December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: GC Tech GlobeID pilot
by Jay Campbell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> http://globeid.gctech.fr/cgi-gid/welcome?Language=English >Sorry again, but because real content is and will be available >we commited to deliver only a few hundreds Web Wallets for this >pilot. You can still use the web form to apply for one... Except for this clause... | Caution: Following form is provided for demonstration purpose only. | If you really want to participate to the Globe ID electronic wallet pilot | program, please contact Mr. Pierre Edelman or GID95(a)GCTech.fr. On the surface, this doesn't look much different than First Virtual or any of the myriad other "let me hold your credit card number for you" sites. -- Jay Campbell - Regional Operations Manager -=-=-=-=-=-=- Sense Networking (Santa Cruz Node) edge(a)you.got.net "Shoot the Fruit Loop" 408.469.9400 "On the Information Superhighway, I'm the guy behind you in this morning's traffic jam leaning on his horn."

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Re: The future will be easy to use (fwd)
by Ed Carp 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> To: stevenw(a)best.com (Steven Weller) > Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: Re: The future will be easy to use (fwd) > Reply-to: perry(a)piermont.com > Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 08:29:10 -0500 > From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> > > Steven Weller writes: > > >Realisticaly, who in their right mind would buy a diskless workstation to > > >connect to Internet? > > > > The same sort of things could be said of the telephone compared with > > written correspondence. Why would anyone have one in their business or > > home? Anyone can overhear a conversation, people will just chat, the only > > thing you can do with it is talk, there is no record of the correspondence, > > why would anyone want to talk to people on the other side of town? etc. > > This is different. In an era of distributed processing, they are > returning you to the mainframe model. I don't see that this can work > very well. Considering how much more powerful a $1000 machine is, why > would you want something half that price that can do one hundredth as > much for you? I beg to differ. Even though Larry Ellison's idea is silly, I don't see it as returning us to the mainframe model. Rather, I see it as just a small step backwards. Right now, I've got a 486/DX2-66 with a paltry 50 MB HD on my desk at work. Most of its processing is done loading stuff off the LAN and running it locally. The fact that I have a local disk nakes not the slightest bit of difference except a boot-time. If the diskless workstation were to have *no* intelligence whatsoever, I'd agree with you. As to diskless workstations being of no value, again, I'd have to disagree. Diskless workstations, expecially X terminals that have a little NVRAM in them, have been rather popular for several years as a way to get graphical objects onto people's desks without having to shell out a ton of money in the process. The only reason that they're getting less popular is that PC prices have fallen dramatically for the past several years, so much so that it's cost-effective to put a DX2-66 with 8 MB of RAM and a little disk (or no disk at all) on someone's desktop as opposed to something from Network General. Me, I'm waiting for the day that someone gets clever and puts Linux into ROM. :) Java is starting to get really hot, so much so that I was telling my spouse that if she wanted to learn Java, she'd have steady contracts in the next year or so, even in the sticks of Dallas ;) The point is, the market for a cheap, fast PC that will run applets *is* there, or will be soon. I only hope that they make it upgradeable, so *I* can put that 5 GB array on it, and beef up the memory without having to take a second mortgage to do it.

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PGP hooks for Pegasus Mail?
by Ed Carp 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anyone done anything regarding PGP hooks into Pegasus Mail? I'm running it at home now (SLIPped into my Linux box), and I'd like to find a way to integrate PGP into Pegasus Mail. Thanks in advance for any replies... -- Ed Carp

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NAV_dat
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Zero Kelvin crypto but The NYPaper hisses 28 Nov: The US Navy is starting to release a treasure trove of physical data about the sea that was gathered in secrecy during the long decades of the cold war, exciting scientists who see it as a bonanza for understanding environmental change. Over the decades, the Navy deployed thousands of ships, airplanes, submarines and satellites to collect such data. Usually kept secret, the archival readings are seen as unrivaled yardsticks for judging long-term processes of global climatic change and planetary warming. A geophysicist said the value of that data for scientific and commercial exploitation is measured in billions of dollars. "Scientific Utility of Naval Environmental Data," a June, 1995, 52-page appraisal by the Medea scientific advisory group, is available for free by telephoning (703) 883-5265 voice or (703) 883-6190 fax. NAV_dat (13 kb)

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Re: PGP hooks for Pegasus Mail?
by Lynne L. Harrison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:52 AM 11/28/95 +0000, you wrote: >Anyone done anything regarding PGP hooks into Pegasus Mail? I'm >running it at home now (SLIPped into my Linux box), and I'd like to >find a way to integrate PGP into Pegasus Mail. > >Thanks in advance for any replies... Ed - I haven't heard of anything re: "PGP hooks into Pegasus Mail". At one time, Eudora and ViaCrypt were discussing it but, from what I heard, those discussions fizzled out. The easiest way to *integrate* is to use a front end program. Regards - Lynne ******************************************************* Lynne L. Harrison, Esq. | "The key to life: Poughkeepsie, New York | - Get up; E-mail: | - Survive; lharrison(a)mhv.net | - Go to bed." *******************************************************

