December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

FWD: Internet e-mail
by Lynne L. Harrison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The following was posted to another list. Has anybody heard about this? [Gee, I _wonder_ if there will be escrowed keys...] ******Begin Forwarded Message********* >I just read in "legal.online" that the Postal Service plans to provide >secure email service. It will include encryption plus offer U.S. mail fraud >protection. Of course there is no estimate on cost. Regards - Lynne -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMQmOdj5A4+Z4Wnt9AQGKQQP+KRNFsI7DMk6nJwmWDpZkdX1RAtvJRdMo 38YL44AW4KxMO7SJdtkdAUhmWI6Y6bkWQ1+YXuRkG6wVN724k30vSui5vqO88GNF 0lvXyuJmL0z76yGbZmwf2l06L767MAX6P4hXuaMP67VZ5VRwScoNhlmPnb5L50rD v2ZLWyC0Rvw= =lhVA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ******************************************************* 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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Cypherpunk Elitism
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This message has some components that may be deemed appropriate for the list, and some that will not; since Dr. May considered it an appropriate topic, I am following his lead. However, feel free to take it to private email. From: IN%"tcmay(a)got.net" 18-JAN-1996 08:09:37.98 >(Ironically, I brought up the new book, "The Winner Take All Society," at the last Cypherpunks meeting. No time to discuss it here, but it confirms my strong belief that we are heading for a economy in which a shrinking fraction of workers have really valuable things to contribute, and a growing fraction of the population does not. I had not recalled the authors, but Strick had a battery-powered laptop and Metricom wireless modem, and ran an Alta Vista search from where he was sitting: ROBERT FRANK & PHILIP COOK, The Winner-Take-All Society, New York: The Free Press.) ---------------------------- You might also find Robert Reich's _The Work of Nations_ interesting. He divides jobs up into Routine Producers (factory-line workers), In-Person Servers (McDonald's clerks), and Symbolic Analysts (innovative programmers, scientists, etcetera). His analysis does have some problems. He views the growing lack of Routine Producer jobs in the US as due to their export to low-wage countries; I would add automation as another cause. He also makes the error of regarding education as the primary (or even only) difference between those qualified for various jobs, completely ignoring IQ's genetic component. His policy suggestions for taking care of what he (incorrectly) believes is a problem are also ridiculous. ----------------------------- From: IN%"alano(a)teleport.com" "Alan Olsen" 19-JAN-1996 00:00:39.70 >I have seen a number of posts on "Cypherpunk Elitism". I have seen more examples of it here on the list. I think that this attitude will be more destructive to the list than noise in the long run. It has been said that "Cypherpunks write code". They must do more than that. Cypherpunks need to teach. All the cryptotools in the world are of no use if no one knows how to use them. (Or know how to use them correctly.) All of the protocols are of no use if no one knows how to impliment them correctly or WHY they need them in the first place. There are a lot of bogus security methods. Many of them exist because people do not know better. Without someone to instruct them in the ways of these things, they will continue to go on with bad crypto, not knowing any better. Not all of the non-cypherpunks are beyond hope. Many of them are teachable. If we leave them to flounder on their own, cryptography will be something used only by an elite. It will be of little or no threat to the powers that be because only a small amount of people will have the ability to use it. The TLAs will have less encrypted trafic to sort through. They will have won a big battle, not through force of arms but force of egos. ---------------------------- Part of this depends on the size of the "small number of people," and on whom those people are. If a hundred people are using the remailernet, governments can trace messages (and can easily shut the down). If a million people are using it, governments cannot trace messages nearly as easily, and there will be more protest if it is shut down. If the people who are needed for a society to function are in that group, then a government would need to be suicidal to attack them; these people can also much more easily leave for another country. If those with the most income to lose via income taxes are those who are using fully anonymous ecash, then most of the government's unneeded revenue goes away. In other words, while teaching about cryptography is important... certain people are more worth teaching than others. This fact is analogous to that certain people will be more competent after college than others. Such qualities as intellectual ability, income, and position make some people more worth convincing than others. Incidentally, there is a mailing list for the discussion (and promotion) of intellectual Elitism. Its Draft FAQ (including directions for signing on) is at http:/ils.unc.edu/~vreer/elitefaq. (The list in question is unfortunately currently more disorganized than cypherpunks). More information can also be found at http://weber.u.washington.edu/~lfletch/elitism.html and http://ils.unc.edu/~vreer/elitism.html. -Allen

