December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Aegis PGP Shell
by paralax＠alpha.c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Gordon Campbell wrote: GRC> After doing a total reinstall of my system (don't ask) I discovered that I GRC> don't have a copy of the Aegis PGP Shell distribution archive anywhere. I GRC> attempted to grab it from http://iquest.com/~aegisrc as listed in the docs, GRC> but the site doesn't exist. GRC> Doesn anybody know what gives and where I can get a new copy of the archive? GRC> I really like this shell and haven't figured out how to otherwise integrate GRC> PGP with EudoraPro. GRC> Gordon R. Campbell, Owner - Mowat Woods Graphics >From alt.security.pgp another reader writes: > It seems that iquest.com has dropped off the net today so the > normal url: http://iquest.com/~aegisrc/beta2.htm is > unavailable. With the weather around here right now, I doubt > it will be up any time soon. > I've created a very quick mirror site at: > http://fly.hiwaay.net/~lyman/pgpwsbeta.htm > Please use it only if you cannot connect to the first url. A. Paralax View

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Re: free speach and the government
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com (Dr. Dimitri Vulis) writes: >Eric Murray <ericm(a)lne.com> writes: >> Stephan Mohr writes: >I believe that any exception to unlimited free speech, be it libel, or >copyright violation, or child pornography, or Nazi propaganda, or Chinese >dissident materials, just isn't compatible with the cpunk agenda. No censorship >is acceptable. That's an absolute. I agree with that. Principles are important. I agree that Sarin reciepes might be dangerous. I also agree that such information should not be broadcasted. But I think that this control should be effected by the individual poster, out of benevolence for Man, not enforced at the point of a gun by a govt that pretends that we are to dumb to act by ourselves. The nature of the Internet is unique in the history of mankind. We must adapt, *as individuals* not as "a society". The collectivity is a statistical concept that have no existence, apart in the pretensions of the collectivists do-gooders. >There's a widespread misconception that most journalists support freedom of >speech for non-journalists. I deal with journalists occasionally, and my >impression is that the attitude of some of them can be summarized as follows: >"I'm an important guy because I can say something that hundreds of thousands of >people will see/read; and I can libel another person and s/he won't be able to >respond". People with this attitude are very threatened by the Internet. I'm >not saying that all journalists are this way; I'm just pointing out that it's >foolish to assume that just because a person works in the media, s/he's in >favor of free speech, especially unlimited free speech. I think it is safe to say, especially regarding coverage of the Internet by popular medias, that even if there are some journalists that still have integrity, most of their bosses don't. >From the technology point of view, there's no difference between helping >Chinese dissidents circumvent their government's restrictions on the net, >and helping neo-Nazis in Germany and helping child pornographers in the >U.S. No one can determine which of the countless bits of information that >travel over the Internet every second are false, or harmful, or subversive, >or otherwise not worthy of transnmission. Well, here I don't completely agree. *you* can determine what is worth and what is not. But again, I suppose that if you have rationnal arguments, you will be able to convince other rationnal individuals. I am not in favor of broadcasting neo-nazi scum all over because I think that their essence is the same as the one underlying the censorship movement. They share the same vision of man, only the flavor change slightly. OTOH, somebody presenting facts pertaining to nazism and what happened to the jews (confirming or infirming) are acceptable, as long as they are *facts*. But there are plenty of causes that seems worthwhile to defends, so why pick up the mosts dubious? Ciao JFA

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Re: [noise] Re: Charter of PDX Cpunk meetings
by bernardo＠alpha.c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

