December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: When they came for the Jews...
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In regards to all this, I thought that people might be interested in knowing about an interview on Fresh Aire, a radio program I heard via WNYC. The individual being interviewed was the American Jewish Committee's person on Hate Groups, Kenneth Stern. He was being interviewed due to a book he'd written before the Oklahoma City bombing, in which he (mis-)called all militia groups hate groups. In the interview, he was asked about the Simon Weisenthal Center's letter in regards to the Internet. He spoke in opposition to it, and mentioned later that he tends to advise people that the best solution for hate speech is speech against it- a definitely good message. He mentioned the Internet as being a popular place for militia and similar groups to form. The two reasons he gave were that it was an easy means to spread information, and that the information was hard to verify (the urban/computer legend phenomenon, helping give rise to the various conspiracy theories circulating on the Net). He also mentioned that "hate" groups, including militias are using encryption, but didn't say anything further. Unfortunately, he also had some problems, which I'll go into here because of the analogies between guns and cryptography. While having respect for the First Amendment's protections of speech and press, and (to some degree) even the Second Amendment's protections of the right to keep & bear arms, he forgot completely about freedom of association- he called for a federal law making it a felony to have "private armies." There are some such laws on the books on various states, but they are (fortunately) not enforced, and thus have not yet been constitutionally challenged. The second group of his problems were in defining all militia groups as "hate" groups. His basic analysis for this was threefold: A. They have members in common with some definite hate groups, such as the Aryan Nations. B. Some militias have made racist, etcetera statements that qualify them as hate groups. C. They hate somebody, namely the federal government. The first argument falls apart once one points out that this is a classic conspiracy theorist untrue argument- one can use it to argue that the Trilateral Commission runs the US government, for instance. The second argument is obviously false. It's a variety of stereotyping, something that I would have thought he'd be more sensitive to. The third argument would classify the Simon Weisenthal Center as a hate group... he might actually have the guts to do this, since he also named the Nation of Islam as a hate group (due to their antisemitism, though, not due to their anti-white racism). All in all, though, he gave a much better impression for his group than I've gathered for the Simon Weisenthal Center. IIRC, the latter was essentially put together to pursue Nazis, as opposed to Neo-Nazis. My guess is that they're feeling useless and wanting to pursue somebody- sort of like the Secret Service and Steve Jackson Games. -Allen

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Shimomura on TV?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Someone just said that NBC's Dateline showed a snippet of Shimomura on an upcoming show about rampant cyber-crime and that he was the best hope against it, or something to that effect. Did anyone see it and get the time and date? Anyone attend the Shimomura-Markoff lecture at Stanford today? Is this the media blitz for their pot-boiler? Can't wait to slurp it.

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legal question
by Perry E. Metzger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A question for our local attorneys. There have been several times in the past where people have questioned whether cryptographic hash functions like SHA and the like are exportable under the ITAR? In a joint declaration of facts not in dispute as part of Karn v. State Department, the following was agreed by the government: (see http://www.qualcomm.com/people/pkarn/export/karnsf.html) 34. Three of the source code listings on the diskette and in Part Five of the Applied Cryptography book, MD-5, N-HASH, and SHS are "hashing routines" that perform a data authentication function and, by themselves, are not controlled for export under the ITAR because cryptographic software that is solely limited to a data authentication function is excluded from Category XIII(b) of the United States Munitions List. See 22 C.F.R. 121.1 XIII(b)(vi). Would this not mean that the government is estopped from ever again claiming that hash functions are export controlled under the ITAR? Just curious as to whether or not things have been made more clear... Perry PS they also admit in the same declaration to having broken Enigma in WWII. A shocking revelation.

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Re:
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMPTubCoZzwIn1bdtAQHDwQF+JX+aO6VsLP2lruyhHnybD44hSb/JLzU1 fTa36XwrRQoowAt1Hdw3NyqHB59BNxKm =b5TF -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Shimomura on TV?
by Anonymous User 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: Michael C. Peponis <mianigand(a)unique.outlook.net> > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > > Why let it bother you? You must understand that the majority of the ^^^^^^^^ > population of the United States is working class trash, the news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Hope you're including yourself in that. > media is just peddeling to the masses, just like the morons that hold ^^^^^^^^^ Can't spell - *must* be working class trash... > elected office. > > Regards, > Michael Peponis ^^^^^^^ Tell me: is the 'po' silent?

