December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

YOU_luz
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A gruel of high-tech privacy ghoulisms: Nov 4 Economist on burgeoning health services by "outsiders" like defense firms in which lucrative data banks on patients' rotting carcasses are abuilding for resale. Nov 9 W$J on a conference tut-tutting data banking of citizens' repulsive life styles. Nov 9 Financial Times on British Gov smarmily smart "transaction cards" banking citizens' pathetic fears. YOU_luz (19 kb)

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Re: "Industry Group Rebuffs U.S. on Encryption"
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:04 PM 11/12/95 -0500, Duncan Frissell wrote: > There were no nation states or cops prior to 1600. > It is perfectly possible that there will be no nation > states or cops at some point in the future. To be strictly correct, there were no cops in the english speaking world from the time of the saxon invasions to the nineteenth century. There were however the functional equivalent of cops at some places, and some times -- mostly in societies that collapsed or sank into utter tyranny. One can reasonably argue that the persians and scythians etc were nation states, and that sometimes nation states existed during the dark ages and medieval period, but until fairly recently, most of what we now call western civilization regarded what we would now call a nation state as a rare, curious, and pathological aberration. I expect that we will soon once again regard them as pathological, and I hope that we will be able to regard them as rare. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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: Gingrich, "crypto coalition" [*PURE* NOISE]
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