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An Enigma - Wrapped In a Circle
by liberty＠gate.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In the January/February 1996 Mensa Bulletin on pages 9-10 is an article by Teresa Fisher titled "An Enigma Wrapped In a Circle." The article is about a phenomenon which has interested me for quite some time, "crop circles" or "pictograms." I have tried to find this excellent article on the web and failed, so I will quote a few parts of it I consider relevant. All typos are mine, Ms. Fisher is an excellent writer, and I have changed her well done presentation only for brevity and clarity. If you think that this post has "no cypherpunk relevance" you can: 1. Flame me, in *private* e-mail. [I'll happily ignore you.] 2. Go hump a tree. Article excerpts (in quotes) and my comments follow: "In the late 1970s, farmers over the world were finding unexplainable, perfectly round, flattened areas in their grain fields. The flattened crops made irreproducible, layered swirl patterns. As time went on and crop circle incidents increased tremendously, the outlines of the formations became more complex and came to be called pictograms." They appeared overnight, "[by 1990] some 2000 circles and pictograms had been formed all over the world. A large percentage...were showing up in a small area in southern England, mainly in Wiltshire Downs." "Then, in 1991, two retired Englishmen named Doug Bower and Dave Chorley announced that they had been responsible for the crop circle phenomenon for the past 13 years." The dim media swallowed this hook, line, and sinker; neglecting to question "how they created intricate, sometimes braided swirls, executed elaborate pictograms in the dark, and caused crop formations in 19 other countries besides England." Brittle plants in the (non-hoaxed) circles were also bent in a way "that no investigator has been able to duplicate." Recent tests, including some at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories, show isotope changes in the soil, and differing biophysical and biochemical properties of the grain within the pictograms when compared to adjacent grain in the field. Gerald Hawkins was not fooled. He did "a systematic study of the geometry of the circles, and found ratios of small whole numbers that precisely matched the ratios defining the diatonic scale. Further statistical analysis revealed three other geometric theorems in the circle patterns, and he realized that all four theorems had a common thread that led to a fifth, more general theorem. His inability to find any of these theorems in Euclidean geometry or any of the math books he consulted caused him to conclude that whoever is making the circles had to not only know how to prove a Euclidean theorem, but also to conceive of an original theorem. Hawkins says that proving a theorem is easy; conceiving it in the first place is quite another matter." ["FN 6 Ivars Peterson, "Euclid's Crop Circles," *Science News* 141, No. 5, pp. 76-77."] In late 1991 in Ickleton "a perfect depiction of the mathematical configuration known as the Mandelbrot Set" appeared. ["FN 9 Beth Davis, *Ciphers in the Crops,* (Bath, England: Gateway Books, 1992)pp. 9-15."] I am now experiencing Tim's wish that I could draw in e-mail, as there is a diagram here of "a circle inside a triangle inside a ring inside a hexagon inside a ring." Don't even *try* to imagine it. The article points out that "NASA will be promoting the space program with a crop circle image and the slogan, 'We need to be out there.'" [Agreed, but with *tax* money?] Back to Ms. Fisher. "I have been amazed at the need many people have to dismiss this mystery. They will ignore all of the evidence to claim that the circles are being formed by weather or hoaxers. Neither claim stands up to even minimal scrutiny. I don't know what is causing crop circles to appear, but I'm certain it isn't being done by the wind or by an old man with a board. What do you think?" I must add that anyone who has seen the cover of Robert Plant's "Now and Zen" album would have trouble believing that a couple of drunks from the pub down the street did _THAT_! I do not know if "extraterrestrials" or "UFOs" are responsible for these images. [In my long-held opinion, governments tend to lie about UFOs (surprise!).] I do feel that these pictograms, these "Ciphers in the Crops," cry out for cryptanalysis, by someone far more adept at complex mathematics than I am. Results might well be felt worldwide. Thoughts? JMR Regards, Jim Ray -- Boycott espionage-enabled software! "He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." - T. Paine http://www.shopmiami.com/prs/jimray _______________________________________________________________________ PGP key Fingerprint 51 5D A2 C3 92 2C 56 BE 53 2D 9C A1 B3 50 C9 C8 Public Key id. # E9BD6D35 <liberty(a)gate.net> IANAL _______________________________________________________________________ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Freedom isn't Freeh. iQCVAwUBMQmUiG1lp8bpvW01AQE+OwP/URevvKxeTnV75DfXm0+XM9JTWR9w2ZCn 9RbdwBmVK5WTw5228x2EBNrhAQeGeksFQX9z/YEZgLCbscX1vtAT1PydSf2JBruM jOBhRX/a4MJWo4l7UcyefQwK2NyB8YXwqGoDPQKYtC9dqY0X6wuDnRWP2SGVYkG4 pf28zVDk1Vc= =MxuH -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Denning's misleading statements
by Thomas Grant Edwards 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I think the big bait-and-switch is her description of the various companies falling over themselves to get to _VOLUNTARY_ key escrow to avoid losing data and protecting themselves against employee problems versus _MANDATORY_GOVERNMENT_ key escrow to ensure that individuals cannot hide information from the government. Key escrow is good. Key escrow against your will is bad. -Thomas

