December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Crypto Exports, Europe, and Conspiracy Theories
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:06 PM 1/26/96, Alex Strasheim wrote: >Why aren't foreign companies flooding America with strong crypto? Well, >there are clearly pressures of the sort Tim described at work. But there >are other factors as well: Let me emphasize that I was raising the issue as food for thought, as an obvious question. Put another way, there are a lot of non-U.S. cryptographers, Cypherpunks, and programmers. They should be looking at the (putative) $60 billion a year cost of the ITARS as evidence that a market for strong crypto probably exists. (I will be interested to see what non-U.S. code gets developed over the next year or two, and how the U.S. government reacts to its importation into the U.S. The main RSA patents will soon be expiring, those that don't get thrown out in the wake of the RSA-Cylink-MIT-Stanford-PKP-Schlafly-etc. brouhaha, that is.) >o Crypto isn't at the top of the list of factors when people pick > software. Do most of use use 40-bit downloadable Netscape's ... Maybe not important for casual users, but there's that $60 billion a year figure again, so somebody cares. And digital commerce is front page news almost every day, with security a major hot topic. >o Most foreign countries aren't wired as well as we in the US are. > Most people in Switzerland don't have cheap easy access to the net, Though of course many countries are extremely well-wired. The Scandinavian countries, for example. And the U.K. (e.g., demon, one of the earliest full-service ISPs). But I don't want to get into a debate about numbers of subscribers, etc. My main point was that crypto tool development has traditionally been possible with fairly small teams...so I wonder why more development has not happened in Europe and Asia, given the apparently compelling advantages of not having to worry about the U.S. ITARs! (That this "apparently" may not actually be so real is of course my main "food for thought.") > for example. That's one reason that the web, a good Swiss idea, has > been developed primarily in this country. America has more people > thinking about the net than other countries do, and it's not > surprising that we're out in front in net software. A minor correction. Tim Berners-Lee is British, and was only working at CERN, which effectively straddles the French-Swiss border, near Geneva. And he is now, or was recently, working in New York. I would have a hard time calling his work "a Swiss idea." Obviously many of the ideas that go into the Web (hypertext, a la Bush and Nelson, connectivity, ISPs, etc.) are heavily American-based or -influenced. >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. I agree about Digicash (and I cited it as an example in my first article). However, the lack of available crypto for export, and the cloudy situation about Chaum's patents (*) has made Digicash almost a footnote in the race for digital commerce, with a dozen other more visible product announcements in the news. (* I wrote up my views on the problems with software patents, having to do with the inability to "meter usage," in contrast with physical objects such as microprocessors.) --Tim Boycott espionage-enabled software! 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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Re: mouse droppings
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:49 PM 1/24/96 -0500, j. ercole wrote: >One issue, "mouse droppings" --- "a trail of every site they visit and for >how long [on the www], was highlighted as an example of existing privacy >regulations falling short of consumer expectations. Apparently, the >amorphous public is shocked, *SHOCKED* I tell you , to discover that their >service providers are selling the personal preference information to the >highest bidder. More info in article. > >Would some rocket scientist speak to this terrifying mouse droppings issue? Jeff Wienstein and others have provided, or are working on, various technological solutions to this problem: Meanwhile the FTC wants to solve this privacy problem by checking out every persons computer to make sure you are not keeping any privacy violating information in your files. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail"
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:08 PM 1/25/96 -0500, hallam(a)w3.org wrote: > >>Why is he our patron saint? He was a government official coming out >>against invasion of privacy. Isn't that what we are all after, in the >>end? > >There is a considerable difference between running a government and being an >individual. It is not merely ethical for one government to read another's mail, >it is a duty. > >By not taking adequate steps to inform itself of the Japaneese intentions the US >suffered the loss of a substantial part of the US fleet at Pearl Harbour. Had >sufficient resources been avaliable the naval codes could have been cracked in >time. The closure of the Black chamber was a key reason why US espionage >efforts were inadequate at the start of WWII. While this may be based on the "classic" view of the start of the direct involvement in WWII, I agree with the opinion of an old college professor that the US KNEW that the Japanese were going to attack, SOMEWHERE and SOMEWHEN (but not exactly), and in fact WANTED the attack to occur to justify getting into a war that we "should" have entered. And in hindsight, I do not necessarily disagree with such a goal, within the limited context of the circumstances at the time. An extention of this interpretation is that much of the fleet was kept at Pearl to "lure" the Japanese into doing an attack that could be used to rally the public. (they needed to have enough "bait" to justify an attack.) Obviously, if that was the intention, then the big surprise was how EFFECTIVE the attack was going to be: Far from just "rallying the public" it smashed our defenses. The reason I mention this interpretation is that it entirely turns around your argument: Our criticism should not be how little we knew of Japanese intentions, but how we incompetently delayed entering a war that "needed to be fought." Naturally, however, considering the results of the attack, it would have been totally unthinkable to reveal to the public that the bigshots had actually DESIRED the attack; a far less incriminating version of the story is that some other people were merely negligent. Now, I was born in 1958 and thus can't claim personal knowledge of the time, but it's truly amazing how UNPERCEPTIVE the public must have been in the late 40's and early '50s about "intelligence" realities. Let me give you a specific example: The classic movie, "The Man who Never Was," relates the (true) story of a counter-intelligence mission done by the British to (I think) mislead the Germans into believing that the attack on Sicily would be substantially LATER than it actually was. The British took a man who had died of some natural disease (with the permission of his family, of course), dressed him up as if he were a courier and dumped his body (carried by submarine) off the coast of (then Fascist) Spain. With the body were (sealed) phony documents that described the FALSE date. (The idea was, the Germans would think that he was on an airplane that had crashed into the ocean...) ( He was given a false name, false address, and basically a false identity to complete the ruse.) By design, he was dumped at a point where ocean currents washed him ashore, where he was identified by papers. Naturally, the British were notified by Spain, and the British played along and INSISTED that none of the documents with the body be unsealed and given to the Germans. Naturally, however, the Spanish cooperated with the Germans, and allowed them to (secretly) unseal the documents undetectably. However, the documents (still apparently sealed and unopened) were returned to the British so that (to the Germans) the British wouldn't be aware that their secrets had been compromised. Follow me so far? Well, in the movie (whose accuracy I don't know) the Germans didn't totally believe that the courier was "real", so they sent an operative (probably by parachute airdrop, or whatever) to check out the particulars of the story they "learned" from the fake background. (Naturally, the British knew about this) At that point, the British had to plant operatives, and support the phony story on the spot, "verifying" the information. At that point, the German agent was able to transmit news that "the information is real!" to the Germans. Now, here was was (to me!) the "funny" part of the movie: The British let the German agent leave Britain. This sounds logical, right? Because if they were to PICK HIM UP as a spy, that would have alerted the Germans that his identity and mission were already known, which would only have been true if the story given the Germans initially had been a FAKE! Yet, in the movie, it was necessary to "explain" to the (early 1950's) audience why they "let that German agent leave Britain"!! I was laughing, practically falling off the edge of my seat, as I was watching that scene! Clearly, ordinary people of that era weren't very perceptive about such things. Had they (Americans) been told that, "We had to get into WWII to save the free world, so we let the Japanese sink half our Pacific fleet!" the public WOULD NOT have understood. This is why I tend to believe that professor's interpretation: While the exact time and location of the attack was not known, IT REALLY DIDN'T MATTER because they WANTED it to happen. The "we couldn't decrypt their traffic in time" (even if it was really true) was merely a convenient cover story for the truth.

