December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Assasination Politics
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:48 PM 2/12/96 EDT, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: > I have changed the subject header (despite its destroying threading >with the way my mailreader works) so that Perry et al can more easily filter >this out. I have concluded that Assasination Politics, since it is a possible >development of true anonymnity, etcetera, is a proper discussion topic for >cypherpunks - while not cryptography in and of itself, it is a possible result >of cryptography. I'm glad some people see that. This may, in fact, turn out to be one of the most important products of modern, public-key cryptography. >From: IN%"frantz(a)netcom.com" 12-FEB-1996 03:24:07.29 > >>Again, absolutely. Hell, I can't even devise a filter that will let me >>filter out Jim Bell's rants while letting me see his reasoned arguments on >>anonymous assassination. (I would love to have him address the Salman >>Rushdie issue, a man who is still alive despite a considerable announced >>price for his head. There appear to be limits to who can be subject to >>assassination for pay.) > > Actually, that's an argument for non-misusage of Assasination Politics. >If the person hides, there's not much one can do about it. But a hiding >law enforcement agent can't be out violating people's rights. Bingo! That's why this system will be so effective; it will DETER bad behavior on the part of the government and its agents. >(I will mention >that whether a right is violated or not is essentially a matter of the >perceiver - under any system, whether governmental or not. All ethical >arguments assume either some degree of common ground that can be argued from, >or the finding of logical inconsistency). Those who do so via the net can be >taken care of via the other mechanisms discussed here. It's just that the >physical part is a possible net weakness. > Moreover, just because _some_ rights-violaters (not that Rushdie was >one) aren't killed doesn't mean that all of them wouldn't be. A system doesn't >have to be 100% efficient to be effective. Yup; it's interesting that Franz didn't see this... Maybe he just didn't WANT to see it! > However, the Rushdie case does bring up one problem I have with >Assasination Politics as currently constructed. While people are unlikely to >patronize a general/non-discriminatory organization, a more particular but >non-libertarian one is still possible. For instance, if the Christian >Coalition put together an organization, anonymously, what would prevent them >from offing everyone who was a major leader against them - such as a doctor >researching new abortion techniques, or a geneticist (such as myself) doing >gene therapy work they found offensive? The patrons would know that _they_ >wouldn't be targeted after all... I would appreciate a response from Jim Bell >on this subject. > -Allen Your question was actually a two-parter. I will separate it below and comment on the pieces: >For instance, if the Christian >Coalition put together an organization, anonymously, what would prevent them >from offing everyone who was a major leader against them - "Who needs leaders"? Think about this, carefully. The current political system is based on the idea that if you don't like the way things are being done, you have to publicize your unhappiness, to organize, and for that you normally "need" leaders. With "Assassination Politics," _leaders_ will not only not be necessary, they might be the prime targets for unhappy people! But this will work both ways: "Christian Coalition" LEADERS will be targets themselves if they publicly advocate the killing of abortion doctors. > such as a doctor >researching new abortion techniques, or a geneticist (such as myself) doing >gene therapy work they found offensive? I wish there was some sort of "perfect, easy solution" to this dilemma, but it's possible there isn't. Ultimately, anybody who does anything that angers enough people, ENOUGH, will be a potential target. I don't think this is a major admission however; society has ALWAYS been this way. In the early 1600's in Salem, women were killed simply due to false accusations that they engaged in 'witchcraft." Governments have prosecuted (and persecuted) people for violation of what we now call victimless crimes. In the pre-1960's South, being black was a de-facto "crime": They could be arrested, tried, and convicted on a pretense. Over 60% of prison cells are filled with people who sold chemicals (drugs) to willing buyers. I think it's clear that there are ALREADY plenty of violations of rights going on; at most, you can claim that "Assassination Politics" is "imperfect" in the sense that it doesn't completely solve this problem. But since I do genuinely believe it will eliminate war, militaries, governments, taxes, and other evils, I think we'll end up with a far better society than we have today. >The patrons would know that _they_ >wouldn't be targeted after all... I would appreciate a response from Jim Bell >on this subject. All is not lost, however. I contend that society would likely IMPROVE to the point where the kind of behavior you want to avoid will not commonly happen. Wishful thinking? Well, consider a point which was driven home to me a week ago at a dinner with my parents, sister and brother in law, and my two nieces, ages 4 and 9. We were eating spareribs, and my father (age 65) commented that such meat used to be considered trash meat, and "only the niggers bought it." (BTW, my father was not and is not a bigot, quite the opposite; he used this terminology to relate the general opinion during the time frame he grew up in; he used this terminology to reflect on and deride that public opinion back then.) My older niece looked mystified, and said she hadn't even HEARD the term "nigger." (and she's substantially above average in vocabulary and intelligence for age 9, BTW) While I am not going to claim that bigotry is dead in the younger generation, I think it's clear that it went out of style in the 1960's and progress has since been made in eradicating most of its more egregious effects. In short, in that issue, society has improved, if by no other method than waiting for the bigots to die off naturally and develop a new generation of more tolerant people. Call this "political correctness" if you wish (and I'm about as much an opponent of "political correctness" as you'll find) but the fact is that things are getting better with regards to race relations. Similarly, I think that once public advocacy for killing abortion doctors and others was deterred (by judicious use of Assassination Politics, for example, even if a given example of such use might be considered "wrong" because it was a violation of "free speech") pretty soon it would be hard to gather much enthusiasm for such bad acts. Few people would risk calling publicly for that; the next generation will "never" hear such a thing, etc. Is it unreasonable for me to suggest that over time, the faults you fear will tend to disappear?