jim bell wrote: >> I think an explanation for this is due. Jim is going to move his complaints >> here instead of dealing with them with me no matter what I do... > > Alan Olsen is correct, here. This is childish and pointless. Please shut up or take it to email. > But he (the anonymous poster): > 1. FLamed me on this national list, similarly to the way Alan Olsen later did. FWIW, this is an _international_ list with a lot of people who are just not interested in your petty bickering. If you want to argue about this, please do it in private. If Alan posts responses to the list, that's his problem. You don't _have_ to answer in public. > 2. Failed to be willing to sustain the debate in a more appropriate list, > even under a stable nym. You have something against anonymity? In this case, perhaps this list is not the best place to be. > that I had been flamed by that anonymous poster. The fact that he was > anonymous says it all. The fact that he has not returned says it all. The The fact that he was anonymous says nothing whatsoever. So what if you received some email agreeing that you'd been flamed? > the fact that I am relatively new here. I have no intention of inflicting > an unwelcome discussion of "Assassination Politics" on the list, and Actually, and Perry may disagree here, but I'd have no objection to a discussion of "Assassination Politics", or any other nutty political theories, as long as we can stick to reasonably mature discussion and not flames and petty ego boosting. > suffered any longterm loss of reputation of his own. I, on the other hand, > use my REAL NAME. Whoopie! A True Name! Big deal. I care not one jot whether or not you use your REAL NAME. I have no way of knowing if it is, in fact, your real name. Should it make a difference? No one is going to "suffer any longterm loss of reputation" by disagreeing with you, or anyone else, whether or not they use a nym (or anonymity). > Only a fool would have taken an anonymous flamer seriously under those > circumstances. An anonymous post is no less valid for being anonymous. The only advantage of a stable nym, whether or not it's a True Name, is the ability to gain (or lose) reputation through the content of its posts. Perhaps a nym with some reputation is taken more seriously than an anonymous poster, but so is an unknown nym. Neither you nor Alan has any reputation to speak of (to me, at least), so an anonymous post has no less. >> Jim ignored that request and I removed him from the list. > > Read: "Alan Olsen exercised his authority in his own personal fiefdom, the > "PDX Cypherpunks list." Are you saying he doesn't have that right? If it's his list, he can do whatever the hell he likes with it. > On the contrary, I have no interest in dealing with this sleazy character in > email. He was the one who chose a national list to do his flaming and > baiting, and I think he deserves full "credit." In other words, you are not interested in resolving any problem you have with Alan, you just to make a lot of noise in public in an attempt to "embarrass" him. Go play on some other list where this kind of thing is appreciated. >> The following is the last I will say publically on the matter. > > You're going to take your bat and ball and "go thwait home!" You hear your > mommy calling, Alan. This list periodically devolves into this childishness. I'm glad Alan is not going to say any more. I award Alan 20 Reputation Points for being mature enough to walk away (delayed long enough to see whether he does)

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RE: Don't type your yes/fraud response into your computer
by A. Padgett Peterson, P.E. Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> At base, the moral to the story is that a compromised user machine >permits essentially any and all activities to be suborned. Only a smart >card mechanism stands a chance of standing up to this, but that, in effect, >makes the smart card the 'user machine'. True and has been one reason the smartcards/tokens/etc have been available for years. The other side of the coin is expense - for a smart card and reader you are looking at over $100. For a token alone (you enter the one-time response) $30-$60. In a mass-market environment, this is not supportable. OTOH, keyboard sniffing software is easy to detect because it must go resident and it must intercept the keystrokes. The fact that no software has bothered to do this does not mean that it cannot be done. The easiest way for such software to act would be to ignore the machine software and when sensitive material is to be passed, to do so via direct port (hardware) access - been a while since I looked at it but AFAIR is around port 60h. (PC type machines) This would take care of anything sitting on Int 09 or Int 16 since it would be bypassed. Often a problem that looks difficult when viewed as a whole becomes simple once you disassemble it. Rather than try to find a workaround for a machine you do not trust, why not develop a means to trust it ? Can do with software alone and that is cheap. Warmly, Padgett ps Dave, what is this thingie on the 21st ? May be in the area (opportunity for plug here 8*). pps Before y'all get too wrapped up in free-speech vs libel in the US I would suggest studying the difference between criminal law and civil.

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Re: [NOISE] Futplex makes the news!
by A. Padgett Peterson, P.E. Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>James Donald may characterize me as gutless. I think he would probably be >correct to some extent. "Freedom is just another word for nothing more to lose." - Janis P.fla

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"Nations see Internet as threat to security"
by Mike Ang 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Nations see Internet as threat to security" made the front page of the Saturday _Globe and Mail_. There are some really nice lines in the article, which basically states that electronic freedoms through the Internet are a direct challenge to the power of nation states. They mention all of the more recent examples in China, Germany, France, and the States. Here are some of the more interesting paragraphs: But as China, Germany,