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Re: Crypto Exports, Europe, and Conspiracy Theories
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:06 PM 1/26/96 -0600, Alex Strasheim wrote: > >Digicash is probably the first significant crypto product to be exported >to America. It's not very popular yet, but I think that most of us here >agree that it is, in potential at least, as significant as >Mosaic/Netscape. It's important to note that this extremely important >product couldn't have been produced here, patents aside. Transaction >systems need to be international, and our rules make America an unsuitable >place from which to launch tranaction software. > >Will the NSA be able to stand up against growing economic pressures? I >don't know. But it does seem pretty clear that those pressures are >building all the time, and that the problem of supressing crypto in 1996 >is a much tougher one than it was in 1986. > >In general, it's myopic and ill advised to focus on one factor -- >economics, politcs, the national security establishment -- when trying to >predict what will happen. I've probably been guilty of placing too much >emphasis on money, and not enough on the NSA. > >We do seem to be winning, though. Agreed. However, we will all REALLY win when anonymous-payer/anonymous-payee digital cash appears and is in common usage. (or Digicash can be "munged" to make payee-anonymity possible, if not the norm.

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re:Gentlemen do not read each other's mail
by Marc J. Wohler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." Ben Franklin Original quote by Ben Franklin when the British government published (stolen?) private letters of John Adams to his wife critical of Franklyn and other members of the Continental Congress. The Britsh hoped to drive a wedge into the congress and especially between Adams % Franklin. Franklin was a gentleman. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMQgVzmeikzgqLB7pAQGKOQQAr5nJo0L12l1Xd0EXpsExgZcztOkIKCQa j7Fhll8wx7dczUa5jJy+o4nfV8duk1MylzA386uO+kfNsCH+s5XlFobaeyc3Epk0 pERqFTzhcVf33egCRDlVqKjwa7uuwJXM2no++vwgGjy9hxSaWAIOAPcZf1Yi5mYj ZzVSTj8CQQ0= =gf0F -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ***Preserve, Protect and Defend the private use of Strong Crypto*** * * * PGP for the masses * * * Finger mjwohler(a)netcom.com for Marc Wohler's public key fingerprint= F1 70 23 13 91 B5 10 63 0F CF 33 AD BE E6 7B B6

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Re: The French do some things right...
by tim＠dierks.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:01 PM 1/26/96, Timothy C. May wrote: >The French seem to have partially done this. Francois Mitterand had a >mistress? Who cares? They take it for granted that people are people, with >human foibles and weaknesses. Of course, aside from censoring photos and a book that happened to talk about the fact that he had cancer. I think it's just a different set of sensitivites. - Tim Tim Dierks - Software Haruspex - tim(a)dierks.org If you can't lick 'em, stick 'em on with a big piece of tape. - Negativland