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Re: MS CryptoAPI (fwd)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 07:28 PM 2/13/96 -0500, Rich Salz wrote: >Okay, so how the hell did Microsoft get export approval for this? I mean, >this is the classic crypto-with-a-hole; a service-provider interface (SPI) >with DLL's means "plug your crypto here". This is usually considered an >"anciliary" device in ITAR language, and therefore export controlled. I >mean, how long until you see MSWord with "full privacy" option? > >Word I've heard is that the office of Export Control has had a lot of >turnover and "nobody knows anything" anymore. At the risk of blowing my usual horn, I would argue that one advantage in vocal, common, and loudly hostile talk against government is that they have begun to understand how unhappy we are with them. To make an analogy with late-1700's France, the sound of a guillotine being tested probably had a remarkable effect on the upper strata of their society; likewise, dicussions of how we can all chip in and bump off the whole lot of the bastards might remind a few of they key government players that they are not immune from eventual retribution. Resulting in "a lot of turnover." If we make a "reasonable assumption" that most of those government employees aren't stupid, and they discover that the prospect for Crypto-Anarchy (trademark owned by Tim May?) is good, it seems reasonable to assume that they'll want to avoid being around when THE END comes for their employer. Jim Bell Klaatu Burada Nikto -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMSF8vvqHVDBboB2dAQExXQP+JHO6P80VfXE1+x5JmstA14dg+wlmXBK2 +8UYUnD7IpK2QzIKoEbmot2/WfUK/9zzOiuRuXvzc6FxfscRm7xNzNO28vviTN5U osVNgm72t/R2jZspMPr+cYE3GcxDIcQvTEOth5Tz9J9q7TfI4+NPl68fN7sqEOsG m44PPIy6F2I= =m3hQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Off topic - research query
by Mark Neely 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Howdy from Australia. I am in the process of doing some research for an article on our present bandwidth difficulties in Oz. As a side issue, I wanted to cover the "overhead" factor inherent in the TCP/IP (v4?) protocol which I understand is reduced under the proposed IPv.6 protocol. I'd also like to discuss the "unfriendly" manner in which web browsers such as Netscape hog resources by sending multiple port access requests. Can anyone point me towards recent papers which deal with these issues? TIA Mark ___ Mark Neely - accessnt(a)ozemail.com.au Lawyer, Professional Cynic Author: Australian Beginner's Guide to the Internet Work-in-Progress: Australian Business Guide to the Internet WWW: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~accessnt

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Re: AT&T Public Policy Research -- hiring for cypherpunks
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:03 PM 2/13/96 -0500, Adam Shostack wrote: > IP addresses are a scarce resource today. Try getting a /16 >allocation (what used to be a class B). There are politics in the >process already. I know they are getting scarce. I just find the "let's sell IP addresses on the open market" do be a scary though. it will make them less available. > Addresses will not be easily 'transferable.' The IETF is >discussing a 'Best Current Practices' document that talks about >address portability. Basically, it can't happen, because the routers >only have so much memory, and the routers at the core of the internet >can't keep in memory how to reach every one; there needs to be >aggregation. The only feasible aggregation seems to be provider >based, ie, MCI, Alternet, and other large ISPs get blocks of >addresses. They give them to smaller companies, like got.net, which >gives them to customers. The result? The core routers have a few >more years. A good point. Having parts of subnet shifting around could be pretty painful from an admin point of view. > Lastly, 32 bit addressing is going away. IPv6 offers 128 bit >address space, and (hopefully) much more efficient allocation, as well >as such useful things as hooks for automatic renumbering of address space. I just hope that the AT&T scheme does not get put into place. Otherwise it will be just viewed like a stock split. ("Wow! We have more addresses to sell!") The AT&T plan as described sounds like something dreamed up by a marketing droid as a way to "Make Money Fast Off Of The Internet". What is the timeline for implementation of IPv6? --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "I, Caligula Clinton... In the name of the Senate and the people of Rome!" - Bill Clinton signing the CDA with the First Amendment bent over.