VZNuri: > but my main point in writing was that I thought I would highlight this > phrase given to us by A.Nonymous: the "crypto coalition". > or it might be called the "computer coalition". I think I see a few > faint glimmerings of a new political movement, potentially. > the recent Washington Times editorial on the Exon pornography law, > encryption, and the superiority of allowing people to develop tools > to screen what they don't want to so, could be considered a > portrayal of some of the key philosophies. I see <A> the flames of a bunch of brats with a lot of disposable income, and <B> a sysop culture armed with buckets of water they'd rather not use lest it short out their technocratic "ethics." > its very interesting to contemplate that the online crowd could become > a more well-organized political coalition that has influence in politics. > its clear to me this is happening weakly and informally at the moment. > (i.e. people on the internet having similar philosophies, hence voting > with the same aims, although not organizing to do so yet). > a key ingredient I see working against this: Point-and-click organizing and killfile absorption of discourse. Harrumph. > the "coalition" has a lot of libertarian sentiments, and libertarians > tend to be anti-government and almost disdainful of even participating > in politics. In GROUP politics. Libertarianism is recursively structured: "when there's no gubmint" -- I ain't holding my breath -- they won't trust themselves. > one might differentiate between cybernauts who are interested in reforming > our government and using the Net as a tool to do so, such as Jim Warren, and > people at the opposite end of the spectrum of "participation" such as > TCM, who seem to advocate that political battles be simply rejected > or ignored as irrelevant to the future of "cryptoanarchy". (although recent > noises of his I quoted were distinctly uncharacteristic.) To paraquote one of my favorite lesbians, a meme is a meme is a meme is a meme is a meme. The idea that memes will change the world is very typical of our era, which is to say very naive. Warren works, TCM plays; Warren works, and TCM -- who, it's abundantly clear, is brilliant in his own way -- gambles: gambles that the memes he's "trademarked" might pan out. > if anyone is going to have influence in politics, it would be the former > type. but at least in the places in cyberspace where I hang out, I tend > to see more of the latter type: extremist libertarians who almost seem > to suggest that government is inherently unclean and dirty, no matter > what form it takes. I think these are the types that would hate a > government and advocate disenfranchisement with it no matter what > direction it took, even if a libertarian was > elected to a powerful office. (its an interesting question to contemplate). Not really: libbies would rather play a low-stakes game with their own back yard than a high-stakes game with society, in which everyone is in each others' back yard. > it seems to me to be largely a philosophy of alienation bordering > on nihilism. Yes. > now, I have been trashed in public for this position before, but the > philosophy of "us vs. them" applied to government in my opinion is the > wrong paradigm and only contributing to the problems, imho. an organized > "cyberspace coalition" could have tremendous political power to the point > that all the key annoying laws (such as the Itar etc.) actually become > election issues brought into mainstream consciousness. the editorials > I have seen about the Exon amendment etc. are steps in those directions. Trashed *as a tentacle*. Crypto as a litmus test isn't interesting: crypto is a means to an end. What is that end? For too many, it is "antigovernment" -- that is, reactionary. > I've seen TCM argue on this list against this, such that we should just > give up on telling congress what is important to us etc. it was a position > that was not unanimous, and in fact quite controversial however, and > remarkably PM once argued against it. (heh. love the fireworks on this list. > they are quite unpredictable at times). Perry has grime under his fingernails. Perry works, works with other people toward definable ends: Perry is, among other things, a craftsman. And if I'm not mistaken, he lives in a place where he gets to see how many people live, and how they live together; this is very different from *choosing to* live where and how TCM does. (Is this a "scurrilous attack," in TCM's words? Or is it just the expression of an opinion? Dr. Fred may be an oaf, but the *reaction* to him demonstrates just how stupid it is to say anything that doesn't toe the line on *this* list, despite all the I-and-thou mumbojumbo.) > I'm all for replacing a dysfunctional government. but people here seem > to advocate that this happens automatically when one has certain > technology. "Replacing" is a participle: what is the agent? If the agent is an individual, or an alienated mass of individuals, it will not be able to replace the govt; if, OTOH, it's a mass of ORGANIZED individuals, it is no longer libertarian. > there is a whole other approach to "cryptoanarchy" that no one here > has ever suggested, but which could be tremendously effective: "infiltrate" > political positions with people sympathetic to that philosophy, and work > to change the entire structure toward it. "infiltrate" is a scary word, > but IMHO nothing any different than demopublicans appointing demopublicans > to office would be going on. This is crypto-anarchy, with "crypto-" meaning what it does to most of the pople who use it: X passing as Y, a crypto-fascist for example. And "infiltrate" is nothing more than a fancy word for working within the system, namely, reformism. > a very interesting, key quote by someone here went to the effect: "if > TCM is right, nothing the government does matters. if TCM is wrong, > nothing we do matters". a fascinating psychological justification for > a sort of nihilism. but at the root of it is a kind of laziness and > hostility to organization or groups in any form, IMHO. Yes: this hostility to organization is an old thread in American culture. Its usually associated with antiurbanism, anticosmopolitanism, things like that, but most libbies I've ever met (which is a lot) are mnore anti-control than pro-freedom. You do the math. > in fact the libertarian extremists here seem not only to hate government, > they seem to hate the whole idea of groups accomplishing things, about > the idea of groups coming to consensus. this is a quite remarkably > cynical ideology. Cynical? How about naive? > I'm going to make a prediction: I think the people who are interested > in organizing the "cyberspace coalition" are starting to come together > right now, and that over the long run, this entity will be far more > beneficial in advancing a better reality through cyberspatial technology > than all the people who advocate disillusion, antagonism, resentment, > and nonparticipation in groups and government, to the point the latter > approach will be generally discredited. in other words, we have a powerful > system that can be changed from the inside instead of abandoning it. at the > moment, I've not seen any proof that a dedicated group couldn't reform it from > the inside, only a lot of cynical conventional wisdom that such a thing > is inherently impossible and useless to try. If you haven't seen any proof that it can't be reformed, then you haven't looked at the piechart on the back of the 1040 booklet. > the comment I quoted displays the conventional wisdom on this list, > that the encryption issue is "us vs. them", "people vs. the government", > etc. what would A.Nonymous say if someone who was elected began to > embrace the position that encryption is a right? I'm sure he would find > some new reason to be disillusioned with government. that's the position > of radical libertarians. no matter what form government takes, no matter > who is driving it, they hate it. "Encryption is a right" reveals that crypto-libbies are honkey-man analogs of PC creeps: everything is a right. > the first lesson for radical libertarians bordering on anarchists > that love this list is not that Oppressive Government is the problem, but > that Government Is Always Bogus. a rather infantile philosophy that reminds > me of the way children defy authority or structure merely because it > is an authority or a structure, not because of any particular disagreements > they have with the underlying philosophy it expresses. (or rather, they > manufacture the disagreement with the philosophy as required, such that > the reasoning is, if an authority stands for [x], then I am against [x], and > against that authority). Yes. > and this is precisely the dysfunctional > philosophy to life I am referring to that I think will be discredited in > the long run as intellectually vacuous and actual counterproductive to > any kind of progress. Yes. > from what I have seen of Gingrich, he might be a potential leader of this > kind of "computer coalition". he is the congressman who has taken stands > on encryption issues and other key cyberspace issues that seem to suggest > an internal awareness of constitutional rights superseding momentarily- > politically-fashionable government legislative whims. of course I'm > putting on my flameproof longjohns as I say that. Don't bother putting anything on. He's a tool, a chump to his own megalomania: I'd love to see that pussy get elected. The moment someone sneezed, he'd set up a howl louder than a cat with a firecracker up its butt. He's just as snively as anyone else these days.

