December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Public Reviews of CheckFree Wallet system?
by Harry S. Hawk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here is some more information on the Checkfree Wallet (tm) system. I've learn about it from some reporting I've been doing on it.. 1) Has there been any public review of this product? Here is the basic run down It uses a 768-bit key. They claim it is not escrow-ed with the US government. It is export able to most countries except for Sudan, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Iraq ot Iran. It encrypts limited bits of information (like Credit Card Numbers) which is why they claim it was able to get export approval. User configures the Wallet(tm) by downloading and installing and configuring it. It works with Proxy servers which I have successfully tested. It generates a public and private key pair using RSA technology. It keeps the payer anonymous to the merchant via the internet. Merchants can learn the payer's name out of band (e.g., by phone). No credit card info is stored on a merchant's site. Payment is encrypted and signed buy the payer and sent to the merchant who add's there version of the transaction and their signature. It is forwarded to check free who then decrypt, compare the payers' and merchant's view of the transaction and if they agree process it. It use is very very quick and easy. It auto configures itself to Netscape. Payment information is sent to the Wallet (TM) from the merchant in a Mime segment, which triggers a launch of the Wallet, the payer binds in their credit card data (all ready at Checkfree (at installation) e.g., which card to use. Then the whole thing is sent to the merchant then the onto Checkfree for processing as indicated above. I was very impressed with the software and it's easy of use. Currently only works on Windows but soon on the Mac.. /hawk -- Harry Hawk Manager of Interactive Communications Warwick Baker & Fiore 212 941 4438 habs(a)warwick.com