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RE: Don't type your yes/fraud response into your computer
by John Pettitt 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:14 AM 2/4/96 -0500, A. Padgett Peterson, P.E. Information Security wrote: >OTOH, keyboard sniffing software is easy to detect because it must go >resident and it must intercept the keystrokes. The fact that no software >has bothered to do this does not mean that it cannot be done. The >easiest way for such software to act would be to ignore the machine software >and when sensitive material is to be passed, to do so via direct port >(hardware) access - been a while since I looked at it but AFAIR is around >port 60h. (PC type machines) > >This would take care of anything sitting on Int 09 or Int 16 since it would >be bypassed. Often a problem that looks difficult when viewed as a whole >becomes simple once you disassemble it. Nice try - but the virtual machine model used by intel supports interception of I/O operations. Now one could get into timing how long the I/O takes to detect interception by the memory manager but it would be a royal pain since the keyboard I/O controller latency is rather machine specific. I still think the basic 'if the machine is not secure all bets are off' premis stands. -- John Pettitt email: jpettitt(a)well.sf.ca.us (home) jpp(a)software.net (work)

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Re: Sometines ya just gotta nuke em-and nuke em again
by tallpaul＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Neither the atomic bombing nor the entry of the Soviet Union into the war forced Japan's surrender. She was defeated before either of these events took place." General of the Army Douglas MacArthur "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material success in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. ... My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages." Admiral William Leahy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff "The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing... I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon." General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower These statements by the Allied military commanders were not deeply buried in graduate school libraries or military archives. They were widely printed and discussed in the media during last year's discussion over the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum. Now the mere fact that the Allied military commanders all agreed that the nuclear bombings were unnecessary does not automatically mean that the commanders were correct. Theoretically, J.A. Donald and T.C. May might have a greater understanding. But both Donald and May must justify this hypothesis with evidence and logic, not mere assertion. Thus, J.A. Donald was perfectly free to write in Message-Id: <199602040622.WAA07274(a)shell1.best.com> on Feb. 03 22:20 that: "Paralax does not know shit from beans. He presumably imagines that Tim is 'embarrassed' because Tim's knowledge of the historical facts differs from those facts dreamed up by the usual crew of apologists for totalitarian terror." In what way and to what extent did General of the Army MacArthur, the senior Allied commander in the Pacific Theater not "know shit from beans?" In what way and to what extent was MacArthur one of the "usual crew of apologists for totalitarian terror?" In what way and to what extent did Chief of Staff Leahy not know "shit from beans?" In what way and to what extent was Leahy one of the "usual crew of apologist for totalitarian terror?" In what way did General Eisenhower especially not know "shit from beans" about this issue, given his access to all available information when he was President? In what way and to what extent was President Eisenhower one of the "usual crew of apologists for totalitarian terror?" J.A. Donald seems particularly taken with the originality and accuracy of the phrase "shit for beans" to reflect certain states of philosophical and historical knowledge for he repeated it in his next message Message-Id: <199602040611.WAA18584(a)blob.best.net> on Feb. 3, 22:09 where he wrote: "SCHOLARLY RESEARCH!!!! "You do not know shit from beans: Alperovitz is no more a scholar than Zundel is: He is a historical revisionist who lies even more crudely than the holocaust revisionists. "It is clear that in the opinion of the high command, the decision to surrender after they were nuked was a dramatic and radical change of position. Alperovitz says otherwise, thus he is either grotesquely ignorant or, more likely simply dishonest." In what way was General MacArthur an "historical revisionist" and in what way did he "lie even more crudely than the holocaust revisionists?" In what way was he "grotesquely ignorant or, more likely simply dishonest?" In what way of Chief of Staff Leahy? or President Eisenhower? One does not normally find J.A. Donald's phrases in civilized or cultured discourse over political and historical issues. His language is that of the demagogue, not the scientist. But he is entitled to use the language he wishes, just as other people have a similar right to examine his behavior and motivation in terms of identical language. We know, for example, that the pickpocket when caught may point to an innocent person and loudly cry "stop thief" in an effort to mislead the public by denouncing an innocent person for the very behavior for which the pickpocket is guilty. J.A. Donald voluntarily choose to present the dispute in terms of people who "don't know shit for beans," who are "apologists for totalitarian terror," who are "historical revisionists," who are "grotesquely ignorant or, more likely simply dishonest." Given the respective lineup of sources, what information and analysis would J.A. Donald present to us to lead us to conclude that his characterizations accurately reflect General MacArthur, Chief of Staff Leahy, and General Eisenhower rather than, like the pickpocket, J.A. Donald himself? T.C. May, while arguing essentially the same historic view as J.A. Donald (or rather vice versa) approaches the issue in a fundamentally different manner. T.C. May uses logic where J.A. Donald uses demagogic rhetoric. (I do not here refer to T.C. May's characterization of other racial/ethnic/national groups about which others on the list have posted.) When I read the first post by T.C. May on the mass nuclear bombings of civilians I thought his post was: a) off-topic for the cypherpunks list and; b) wrong. At that time I dismissed the idea of a public reply, thinking that he may have had a bad day, misunderstood the issue, or any of a thousand other reasons that have led me and indeed all of us to behave in a similar fashion at one time or another. But he re-posted on the thread in Message-Id: <ad392186040210048141(a)[205.199.118.202]> on Feb 3, 15:54 where he wrote: "(I've also received several long articles from people who seemed outraged that I was belittling the dropping of the bomb. I wasn't belittling it. Far from it. The Japs surrendered after the second bomb, so it was obviously not a trivial matter to them.)" I think his logic is at fault here in several ways. First, I think his logic is invalid because it is a "non sequitur." That is the statement that the Japanese did not take the bombing as trivial is true but not related to the argument. "2 + 2 = 4" is similarly true but unrelated; and I know of no group of people who, whatever their politics, consider mass nuclear bombings of civilians to be a "trivial matter." Second, I think his logic is invalid because it commits the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy that goes, in essence "after this, therefore because of this." "The Japanese surrender came after the bomb, therefore it came because of the bomb" is the invalid argument. One could, to use a "reductio ad absurdum" counter argument, saying with equal (in)validity that John Smith ate a bowl of beans, took a shit, and the next day the Japanese surrendered, therefore the surrender occurred because of the beans and the shit." Indeed the Japanese surrendered, but the evidence by three top (THE three top?) Allied commanders show that the surrender was not produced by either bombs, shit, or beans.