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Re: ACLU Cyber-Liberties Update: Nov. 8, 1995
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> > According to the government's own statistics, 1,800 innocent conversations >> > are intercepted each and every time a wiretap or other form of electronic >> > surveillance is placed. >> This seems curiously inefficient, even for government work. There was a discussion on the radio the other day that indicated that some drug dealers really _are_ encoding data on their phones - though Clipper won't help at all. The author was talking about hanging out with undercover drug agents while doing research on a book about the Mob or drug dealers or whatever. He and the cop were in a bar where a bunch of high-level dealers were hanging out; many of them were on their cellphones having conversations about "The 'patio furniture' you ordered is here. We can get you the 'three tables' on Tuesday; would you like a couple of 'chairs' with them also?" :-) The dealers weren't bothered by the cops being there; their lawyers were over at the next table in case they were needed. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0663 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281

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Re: Who needs time vaults anyway?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:15 PM 11/11/95 -0800, Simon Spero <ses(a)tipper.oit.unc.edu> wrote: >As for real time-release - how about just using conventional encryption, >and require it to be brute-forced? ..... Moore's law ..... Moore's law is really unpredictable - you can't be sure if the rate of increase will go up or down, which could affect brute-force time by a factor of 1000 pretty easily, especially if it suddenly becomes convenient to do something your crypto-algorithm happens to use. Also, there's a cost problem - a large brute-force project which requires N years to crack either needs to be ferociously expensive, or else it's easy for somebody to put a bunch of machines together to crack it faster. For anything that requires that level of paranoia, Moore's law probably makes the timing too unpredictable. It probably makes a lot more sense to just do contractual solutions, with secret-sharing protocols to minimize the effects of cheating, bankrupt service providers, and accidents. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0663 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281

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coding and nnet's
by Atp3000＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

cypherpunks! I just resently got interested in coding and cryptography, and I was wondering if you could suggest 3 or 4 papers that adresses the aplication of neural networks in cryptography. Thank's I really appreciate your time and consideration! Atp3000

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Re: "Industry Group Rebuffs U.S. on Encryption"
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:37 PM 11/9/95 +0100, someone who understandably prefers to be Anonymous wrote: >In only a few decades, crypto's gone from being unheard of to the object >of an increasingly high-profile PR war over "domestic and international >terrorists and criminals." The govt's position, however, hasn't changed >substantially: it doesn't like crypto, and it never will. It has changed substantially. Once "born classified" and subject to prison sentences during WWII, possession and use of crypto is now "legal as church on a Sunday." The government's position as late as 1978 (later in the case of Admiral Bobby) was that open publication of cryptographic research was good for a free trip to Leavenworth to make little ones out of big ones. [The fact that they threatened a lot more than they actually prosecuted doesn't mean that this wasn't their position.] Things have changed. >There will never >be a time when the cops who pull you over or drop by for a visit will say, >"Ma'am, if you've encrypted that, we respect the fact that you don't want >anyone to see that--so we'll just be going bow. You have a nice day, now, >y'hear." And there will never be no cops. It is easy to imagine such a thing since that is exactly what cops do now when they encounter people committing acts which used to be felonies. They ignore them. It is quite possible for social arrangements to change in such a way that the sovereign is no longer held to be able to compel testimony or the surrender of information. Certainly, technological changes can make cases where the cops are aware that you provably possess information rare. There were no nation states or cops prior to 1600. It is perfectly possible that there will be no nation states or cops at some point in the future. Since policing is a labor intensive occupation and as currently organized suffers from socialist inefficiency, it may well be disintermediated. Thus, cryptographic protocols can (if desired) practically exclude the possibility of theft (of digital goods). And if the bulk of the world's economy consists of digital goods/services (measured by value not volume or weight obviously <g>) then computers and crypto may be enough. Nanotechnology may make self defense more efficient than "others" defense and may make it so easy to defend against state power that it brings on the collapse of the nation state. Technological changes bring social changes. Full nanotechnology may not even be necessary. A computer is a nanomachine. The capabilities of these toys and the networks they run on may be enough in and of themselves to weaken monopoly institutions of coercion beyond their tipping points. DCF "Jan, you remember what happened 10 years ago today, don't you? The world ended. As we know it don't you mean?" -- Too much Firesign Theater, not enough Calculus.