1 0

"The Policeman Inside"
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:35 PM 11/5/95, Mats Bergstrom wrote: >Well, also in Sweden, but this is merely against tax money transfered to >the 'less fortunate' (or 'lazy', as you sometimes call them) and is very >little, if at all, connected to anti-surveillance. Cross-referencing >various databases would actually be good for catching those who receive, >for example, unemploment money while actually working full time (especially >common amongst Mediterranian and Middle East 'political' refugees - many >of whom like to come here and work for a handful of years, sometimes adding >a decade to their actual age so they can go home to a warm climate at 55 >to live as kings on their Swedish pensions). Isn't this a dilemma, also at >your home turf? FINCEN efficiency might save some of your tax dollars. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Mats' point is an important issue to think about. The "conservative" who wants to get the bums off welfare and keep his hard-earned kroners or francs may embrace a FinCEN-type computerized police state. In a system of extensive transfer payments, such "person number" tracking is needed to ensure that Citizen Units do not make double claims, do not retire before they have made their full productive contribution to the welfare of the herd, and so on. A "libertarian" would argue that when economic interactions are uncoerced, when there are few if any lay-abouts collecting food stamps, welfare, AFDC, WICC, generous pensions paid by taxpayers, etc., then the "need" for Citizen Unit identification vanishes. This actually has some crypto relevance, besides the obvious crypto anarchy connections. Nameley, parallels with "offline" and "online" clearing. A system in which pieces of paper and various promissory notes are transferred around as money, with later (offline) clearing, tends to require True Names. This so that defaulting parties can be tracked down and collected from. (And of course there are also tax issues, and regulatory issues, but I'm concentrating on the offline or deferred clearing issues that tend to make True Names and physical identities more important.) By contrast, a cash economy--online or immediate clearing--tends to not require identification. "Cash and carry," which has worked for millenia in diverse cultures which have no forms of identification. One pays in corn, or beads, or gold, and that's that. (There are, as Futplex noted I like to say, "lots of issues." We could discuss exceptions to this, such as contracts, age credentials, etc. But, generally, cash transactions tend to produce no compelling need for identification. This is the norm in most retail transactions, unless "checks" or other forms of deferred clearing payment are tendered.) The modern "identity state" is becoming consumed with the notion that everyone needs an index number. Not necessarily because the police want to compile dossiers on them (though this is a factor), but because of the focus on rules and regulations which affect _monetary flows based on identity_. In the U.S. for example, one used to just be able to pay someone to cut one's lawn in cash (or check, if he trusted you, blah blah) or babysit one's children. Now, under new crackdowns on social security laws, income tax estimated payment laws, hiring of undocumented workers laws, etc., this is technically no longer possible. One must, above some tiny threshold of payments, file various tax and social security forms, and take steps to ensure the worker is properly documented (*) (* Most white people in America have little "proof" that they are proper Citizen Units. This leads to uncomfortable situations where only brown- and yellow-skinned persons are asked to prove their identities and their Citizen Unit or Resident Unit status.) There is strong pressure on several fronts to establish a "National Identification Card." Others are opposed. My point, originally, to Rich Graves' mention of Chris Hibbert's excellent FAQ on Social Security Numbers and person numbers, is that it is no longer relevant to fight against a "single index number." Modern data base methods are so well-suited to cross-indexing that it hardly matters whether there's a single point of entry to the data base or not. THE KEY POINT IS THIS: Are voluntary economic transactions between persons to be subject to approval and regulation by the State? If babysitting and lawnmowing, not to mention hiring someone to write some C code, requires submitting tax and Social Security forms, requires checking the J-1 vs. Permanent Resident vs. Approved Citizen Unit status, then the die is cast. Ordinarily, or in earlier years, these rules might have been dismissed as trivial or as mostly ignorable. After all, so long as one is not planning to become Attorney General, who cares whether a housekeeper was "legal" or not? Who cares whether the detailed Social Security, IRS, and Immigration Control forms were filled out properly, or at all? Well, the State is becoming more efficient in tracking such things, and tax penalties are increasing. Further, bounties are being paid to those who inform on "tax cheats." Computerized records are being used to spot those with "apparent incomes" (= lifestyles) inconsistent with their tax filing status. Sure, part of this is to catch "double dippers," such as those collecting unemployment, welfare, AFDC, disability benefits while also doing work on the side. (There's a whole issue here of the laws about welfare recipients not being allowed to work, which I won't get into.) But the danger, and something that should inform our Cypherpunks discussions, is that these laws which are tied to one's status as a Person Unit in the system, inevitably require an extensive "identity tracking" regimen. The libertarian and anarcho-capitalist solution is not to increase the power of the surveillance state to detect fraud and non-compliance, but to roll things back to a more even keel. Even if one believes taxes are "the price paid for civilization," there are superior alternatives to the current system. (My current favorite is: mandatory slavery for X days per year, regardless of age or ability. Instead of taxes, everyone works one day in five, or 2 months out of the year, etc., for the herd. Building roads, picking up trash, administering computers, etc. There are "lots of issues," but even I agree this list is not the best place to discuss it; I mention it in passing.) In closing, we must beware "the policeman inside," to use the William Burroughs term. A surveillance state that arises because modern computers and data bases allow all economic transactions to be monitored, taxed, and approved or disapproved is a horror we should fight with all of our resources. Whether right-, left-, or libertarian-leaning, the implications of this state power to control our lives are horrible. --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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."