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web reference to PRZ FAX from US Atty
by Ed Carp [khijol SysAdmin] 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Got this off the web - it's a link to the letter that Phil got from the US attorney: http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/usatty_pgp_011196.announce U.S. Atty. DROPS PGP INVESTIGATION! - -- Ed Carp, N7EKG Ed.Carp(a)linux.org, ecarp(a)netcom.com 214/993-3935 voicemail/digital pager 800/558-3408 SkyPager Finger ecarp(a)netcom.com for PGP 2.5 public key an88744(a)anon.penet.fi "Past the wounds of childhood, past the fallen dreams and the broken families, through the hurt and the loss and the agony only the night ever hears, is a waiting soul. Patient, permanent, abundant, it opens its infinite heart and asks only one thing of you ... 'Remember who it is you really are.'" -- "Losing Your Mind", Karen Alexander and Rick Boyes -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMPXZYyS9AwzY9LDxAQG4BgP+PmA6GoUSMCpnvUfo+1v1MpFX0pdg66jN Foo5yuT+G2fIG1m+K4aVrZusPHhC+tHjx2kaMqn0ZSE9nC8U32blpt01+CE+xgp3 x4q5L6llkyEK4oWSrnjbZImcjm3VIrAiaj8S3+qGfAz3FEZ5ChJZ2Q4J91lsqv5z 3FY/xiKqu60= =Nrr2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: Net Control is Thought Control
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri the problem that "covert thought control" becomes more possible with an information age that does not handle identity in any "permanent" or "enduring" way. agent provocateurs etc. may be more difficult to identify and easier to create and maintain. in fact a single "government thought control agent" might be able to create and maintain dozens of convincing identities, all of them working to subtly manipulate the population's thinking without detection. (...) ........................................................................................................... I read the book, too, Nuri, and I think you overlooked an important point. It doesn't matter about the identity of the provocateur. It is the identity of the "target" which is crucial. It is when the prisoner in a psychologically restricted setting begins to identify with their agent-provocateur cell mates, to sympathize with and accept their ideology, that change in that prisoner's mind becomes possible and the thought control is achieved. This change in the prisoner's image of themselves is not so easily accomplished in a setting where they are free to leave, free to seek and hear other points of view - more importantly, the actual truth. "The primary effect of unfreezing is that it makes the prisoner seek information which will guide him in finding an adaptational solution to his problems. Such information can be gotten to some extent from the propaganda input to him via the mass media, lectures, loudspeakers, etc., but more likely is obtained from cell mates or interrogators who begin to be models of how to adapt successfully. The prisoner who has been unfrozen begins to treat the inter- personal cues he obtains from them as credible and valid, and begins to take their point of view seriously, where previously he may have paid no attention to it or even discounted it. " A mistake people make even when they are not physically imprisoned, is that they seek to benefit by association: they will accept an appearance of confidence as equivalent to knowledge, accepting the word of those who "seem to know", instead of searching for definite facts. They come to depend upon their identification with groups of such like-minded people, and thus get themselves in trouble when the whole herd is suddenly corralled and taken for a ride (by their leaders). Rather than worry so much about anyone's actual identity as a determining factor in what one will accept from them, I think it is much more critical to consider the content of the information they offer; to develop one's judgement (to "know how to know")so to be able to evaluate that information and make realistic decisions for one'self about what to support or what actions to take. .. Blanc

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archives
by don＠cs.byu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

will whoevers maintaining the cpunk archives please check them, they don't have anything since new years. And while you're at it, please put in a mailto: link so that you can be informed directly that they're down, or do I have to cc to postmaster and root? Thanks Don

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Re: Popular Science on US Spysats - Part 1
by stevenw＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Friend, > > > 02 96 Popular Science runs a cover story, America's First Eyes > in Space. It's by Stuart Brown. It's about "a secret space > reconnaisance program known as Corona." Yawn. Didn't I ask you to stop posting garbage to the list? Please do not grace us with parts 2, 3 or whatever. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Weller | "The Internet, of course, is more | 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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Good Riddance to Wiesenthal and His Nazis
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:26 PM 1/10/96, Adam Shostack wrote: > The Wiesenthal center is very influential in Jewish circles. >Attacking them directly would probably be a bad idea, and create bad >associations for anonymity amongst Jews. (I'll come back to this.) I for one won't hesitate to criticize these Jew Nazis. Who cares if it "creates bad associations for anonymity amongst Jews"? If a Jew is put off by condemnation of the Wiesenthalistas and their pogrom against free speech, I say good riddance. Didn't those Jews learn anything? It wasn't "free speech" in pre-war Germany that led to the extermination of Jews, it was the rise to power (by a combination of circumstances involving a putsch, the Reichstag fire, a feeble ruler, hunger for strong leadership, dire economic conditions, and other factors) by Hitler and the placing of too much power in the hands of a central government. >methodology. There is also a difference between stopping skinheads >and stopping blacks, in that the skinheads decided to wear clothing >and tattoos that identify them as skinheads, and thus may more fairly >be asked to bear the consequences. So, wearing the wrong clothes because the clothes identify one as a member of a political group is grounds for being stopped by the police? "Asked to bear the consequences"? Since when? --Tim May (In case anyone is in doubt, I have no beef (or pork) with Jews. I think their religion is just another quaint Middle Eastern idol-worshiping cult, on a par with Islam and Christianity and Zoroastrianism. But I have been following the attempts by such Nazi Jews as the Simon Wiesenthal chapter Jews in L.A. to censor the Net--their first calls went out at least two years ago--and this latest sending of 200+ "advisory letters" to ISPs, if confirmed, will be their undoing. The Thule Network is already using Cypherpunks-type remailers, and this will only gain them more members.) We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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