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Anonymous trashing of Assassination Politics
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- [on cypherpunks(a)toad.com] At 01:54 AM 1/27/96 +0100, Anonymous wrote: >Jim Bell writes: > >>While this would normally be my cue to offer up my "Assassination Politics" >>idea, which (if presumed to be correct) would stabilize "anarchy" and >>prevent "lawlessness and social disorder" (at least as normally seen by the >>average reader) I think that under the circumstances that would be redundant >>here. > >I'm not *sure* that your Assassination Politics trip is the worst piece of tripe I've ever seen on the list, but if it's not, it's right up there. I notice that you responded through an anonymous remailer, and didn't even use a nym. This is strange. If anything, the people who criticize my idea seem to be under the illusion that it is _I_ who should be embarrassed for proposing it, and in fact vociferously promoting it. "Those of you" who object to it should be the ones who are "proudly" taking the "moral high ground" and thus should be happy to identify yourself and defend your position. Even if, arguably, you invented the fiction that you feared for your life trying to argue with people like me, nothing prevents you from developing a stable nym and arguing your position using it, secure in the knowledge that your body is safe from attack. Your arguments would still be subject to sudden death, however. >Those of us who are anarchists What?!? You imply that you are an anarchist, yet you don't approve of a system which might not only produce anarchy, but in fact in record time? Well, EXCUUUUUUUUSE MEEEEEE! Sorry to put you out of a "job." > are often that way because we think the *means* the State uses are evil, not to be excused by any amount of >mumbo-jumbo. I think the state's ENDS are evil, too, not merely their MEANS. > And you gleefully propose to let us *all* in on the immoral game of murdering those who annoy us >sufficiently. Actually, if you followed my arguments carefully, you will notice that my position is most accurately described by pointing out that I _could_not_ keep you from participating in this "immoral game", even if I wanted to. For the record, I suspect some people who are total pacifists view the rest of us, those willing use use violence to defend ourselves, as "immoral." >I'll pass. Others won't. > >You know, if I were constructing an agent provacateur, I'd want a persona who's willing to be loudly clueless with ideas that show minimal or non-existent awareness of basic human hopes and fears, like security from random hit-squads. I'd have him go on and on with his ideas, until eventually they can splashed all over headlines and used to discredit the whole realm of privacy protection. Aha! You're implying (actually, implying is an understatement here) that I am an "agent provocateur." Naturally, it would be useless to deny this (although, for the record, I will deny it), because anybody who was convinced of its truth wouldn't expect me to tell the truth anyway. But hey, let's put it up for a vote. How many people out there believe that I am an "agent provocateur"? C'mon people, don't be shy, you've seen my prose. What do the rest of you think? >But no, I don't think you're an agent. Good! I'd hate to argue with a person who didn't realize I am SERIOUS. > More fool you, you're willing to do the government's disinformation work for it without even thirty pieces >of silver or a 401K. To be perfectly honest, I did a lot of soul-searching in early 1995 about whether I should publicize my ideas. No, it wasn't because I was AFRAID that it might happen. I _WANTED_ it to happen. Every little bit. Every government on the face of the earth, to come crashing down in a heap. Complete, total, absolute anarchy. (But not the "anarchy" that most people are pre-programmed to think of...) No more governments, no more borders, no more taxes, no more holocausts, no more wars, no more politicians. Forever and ever and ever. Rather, I was fearful that by publicizing the idea, I might end up PREVENTING it from occurring. You know, by giving the governments advance warning about what was going to happen, I might actually help them prevent it. That worried me, a lot. But eventually, I made my decision. After a huge amount of thought that some day I might be inclined to relate. However, if I'd REALLY wanted to PREVENT this, I would have alerted the government secretly, so that they could manipulate things behind the scenes, secretly, to prevent this "crypto/digicash/internet anarchy." _That_ I did not do. I publicized it, allowed it to be criticized and therefore "perfected" (not that it's "perfect, by any means!) it, and I'm now promoting it the best way I know how. And with all due modesty, it's getting a pretty good reception, considering how extreme and drastic it initially might appear. Part of my reasoning was that unless I engaged in the absurd conceit of believing that I was, cumulatively, smarter than everyone currently in the government, I had no choice but to conclude that the government was already aware of the potential problem. And if that were the case, they were, at that very moment, working desperately to PREVENT what I wanted, desperately, to ACHIEVE. At that point, I made the choice of forcing the government's hand. >At this point I recommend to you the 12-step program I explained to Vladimir. > >Signed, >A Friend Recommendation: If you really want to be taken seriously, use your real name or at the very least generate a stable nym. Preferably, with messages signed by the nym's public key. Without it, you are a silly, unbelieveable ass. Even with it, you may STILL be a silly, unbelieveable ass, but at least people would pay more attention to you. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMQmqKPqHVDBboB2dAQGW6wP/Vjrmoj16SaBZwvoUa8Sxx3VLJTKEwxLx LOCs2zIl+Ahwr3R6IMw4y6VsESszYUz+271k1+rVVDf3GrxvlqJFyTRL2KeFltp2 fWosOD03X3Yneg8Ocg6oainIiiG+TLUkTqarddT+6VIoImmmWsFk4Yf+eG0OoEJc NgawkFoSokg= =Xs7A -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Denning's misleading statements
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:24 PM 1/26/96 -0500, Thomas Grant Edwards wrote: > >I think the big bait-and-switch is her description of the various >companies falling over themselves to get to _VOLUNTARY_ key escrow to >avoid losing data and protecting themselves against employee problems >versus _MANDATORY_GOVERNMENT_ key escrow to ensure that individuals >cannot hide information from the government. > >Key escrow is good. Key escrow against your will is bad. While I understand your point, I sorta hafta disagree. (or, at least, state my reservations.) If something is technologically IMPOSSIBLE (or, in practice, not available), it won't be mandated by government because it can't be. The moment something exists, it can be forced on people. I'm not saying we should somehow try to prevent people from developing truly voluntary key-escrow systems; rather, I'm saying that their existence should alert us to the danger.

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Re: Microsoft's CryptoAPI - thoughts?
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For those allergic to Microsoft word, I have htmlized the crypto api You can find it at http://www.jim.com/jamesd/mscryptoapi.html I hope that microsoft will soon have an official html version. A notable misfeature of the API is that it assumes that in general you will have two key pairs. One for signing and one for encrypting. Since in the most common case you are encrypting something related to a signed message by the person you are encrypting to this is a bad idea, and protocols that require two key pairs to avoid protocol failure are hazardous and inconvenient. I think Microsoft should not have chosen to support such protocols. The Crypto engine that Microsoft will soon distribute in every copy of NT and windows will of course be crippled -- 512 bit RSA keys and 40 bit RC4 keys, but of course we should not do anything about this until we have some crypto enable applications floating around. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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