2 1

censored? corrected
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

NOTE: More than 8 hours have passed since I sent this text in plaintext directly to Cypherpunks without its being posted, so in this attempt I am sending it encrypted through ALUMNI remailer. - Gary Jeffers gjeffers(a)socketis.net INFO BLACKOUT From THE SPOTLIGHT newspaper's TECHNOLOGY & LIBERTY column by Clark Matthews - Nov. 06, 1995 issue. Powerful national security insiders have established effective control over the entrance gateways to Internet. Disturbing signs are now emerging that the "information superhighway" has been targeted for systematic sur- veillance and political dossier-building on Americans' opinions. This ominous news came in the first of a series of articles by investi- gative journalist Steven Pizzo in WEB REVIEW, an online magazine of cyber- culture and politics (http://gnn.com/wr/) published by Songline Studios of San Francisco. Pizzo is the author of INSIDE JOB, a groundbreaking expose' on the massive fraud and theft of insured deposits in 1980s savings and loan debacle. According to Pizzo, control of Internet "domain name registration" has passed into private hands-with the potential for serious mischief or worse. "Domain names" are the odd looking identifying names that are as- signed to individual computer systems that compose the Internet (logoplex. com, for example). Through a complex chain of licensing arrangements and corporate acqui- sitions detailed in Pizzo's article, this crucial control over Internet domain names has passed from the non-profit National Science Foundation to Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) of Herndon, Virginia. Last May, amid growing public disbelief of Establishment media reports about the Oklahoma City bombing provocation, NSI was purchased by Scientific Applications Interna- tional Corporation (SAIC) of San Diego. SAIC is a $2 billion defense and FBI contractor with a board of direc- tors that reads like a Who's Who of the intelligence community. Board members include Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, the former director of the Na- tional Security Agency (NSA) and deputy director of the CIA; Melvin Laird, defense secretary under Richard Nixon; Donald Hicks, former head of re- search & development for the Pentagon; Donald Kerr, former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory; and Gen. Maxwell Thurman (ret.), the commander of the U.S. invasion of Panama. Former members of SAIC's board include Robert Gates, the former CIA director under George Bush; current CIA director John Deutch; Anita Jones, Deutch's former Pentagon procurement officer, and William Perry, the pre- sent secretary of defense. The corporation also has a legion of computer network specialists and an entire division of computer consultants. SAIC currently holds contracts for re-engineering the Pentagon's information systems, automating the FBI'S computerized fingerprint identification system, and building a na- tional criminal history infomation system. The Internet is a marvel of computer software technology. It was de- signed to survive a nuclear attack on the United States-like the Post Office, it's literally smart enough to find a way to get the mail through, even if most of the network is missing. But control of Internet domain name registration means the ability to remove troublesome-or outspoken-computer systems from the network. Po- tentially, this control also confers the power to insinuate "phantom" domains into the network-for surveillance purposes, for example-or for real-time, automatic censorship. Furthermore, anecdotal evidence gathered by this author suggests that actual "truth control" is taking place on the 'net now. E-mail messages with controversial contents-including the details of the SAIC takover of domain names-have consistently disappeared as they travel across the net- work. News items concerning the Vincent Foster "suicide" investigation and allegations of NSA bank spying through compromised Inslaw software are being quickly and automatically canceled. And the cancellations are not by by their authors. CRACKDOWN With domain names under the control of secret government insiders, it is even theoretically possible that large parts of the Internet could be SHUT DOWN AND SILENCED at critical times. This could be accomplished by suddenly altering domain name registrations or interposing compromised "domains" at crucial points. These compromised systems could serve as "black holes" at critical times, stopping e-mail and important news from reaching the world-or the rest of the country. Exercises in "turning the Internet off" have already taken place in Taiwan and Hong Kong. In Taiwan, the 'net was successfully shut down. All network traffic-including news, opinions and e-mail sent by computer users-was successfully "bottled up" on the island and prevented from reaching the world. In Hong Kong, the Internet wasn't quite strangled, but the British authorities who control that colony managed to throttle free electronic speech with the rest of the world until everything was bottlenecked into a few little-known satellite links. These are alarming precedents and sure signs that powerful, shadowy forces are preparing to chop at the very roots of America's new Liberty Tree. The secretive people on the board of directors of SAIC are intell- igence professsionals skilled at manufacturing events-and then manufact- uring public opinion and consent by controlling the truth. Will Internet disinformation, censorship or "shutdowns" signal the next American crisis?