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MS Corrects Press Release on "Samba" Security Problem
by llurch＠Networking.Stanford.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Win95 product manager let me know yesterday that they'd corrected some of the errors on their Web server. I'm sure Microsoft is planning to publicize the changes in greater detail, so I'll just summarize them here. Load the original security bugfix news release at gopher://quixote.stanford.edu/0R1271897-1279147-/win95netbugs side-by-side with the corrected version now at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/software/w95fpup.htm to see the changes. Notable corrections are: 1. Microsoft has retracted the puzzling allegation that SMBCLIENT sends "illegal commands" across the network. 2. Microsoft is now a bit more forthright in acknowledging that the problem applies to all language versions of Win95. They didn't change the date, and they still say that Samba is shareware. And they still fail to give proper credit to the third parties that actually found the problems for Microsoft. Oh well, can't have everything. Microsoft has also promised that localized (foreign-language) versions of the "updated files that address the issue" will be made available within two weeks. I still don't understand what the hold-up is, but a time frame is good. In addition, Microsoft is reconsidering the position of the NE4100 and certain NE2000- compatible PCMCIA cards like the EFA-207 on the hardware compatibility list because, well, they aren't. Yusuf has given his imprimatur of Official Microsoft Response to the discussion of the well-known IPX SAP routing and security issue saved at gopher://quixote.stanford.edu/0R161799-178969-/win95netbugs. Previously this had only been posted with the "speaking only for myself" disclaimer,. Microsoft had acknowledged only the specific "server name conflict issue" covered by PC Week, not the underlying general problem that has been widely discussed on Usenet. Maybe we'll get a good article into the Knowledge Base now. I'm still hoping they'll document the known and acknowledged ProviderPath problem with wsock32.dll. Progress comes slowly. -rich

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Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex
by stevenw＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I borrowed an interesting book from the library a while ago: _Information and Secrecy. Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex_. If this is old hat, please ignore. It covers the history of computing and comparing machines from the early 1900's to about 1950 -- devices employing photocells, relays, gas-filled tubes, microfilm, punched optical tape, mechanical integrators, etc. There is a fair amount of crypto relevance as it passes through WWII and the cracking of cyphers becomes important. It's also a tale of overly-ambitious projects that rarely worked, beaurocratic bumbling, influence, and ignorance. _Information and Secrecy. Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex_. Colin Burke The Scarecrow Press Inc. 1994 ISBN 0-8108-2783-2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Weller | "The Internet, of course, is more +1 415 390 9732 | than just a place to find pictures | of people having sex with dogs." stevenw(a)best.com | -- Time Magazine, 3 July 1995

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Love Bugs
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Nov 11 WSJ reports on the scare tactics of security consultants in the U.S. and by their co-conspiring counterparts -- spies -- abroad: Richard Heffernan, an information-security specialist for 30 years, said his clients sometimes return to their hotel rooms to find their belongings ransacked, especially in Europe. Some European companies will pay as much as $10,000 for the laptop of a Fortune 500 executive, he adds. Watch out for tiny surveillance tools. In 1992, the Canadian government reportedly warned businessmen that the French intelligence service was bugging airline seats and using undercover agents as flight attendants. Penlight cameras placed above airline seats can make readable photos of laptop screens. Spies on planes can overhear conversations from several seats away. Look for them in business suits with plenty of luggage, says security consultant Kevin Coffey. "These guys fit in." Another consultant estimates that 45% of bugs are on fax machines, and one group of U.S. executives inadverdently gave their secrets to the competition by using the fax machine at Moscow's upscale Metropol Hotel, which is staffed with former FBI and KGB operatives. If you are carrying extremely sensitive information, be especially paranoid. All this may be too much for some companies, who say they don't have time to evade possible spies. Rather than take the trouble, some companies end up postponing business plans aborad, saying, "Forget it. We'll come back in a few years." That's what they said at the office, now listen to the bug up Gigi's.

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