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Re: Need a "warning" graphic of some kind for CDA
by David K. Merriman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 11:37 AM 02/4/96 -0600, Robert A. Hayden wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >Now that we all have web pages that are naughty and might be seen by >little children, I'd like to hve some kind of a graphic that can >universally be seen as a "Warning: The following material is unsuitable >for children and close-minded twits". (or words to that effect). > >Anybody with much more graphic design ability than I wanna take a crack >at something that can be spread all over the net? It shoudl poke as much >fun as possible at the inaness of the CDA, while still being a legitimate >effort to warn people that the material is offensive (just in case people >start getting yanked off the street on CDA violations). > Hmmmmm. Maybe a doll with an international 'no' sign superimposed? Dave Merriman -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMRQyXcVrTvyYOzAZAQHXhQP/dnOLwoE5iTf5sNBwPaBl/1+7tXftWIc2 KyxSqqEhgLOcBssTo56Yt7r5TMFVukbWDirNuJW4xFRqFJovw2fG2XdpxMUJlVHF McjIgXbddYWuyjZ+G04uiKcaoMRYFMFajOipIDkTYSNHBMkfDkxbLNrT3YMNpeCx nDyvzpX+tGM= =iqHi -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------- "It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error." Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), U.S. Judge <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> My web page: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1148

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Re: Sometines ya just gotta nuke em-and nuke em again
by Jordan Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From tallpaul(a)pipeline.com Sun Feb 4 11:47:09 1996 When I read the first post by T.C. May on the mass nuclear bombings of civilians I thought his post was: a) off-topic for the cypherpunks list and; b) wrong. By the way, the certainly *is* a crypto-relevance to this thread, since much of what we knew at the time about the Japanese high command and their motivations and actions was learned through MAGIC intercepts. It also has quite a lot to do with how these intercepts (and related documents) were released over time; the intentionality of what was released, when, and how shows a good deal about how this subject was managed by our government. Since I practically started it (by calling into question Tim's recitation of the story invented about the 500,000 Americans "saved" by dropping the bomb), I'd like to call on those who are interested in it to do some more searching, reading, analyzing and talking. But not here. Thanks, /jordan

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