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Re: The future will be easy to use
by Jonathan Zamick 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:56 PM 11/26/95, James A. Donald wrote: >At 01:12 PM 11/27/95 -0800, Jonathan Zamick wrote: >> it >> means forming a group, made up of Cypherpunk members perhaps, but much >> smaller, and capable of working together. Also capable of handling not only >> the theory, but good solid code, GUI, PR, meetings, talking to the >> government, etc. > >Skip the talking to the government bit: Ignore, do not confront. I can't agree. The model of a successful enterprise includes feedback from different levels of participants. Regardless, the government will be taking a role in encryption. Thus even if they aren't a defining part of the development, bringing them to a limited extent into the loop, and finding even small areas which the government would support, helps provide better buy-in by the government officials who participate, helping the momentum. The point isn't to bring them into the design, but simply to use their feedback to optimize our PR approach. Jonathan ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ..Jonathan Zamick Consensus Development Corporation.. ..<JonathanZ(a)consensus.com> 1563 Solano Ave, #355.. .. Berkeley, CA 94707-2116.. .. o510/559-1500 f510/559-1505.. ..Mosaic/WWW Home Page: .. .. Consensus Home Page ..

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Re: The future will be easy to use
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"raph(a)c2.org" "Raph Levien" 27-NOV-1995 17:11:37.38 It _is_ doable. I know the skill is out there. Wei Dai, Eric Young, Peter Gutmann, and others have proved themselves quit capable of writing good solid code. Sameer Parekh has done an incredible job with PR. Phil Karn, Dan Bernstein, and some others (who I'm not sure want to be named) are talking to the government. GUI I'm less sure about, but I'd hope that some cpunks would come out of the woodwork. ------------------ If you'd like a non-programmer user to test out the user interface, I'm available to some degree if it's usable on a VAX (and to a lesser degree for MS-DOS). Given the number of people like me who are interacting using a non-GUI interface for various reasons (including using a mainframe for email), I would suggest not making it specifically GUI-dependant. -Allen

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Re: Bitbux could eliminate some domestic currencies?
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"frantz(a)netcom.com" 27-NOV-1995 02:55:15.66 Gresham's law says that the bad money drives the good money out of circulation. Does this mean that real cash is better than ecash ;-). ------------------ You may realize this (due to the smiley), but what Gresham's law says is that hard to distinguish bad money druves good money out of circulation. If something is distinguishable, then it works the other way around (see the replacement of the ruble by the dollar in pre-modern Russia, for instance). -Allen

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Re: The future will be easy to use
by Jonathan Zamick 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:26 AM 11/28/95, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >Jonathan Zamick writes: >> I can't agree. The model of a successful enterprise includes feedback from >> different levels of participants. > >This isn't an enterprise. The government is not a participant except >by their own desire to interfere. > >> Regardless, the government will be taking a role in encryption. > >What makes you say that? Besides, why would that be desirable on any >level? > >The Government will try to set standards and we will ignore them until >they try to force them on us by law, period. This discussion was based on a group of people getting together to create a new easy to use package for handling keys and such. The government is going to try to take a dominant stance, and mandate elements of it. That has to be assumed. Those elements we don't agree with will be ignored or worked around (depending if its government opinion or government law.) However, it is possible, even in an antagonistic relationship, to develop positive feedback. I may be cracked, but I'd like to think that it would be an advantage to find some area where the government and the Cypherpunk members do agree, to minimize the conflict over the areas where we don't. Still, this is getting past the original topic, and gets more into the religious level of whether there can be any cooperation when the two sides are Government and Good/Widespread Encryption. My stance is that currently, no, but that doesn't preclude it in the future. Others don't see it happening at all, or don't see it worth the investment to achieve. That is perfectly valid. --- Returning to the original topic though, do we want to get a smaller list together to spec out some ideas for the project that was discussed? A simple, transparent, tool which would allow people to use strong encryption without having to think about it? I don't have much time to contribute right now, but I can at least put together the list, and some ideas. Jonathan ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ..Jonathan Zamick Consensus Development Corporation.. ..<JonathanZ(a)consensus.com> 1563 Solano Ave, #355.. .. Berkeley, CA 94707-2116.. .. o510/559-1500 f510/559-1505.. ..Mosaic/WWW Home Page: .. .. Consensus Home Page ..

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Re: The future will be easy to use
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"perry(a)piermont.com" 28-NOV-1995 12:49:12.47 "E. ALLEN SMITH" writes: > Phil Karn, Dan Bernstein, and some others (who I'm not sure want to > be named) are talking to the government. If you call lawsuits "talking", not that talking is important. ----------------- Umm... I wasn't the one that wrote that. It was included in the message to which I was replying. -Allen

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