9 12

FBI seeks huge wiretapping system
by Jay Campbell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In today's San Jose Mercury, online edition. Forgive me if this has already been passed around. -=- FBI seeks huge wiretapping system BY JOHN MARKOFF New York Times The FBI has proposed a national wiretapping system of unprecedented size and scope that would give law enforcement officials the capacity to monitor simultaneously as many as one out of every 100 phone lines in some high crime areas of the country. Such a surveillance ability would vastly exceed the current needs of law enforcement officials around the country, who in recent years have conducted an annual average of less than 850 court-authorized wiretaps -- or fewer than one in every 174,000 phone lines. The plan, which needs congressional approval for the money to finance it, would still require a court warrant to conduct wiretaps. Still, the proposed expansion of the government's eavesdropping abilities raises questions among telephone industry executives as to why the FBI believes it may require such broad access to the nation's phone network in the future. And privacy-rights advocates see the specter of a Big Brother surveillance capability whose very existence might encourage law enforcement officials to use wiretapping much more frequently as an investigative tool. ``A proposal that envisions some form of electronic surveillance for one of every 100 telephone lines would be frightening to many people,'' said James Dempsey, deputy director at the Center for National Security, a public policy organization in Washington. ``I think law enforcement needs to be honest with the public about what its intentions are.'' Generally, FBI officials contend that an advanced, high-capacity monitoring system will be necessary as more of modern life and business -- and crime -- takes place as voice or computer conversations over digital phone lines. On digital lines, communications are transmitted in electronic pulses represented by the 1's and 0's of computer code. Such communications are harder to monitor than with the old-fashioned analog lines in which conversations are transmitted as electronic signals corresponding to audible sound waves. An FBI spokesman declined to elaborate on the bureau's perceived need for such an expansion of its wiretapping abilities. ``The full implementation is absolutely essential for law enforcement and public safety,'' said Mike Kortan, an FBI spokesman in Washington. ``We are in ongoing discussions with the communications industry. Therefore it would be inappropriate to comment further at this point.'' The plan, which was published in the Federal Register on Oct. 16 but has not drawn much attention yet outside law enforcement and industry circles, is the first comprehensive outline by the FBI of the surveillance capabilities it will require under the controversial Digital Telephony Act that was signed by President Clinton in 1994. The law was adopted in the closing hours of the previous Congress after the administration overcame telephone industry resistance to the extensive network equipment changes that will be required to permit digital wiretapping. In order to overcome that opposition, the administration promised that the government would allocate $500 million to help upgrade industry networks. Whether the law will ever go into effect is an open question, because it requires a federal appropriation, to be paid for out of criminal fines and penalties, that Congress has not yet authorized. The budget legislation now pending on Capitol Hill has no proviso for the digital wiretapping money, although the House budget bill included a wiretapping allocation until last week. The House measure was deleted after objections from several freshman Republicans, including Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, a former federal prosecutor, who said that he objected to the way the money for wiretapping would be raised and that he had concerns about how the FBI might use such a sweeping surveillance ability. But some lawmakers say the Clinton administration, which has vowed to veto the current federal budget bill, saw little point in pushing for inclusion of the financing for the wiretapping at this time. And others note that money for the digital wiretapping plan, presented as a tough anti-crime measure, could be difficult for lawmakers of either party to oppose outright. The FBI and the Clinton administration are expected to continue seeking funds in the future. The scope of the FBI plan has startled telephone industry executives, who said it was difficult to estimate how much it would ultimately cost to carry out the capacity increases. The officials are worried, however, that if federal funds are not forthcoming, the government may attempt to shift the financing burden to the rates that businesses and consumers pay to use the telephone network. ``The difficulty in this process is going to come down the road when they ask us to redesign our entire systems and not pay us,'' said Larry Clinton, associate vice president for governmental affairs at the U.S. Telephone Association, an Washington-based industry lobbying group. ``If they try to make rate payers pay for this we will run into serious and perhaps even constitutional problems which we hope to avoid.'' The FBI plan, as filed in the Federal Register, calls for designating each local telephone as falling under one of three categories. Category I would be made up of urban areas, where most electronic surveillance currently takes place. In these regions, telecommunications carriers would be required to make available up to 1 percent of their network capacity when sought by law-enforcement officials. In lower-crime urban and suburban areas, designated Category II, phone companies would need to make available up to five-tenths of a percent of their network lines, while the predominantly rural low-crime Category III areas would require 0.25 percent. For many of the most densely populated metropolitan areas, like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, there are tens of millions of phone lines. The FBI document contends that in such places, the demands of digital wiretapping may make it necessary to intercept tens of thousands of phone calls at once. Some industry officials said they were at a loss to understand how the government expected to make use of such requirements. At an industry gathering last year, telephone industry executives discussing the Digital Telephony Act could not think of an example of more than seven wiretaps ever being run from a single phone company office at any one time, according to Ron Peat, director of federal legislation analysis for the Pacific Telesis Group, the San Francisco-based regional Bell company. Some technology experts said that the FBI's projected needs, which the bureau said were based on historical records and on demographic data and market forecasts, reflect a growing belief by law enforcement that electronic surveillance will rapidly increase in importance in the digital age, where most communications will take place using an array of mobile computerized devices. ``These are staggering numbers,'' said Mark Rasch, director of information security law and policy for Science Applications International Corp. in McLean, Va. ``Either they do a lot more wiretaps than they now admit, or they plan on doing a significant larger number of wiretaps in the future because of the fear of domestic terrorism.'' -- Jay Campbell edge(a)got.net - Operations Manager -=-=-=-=-=-=- Sense Networking, Santa Cruz Node Jay(a)Campbell.net got.net? PGP MIT KeyID 0xACAE1A89 "On the Information Superhighway, I'm the guy behind you in this morning's traffic jam leaning on his horn."

