchy is good, as long as an us versus them mentality doesn't occur. That would require a far more homogenious population than we have now. If everyone had the same skin color, hair color, eye color, bone structure, and color of socks, war would eventually break out over who lived on which side of the river.

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<<Vitamin B>>(August 27, 1997) Back to the Future
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Lotus-FromDomain: BIONOMICS@INTERLIANT @ OUTBOUND From: "VitaminB"<VitaminB(a)bionomics.org> To: "DAILY DOSE"<DAILY_DOSE(a)maxager.com> Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 11:04:00 -0700 Subject: <<Vitamin B>>(August 27, 1997) Back to the Future Mime-Version: 1.0 Vitamin B: Your Daily Dose of Bionomics August 27, 1997 Back to the Future "In the pre-Civil War period, when the general ethos of laissez faire severely discouraged government intervention in the market economy, private regulations arose in the form of a variety of institutions, which accomplished much of what we endeavor to do today with our elaborate system of government rule making and supervision. In particular, scholars have noted that the period saw the development of private measures to help holders of bank notes protect themselves from risk. As the notes were not legal tender, there was no obligation to accept the currency of a suspect bank, or to accept it at par value; accordingly, notes often were accepted and cleared at less than par. As a result, publications--bank note reporters--were established to provide current information on market rates for notes of different banks based on their creditworthiness, reputation, and location, as well as to identify counterfeit notes. Bank note brokers created a ready market for notes of different credit quality. In some areas, private clearinghouses were established, which provided incentives for self-regulation. " "Banks competed for reputation, and advertised high capital ratios to attract depositors. Capital to asset ratios in those days often exceeded one-third. One must keep in mind that then, as now, a significant part of safety and soundness regulations came from market forces and institutions. Government regulation is an add-on that tries to identify presumed market failures and, accordingly, substitute official rules to fill in the gaps. " "To be sure, much of what developed in that earlier period was primitive and often ineffectual. But the financial system itself was just beginning to evolve. " "From today's presumably far more sophisticated view of such matters, we may look askance at what we have often dismissed as 'wildcat banking.' But it should not escape our notice that, as the international financial system becomes ever more complex, we, in our regulatory roles, are being driven increasingly toward reliance on private market self-regulation similar to what emerged in more primitive forms in the 1850s in the United States." --Alan Greenspan Toward Electronic Money & Banking: The Role of Government A Conference Sponsored by the United States Department of the Treasury September 19-20, 1996 --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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Re: Is this group dead?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(A copy of this message has also been posted to the following newsgroups: alt.cypherpunks) In article <wimlEFHsur.6CE(a)netcom.com>, wiml(a)netcom.com (Wim Lewis) wrote: > In article <5togij$4he$1(a)quixote.stanford.edu>, > Rich Graves <rcgraves(a)disposable.com> wrote: > >No, nothing caused it. It's just dead, pretty much always has been. > >"Always" being only a few months, of course. > > Well, sure --- define "always" as "recently" and you won't see much > change. More than a couple months ago, it was non-dead (about ten relevant > articles a day on good days, IIRC). That's why I'm curious. > Some of us posted our articles to the Cypherpunks list(s) to this newsgroup, when it was first created. For my own part, this was partly to ensure propagation in case the new distributed mailing lists failed for some reason, and partly as a show of support for the new newsgroup, alt.cypherpunks. But alt.cypherpunks filled up with the usual spam and cross-posts. And the distributed mailing lists have done well. So most of us don't bother with it. If you or other readers are really interested, subscribe to the list. Newsgroups are just too prone to casual drop-ins, meaning, people who have no sense of history, no awareness of past issues already hashed out, etc. (Lest anyone think I'm being "undemocratic," sure. I cop to that. Anyone who wants to use alt.cypherpunks for discussions is free to. But if nobody does, so?) --Tim May -- There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Government to seek stay in Bernstein case
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:43:46 -0700 From: Cindy Cohn <Cindy(a)McGlashan.com> Subject: Government to seek stay in Bernstein case Hi all, Just talked to Mr. Coppolino at the Justice Department. They are filing ex parte emergency stay papers tonight or tomorrow morning to try to stay the impact of Judge Patel's ruling pending appeal. He'll be faxing me the documents when they are ready. Cindy ************************ Cindy A. Cohn McGlashan & Sarrail, P. C. 177 Bovet Road, 6th Floor San Mateo, CA 94402 (415) 341-2585 (tel) (415)341-1395 (fax) Cindy(a)McGlashan.com http://www.McGlashan.com

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Re: Re: <<Vitamin B>>(August 27, 1997) Back to the Future
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:05 PM 8/27/97 -0400, Robert Hettinga wrote: > > <<Deleted header information here>> > > > > >Vitamin B: >Your Daily Dose of Bionomics > >August 27, 1997 > >Back to the Future > >"In the pre-Civil War period, when the general >ethos of laissez faire severely discouraged >government intervention in the market economy, >private regulations arose in the form of a variety >of institutions, which accomplished much of >what we endeavor to do today with our elaborate >system of government rule making and >supervision. In particular, scholars have noted >that the period saw the development of private >measures to help holders of bank notes protect >themselves from risk. As the notes were not >legal tender, there was no obligation to accept >the currency of a suspect bank, or to accept it >at par value; accordingly, notes often were >accepted and cleared at less than par. As a >result, publications--bank note reporters--were >established to provide current information on >market rates for notes of different banks based >on their creditworthiness, reputation, and location, >as well as to identify counterfeit notes. Bank note >brokers created a ready market for notes of >different credit quality. In some areas, private >clearinghouses were established, which >provided incentives for self-regulation. " > >"Banks competed for reputation, and advertised >high capital ratios to attract depositors. Capital to >asset ratios in those days often exceeded one-third. >One must keep in mind that then, as now, a significant >part of safety and soundness regulations came from >market forces and institutions. Government regulation >is an add-on that tries to identify presumed market >failures and, accordingly, substitute official rules to >fill in the gaps. " > >"To be sure, much of what developed in that earlier >period was primitive and often ineffectual. But the >financial system itself was just beginning to evolve. " >... Your description reminds me of some descriptions of how UNIX has been evolving. I guess with time and the appropiate types of hackers, any system can become secure after a few cycles. It may not be elegant but it gets the job done.

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