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Re: Cypherpunk Enquirer
by Ted Garrett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Man, I wish I knew who was writing this! No matter what mood I start out in, once I've waded through the noise and get to the Enquirer, I always feel better.

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Re: "This post is G-Rated"
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:24 1/26/96, Johnathan Corgan wrote: >On Fri, 26 Jan 1996, Duncan Frissell wrote: > >> One wonders why people spend so much time arguing about the V-chip, telecoms >> dereg, sex on the net, Trade Policy, or Immigration when it's intuitively >> obvious that these things are (or soon will be) no longer subject to central >> control of any kind. > >It is absolutely fascinating to observe the widely differing views held >by you and Lucky Green on the same subjects. > >The two of you seem to represent opposite ends of the spectrum of >cypherpunks thought, to the extent that there is such a thing. Its been like that for a long time :-) Just for the record, I hope that Duncan's view will prove to be correct. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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DUH
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, In my OFFSHORE RESOURCES post I left out the URL, which is: http://www.ocra.com/ S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Re: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail"
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[This discussion was originally about the "right" of governments to read people mail. As is natural and appropriate, it immediately became necessary to discuss the general question of rights.] >On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >> I am a funny sort of person. I don't believe that governments should >> be able to do anything that individuals cannot. At 07:00 PM 1/25/96 -0500, Alan Horowitz wrote: > So violent criminals should never be jailed? Probably he believes they should be shot instead. The principle that governments have no special moral rights beyond those of normal men leads logically to the conclusion that men have a natural right to engage in just retribution, provided of course that such retribution can be seen to be just. John Locke has written at some length, attempting to justify limited government on this principle. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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: OFFSHORE RESOURCES
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:46 PM 1/26/96, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >There has been sporadic interest on this list with regard to >offshore incorporation, banking, etc. While ads for offshore >services are common in the international press, until now, none >of these companies has an Internet presence. ??? I've been tracking offshore banks with Internet presences for more than a year...I figure only those with Net savvy are worth looking at. An Alta Vista query of "offshore AND banking" just revealed 2000 hits, suggesting a lot of activity. Some of these hits are for banks, some for services catering to offshore bankers, some are reviews of what's out there, and some are of course just plain accidental hits. But you get the point. --Tim Boycott espionage-enabled software! 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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Re: "Concryption" Prior Art
by Robert A. Rosenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 19:04 1/26/96, pgut001(a)cs.auckland.ac.nz wrote: >However the Con-cryption patent covers first compressing, then >encrypting. Isn't that how PGP does its thing (first compress the data and then feed it into the Encryption Stage)? PGP is prior art in-and-of-itself.

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Re: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail"
by Robert A. Rosenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 20:18 1/25/96, jim bell wrote: >Now, I was born in 1958 and thus can't claim personal knowledge of the time, >but it's truly amazing how UNPERCEPTIVE the public must have been in the >late 40's and early '50s about "intelligence" realities. Let me give you a >specific example: The classic movie, "The Man who Never Was," relates the >(true) story of a counter-intelligence mission done by the British to (I >think) mislead the Germans into believing that the attack on Sicily would be >substantially LATER than it actually was. The code name for the project was "Operation Mincemeat" and the intent was to get the defences at Normandy ("Operation Torch" - ie: D-Day) away from there and transferred to Sicily (which was NOT a D-Day objective) not as you say to fool them on when the attack was coming. It did its job and much of the mobile coastal defences were moved out of the area.

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