6 7

Re: lp (134.222.35.2)?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by perry(a)piermont.com ("Perry E. Metzger") on Sun, 05 Nov 12:13 PM >Quit looking for the spooks where they aren't. You >should always assume your line is being tapped if you >are saying something you don't want heard, anway. True, it's not Smokey behind the billboard, blinked at you by oncoming headlights, it's the sensors in the roadbed that reads your tag -- when it leaves your home-ain, then at the remailer donkeystops, then at your recreational stash-house, at the pedo-filmery, at the Semtex-Pantex workhide, at the digi-wallet-copyfast, right into ananonymous Ken-Barbie's e-slot. TLA-Smokey is friendly, maybe intra-humanly let you off with a warning, not the anonymous high-techery, it responds only to its friend, the tag -- tracing, storing, mutating the whinefleshers, 0's by 1's. That's the how, maybe, but for who or what or why? Or is it just machines feeding machines incomprehensibles?

1 0

DIR_ty$
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

10-30-95. In slave to Orlin Crabbe's "The Money Laundromat," The NYPaper has a Page One lead story: "Cali Drug Cartel Using U.S. Business to Launder Cash. 105 Firms Suspected. Trade Related Schemes Said to Have Moved $3 Billion Through Companies." DIR_ty$

1 0

Meeting: Nov. 4 in Austin, TX
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, A reminder to those in the central Texas area on Saturday (Nov. 4, 1995) from 6-8pm. The Austin chapter will be meeting at Ted's Greek Restaraunt on the 400 block of Congress (next to Oscar Snowden's). We will be trying to wrest control of the last couple of tables in the rear. Issues we will be discussing: * Further interests of the members and forming working groups. * Make further arrangements to start doing PGP key signing services at the end of the monthly EFF meeting. * Discuss doing a 1-hour video on the basic ideas and issues of cryptography and current society. * Invitation from CT-LUG to come to their next build-up which is scheduled for Nov. 18 but is tentative for now. If all works well this may be an opportunity to play with some re-mailer software under Linux. Hope to see some of you there! Jim Choate ravage(a)einstein.ssz.com

1 0

whose watchin the watchers
by Stephen Whitaker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The following is an exerpt is from Jim Warren's listserv, GovAccess 183. Are there folks on this list who have insights or definitive information on this topic? Are there ways for someone with access to modify router tables to constantly create alternate paths at other routers which would serve to end-around any such snoops? ***********begin_included_text************************* &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Is Someone Already Watching All International Net Traffic? The following is the transcript of an actual communications trace that a friend ran, while I was sitting next to him, watching -- reprinted here with his permission. He did a "traceroute" of two messages that he sent from his machine in Switzerland (he'd telneted into it while we were at a computer conference in California). Traceroute automatically reports each Internet node through which a message passes, as it proceeds from origin to destination. He did two traceroutes. The first was from Switzerland to an addressee at Netcom in San Jose, California. The second was from Switzerland to an addressee in Israel. Date: Fri, 21 Apr 95 02:54:58 +0200 From: kelvin(a)fourmilab.ch (John Walker) To: jwarren(a)well.com Subject: Traceroute > /usr2/kelvin> traceroute netcom11.netcom.com traceroute to netcom11.netcom.com (192.100.81.121), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 eunet-router (193.8.230.64) 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 2 146.228.231.1 (146.228.231.1) 326 ms 345 ms 307 ms 3 Bern5.CH.EU.NET (146.228.14.5) 447 ms 408 ms 364 ms 4 146.228.107.1 (146.228.107.1) 127 ms 37 ms 36 ms 5 Zuerich1.CH.EU.NET (146.228.10.80) 37 ms 38 ms 175 ms 6 (134.222.9.1) 65 ms 109 ms 252 ms 7 lp (134.222.35.2) 196 ms 179 ms 405 ms 8 Vienna1.VA.ALTER.NET (137.39.11.1) 191 ms 179 ms 313 ms 9 fddi.mae-east.netcom.net (192.41.177.210) 336 ms 204 ms 303 ms 10 t3-2.dc-gw4-2.netcom.net (163.179.220.181) 182 ms 251 ms 187 ms 11 t3-2.chw-il-gw1.netcom.net (163.179.220.186) 305 ms 586 ms 518 ms 12 t3-2.scl-gw1.netcom.net (163.179.220.190) 537 ms 693 ms 797 ms 13 t3-1.netcomgw.netcom.net (163.179.220.193) 698 ms 549 ms 754 ms 14 netcom11.netcom.com (192.100.81.121) 890 ms 1922 ms 1696 ms > /usr2/kelvin> traceroute jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il traceroute to jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il (192.114.21.101), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 eunet-router (193.8.230.64) 2 ms 3 ms 2 ms 2 146.228.231.1 (146.228.231.1) 933 ms 853 ms 874 ms 3 Bern5.CH.EU.NET (146.228.14.5) 1040 ms 450 ms 525 ms 4 146.228.107.1 (146.228.107.1) 453 ms 424 ms 188 ms 5 Zuerich1.CH.EU.NET (146.228.10.80) 64 ms 61 ms 47 ms 6 (134.222.9.1) 80 ms 312 ms 84 ms 7 lp (134.222.35.2) 270 ms 400 ms 216 ms 8 Vienna2.VA.ALTER.NET (137.39.11.2) 660 ms 1509 ms 886 ms 9 dataserv-gw.ALTER.NET (137.39.155.38) 1829 ms 1094 ms 1306 ms 10 orion.datasrv.co.il (192.114.20.22) 1756 ms 1280 ms 1309 ms 11 ... Notice that both messages went through an unnamed site -- 134.222.9.1 and then a strangely-named site, "lp (134.222.35.2)" -- then through the same Vienna, Virginia (USA) site ... and thereafter, on to their destination. I.e., the second message went through Virginia to get from Switzerland to Israel. The whois servers at the InterNIC and at nic.ddn.mil for MILNET Information report, ``No match for "134.222.9.1". '' and `` No match for "134.222.35.2".'' Now let me see ... which spy agencies are located in or near Virginia? --jim &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& ***********end_included_text*************************

1 0

Re: Escrow system design query
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There is no one "key escrow backbone network" There's a link on my page @ www.best.com/~geeman to the Key Recovery Demostration Program, and the infrastructure study task group ... have a look there at what's going on. At 08:03 PM 9/14/97 -0400, Michael Wilson wrote: > >Does anyone know of a solid document out there in the web that actually >describes the proposed key escrow backbone network? After wading through >considerable junk in the search engines (my, but the net is wordy on the >topic), I didn't turn up anything that looked like architecture. >MW > > >

1 0

e$: The Movie
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Announcing e$: The Movie 11/6/95 Almost a year ago, I noticed that traffic was tapering off on one of the digital commerce e-mail lists I'm subscribed to, www-buyinfo, which is run by Dave Kristol at ATT. So, every once in a while, I started zinging relevant crossposts over there from cypherpunks, a famous crypto list with about 20-25% e$ content. I started getting actual fan mail for this, so I kept doing it. Now, it seems that, say, 85% of all of the traffic on www-buyinfo is my cross-posting from cypherpunks. Dave says there are 500-600 people worldwide who have stayed on www-buyinfo during all this time, so it seems like I can claim at least some of them as an audience for what I'm doing, with no promotion of the list at all, except word of mouth. We've even had several discussions on the list about whether I should continue doing it, and every time we've done so, the answer has been a resounding "yes". However, www-buyinfo does have a charter, and even though what I'm doing drifts the charter substantially, I'm restricted in what I can put there. It's not fair to Dave or the subscribers for me to turn their list into my private spam channel. Also, Dave has said repeatedly that he's interested in re-tooling www-buyinfo into something more technical, so, at some point, the party's going to be over, and we'll have to pack up our tents and move on. Meanwhile, I've also taken to writing on the net, and more recently, speaking to professional groups, on the topic of e$, and I have gotten very good response to that as well. An edited version of one of my longer net.rants is in this week's InfoWorld, for instance. That one got me fan mail from all sorts of people (like Guy Kawasaki, Stewart Alsop, and Adam Engst, for instance) when the original version appeared first in the apple-internet-users list a while back. I've managed to have a lot of fun with this stuff. One of my suggestions on cypherpunks started ecm, the secondary market for Digicash's beta-test digital cash certificates. I had so much fun talking about digital commerce with Peter Cassidy, a freelance writer for Forbes ASAP, Wired, and the Economist, that the two of us started the Boston Society for Digital Commerce, a luncheon group that meets once a month to talk about this stuff. BSDC has about 40 members now, and our second meeting is on Tuesday. So, I've decided I'd jump into this with both feet. A friend of mine at Apple Computer, Vinnie Moscaritolo, has volunteered his time to put up a web site about e$. It's pretty much live, though still under construction, at its temporary home of http://www.webstuff.apple.com/~vinnie/rah/ . Vinnie is now in the process of hooking up a small stand-alone machine, to live somewhere else on the net besides in Apple's domain, which will house this web-site along with three mailing lists, all of which will be archived and eventually web-searchable. Over the next few weeks, we'll be starting up these lists and announcing them here. They are: * _e$_: A discussion list on digital commerce and financial cryptography and their consequences. This list will be for people who have a strong understanding of markets of all kinds, who understand the consequences of strong cryptography and digital certificate technology on public networks, and who want to make money in this environment. We welcome Entrepreneurs, Analysts, Cryptographers (Amateur and Otherwise), Free Marketeers, small-"l" libertarians, and, even (horrors!) a crypto-anarchist or two. * _e$pam_: My personal spam-channel to the universe. ;-). Pretty much what I do now with www-buyinfo from cypherpunks, only with all the net.sources I can find. It will have the same content touchstone as e$ will, but it will consist entirely of filtered information from secondary sources. In other words, it won't say "e$spam" until I say it says "e$spam". At some point, e$spam will have filter-fodder in it -- or some other method will be set up -- so that people who are already subscribed to one of the lists I'm filtering won't have to see things twice. We're still working on that. * _Ne$ws_, a newsletter with original content from myself and various other authors, in the same vein as Adam Engst's TidBITS, but focused on the subject of e$. I figure that there are enough different ways to pay for both my time and the resources necessary to make this work that it's now worth spending a little of my own time and resources in order to get all this started. Certainly the market for information and commentary on e$ isn't getting any smaller. I'm looking at a sort of "creep, crawl, walk, run" scenario for funding all of this. The first stage will be to solicit sponsorships, both in-kind and in plain old money. The second will probably be to determine whether subscriptions to any or all of the e$ lists or archives would ever make sense. Finally, with the advent of real digital cash on the net, and with First Virtual proving e$ trades can be done by anyone, it may be possible to do some kind of e$ micropayment-as-you-go system for things like subscriptions, web-archive access, and the like, so I'm looking at that also. Obviously, I'm don't want to price myself out of the market with all of this, because, like anything else on the net, anyone can come along and do exactly the same thing for less money, and then I'm out of business. I do think, however, that what I propose to do is worth money to the people who want it, and so I'm going to figure out how to get paid to do it. Well, that's about it. Watch this space for details, and wish me luck! Cheers, Bob Hettinga, impre$ario-to-be -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMJ04K/gyLN8bw6ZVAQG+2QQAowzLfmH5paNaZgrAdlEeSH9YcKysW07A B7QxbQhP9WIat2rMIA4HoIioQr+Xo5RZ3oOO+btSksHNnV1P3Q2Ca49BJxdMsQd7 GhdGoUv2/C150mH13crc3cZuOCChfisjYHM8So2XsuVjKex4ETZecDLfSn+b4yzl mtfJvZQ3e1o= =2vLb -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA (617) 323-7923 "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell >>>>Phree Phil: Email: zldf(a)clark.net http://www.netresponse.com/zldf <<<<<

1 0