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Why There Exists No Middle Ground in the Crypto-policy Debate
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Why There Exists No Middle Ground in the Crypto-policy Debate [This message only appears to be posted anonymously, if you have the correct tools, you can learn my name and e-address. Take that auto-WWW indexers!] Decius <decius(a)ninja.techwood.org> recently presented an essay, entitled ``Crypto-Absolutism,'' which described ``Why and how the middle ground should be found in the crypto-policy debate.'' The essay is clearly wrong in its assumptions and thus its conclusions. Given the perceived flaws in the assumptions, his commentary must be rebutted. Within the context of this rebuttal, ``T-Camp Cypherpunks'' are those ``Cypherpunks'' (whatever they are :-) that follow a technology evolution-based line of reasoning to arrive at the inevitable coming of crypto-anarchy. As well, ``A-Camp Cypherpunks'' are those that advocate crypto-anarchy because they like the social and political implications. It is possible to be an A-Camp Cypherpunk or a T-Camp Cypherpunk without being the other. Of course, it is quite possible to be both. It has often been said on Cypherpunks, that ``we'' are not a ``we''. Decius falls into a trap by assuming that all Cypherpunks are in the A-Camp. This mistake colors the entire essay. The main problem with Decius' essay is that it assumes that Cypherpunks _merely_ advocate crypto-anarchy. In fact, T-Camp Cypherpunks do not stop at this puny point. They observe that crypto-anarchy is the _likely_ _outcome_ of the current technology trend (this trend is discussed below). Note that this observation of fulfillment, if correct, is a far stronger statement than merely advocating that crypto-anarchy should happen or would be a really good idea. A-Camp Cypherpunks also advocate that this trend should be exploited to its conclusion, sooner rather than later, to preempt any massive government crackdowns that would only prolong the transition pains. The rationale being that these supposed government crackdowns have no place in the natural evolution of a free society. And that the continuance of a free society is preferable to that of a move towards a police state, which would be required to facilitate the useless --- in the end --- crackdown on this information technology. Decius is also wrong when he states that crypto-anarchy means people will never again be accountable or recognized (pure A-Campers might like this to be true, although I doubt it). In the T-Camper's view, crypto-anarchy means that people have the choice of when they wish to be accountable and recognized for their statements and information movement-related actions and when they wish otherwise. People are not forced under the crypto-anarchy model to be unaccountable or unrecognizable. Likewise, the crypto-anarchy model allows people to ignore those that are unaccountable and unrecognizable, if they wish. Decius fails to recognize that people could be recognized, and even paid, for example, when operating under a pseudonym instead of completely anonymously (this concept links two Cypherpunks favorites: untraceable anonymous e-cash and anonymous reputations). As primary counter-points to Decius on this issue: - - The people who wrote the Federalists' Papers did so anonymously, yet I suspect that all were well-known and transacted business and other politics under their ``real names'' most of the time. - - Individual articles are anonymously published in the _The Economist_ yet I suspect that people are being paid to contribute information to this newspaper (at least, I know I am paying a lot per year, for a newspaper, to get the information :-). - - The recently released ``Primary Colors'' book by Anonymous. Yet this person, if the publisher is to be believed, is well-known to President Clinton (I think it may all just be a good marketing scam :-). Back to the main point of unstoppable --- in a free society, at least - --- technology trends. Decius has not, but must, account for the following change due to technology: Up until now, communication system deployers (e.g. The Phone Companies) have been basically blackmailed (through easily applied laws and licensing) into creating systems with backdoors for government's use. As system intelligence moves to the end-user devices away from the internal network devices and encryption moves to end-to-end encryption from link-based or non-existent encryption, this form of blackmail will no longer work since there will no longer be a small number of easily controlled entities building and deploying the systems. There will be open standards for the interconnect itself [IPng or whatever]. And anyone will be able to implement end-user devices that layer end-to-end encryption on top of the raw interconnect services provided by the new network model. In some ways, we have already arrived at the new interconnect model: the Internet based upon IP. In the form of today's computers, we also have a rudimentary incarnation of the required intelligent end-user device. In sum, I am a T-Camp Cypherpunk not because I necessarily think crypto-anarchy is a good idea but rather because the technology trend will continue to make it happen. I also happen to be an A-Camp Cypherpunk but it is for the reason that I am a T-Camper alone that I derive that there can be no compromise on the issue of crypto-policy. Not only would it be a bad idea to compromise, but also any compromise will fail due to continuing changes in technology that favor intelligence in the end-user devices and end-to-end encryption over intelligence in the internal network components and easily controlled encryption. It is better to see the technology trend and embrace it to prepare for the new crypto-anarchy to come. ~``Those that prepare for the change will have a lot of success, while those that ignore the technology trend in this area will be left behind.''~ Truer words have never been spoken. Regards, Loren -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMSGeTP8de8m5izJJAQFFrQP/ZQFu64mGC/u4YC7jAsnv22Cx3Eub+xVw i3IYX7aHJopfG3g6IVifaGuEJmHxF6mZDHj+YSS/9fQfHUm7QZtoXmgmvxgWpP3s KiUVLgYA3/cVfZn/6iOUHlQCehzj2N4IPdW2QGWbe2rbk1i1YaiGLpnB+RRXo4nW r7mKrSVOjOQ= =TIOb -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Regulation of citizen-alien communications (Was: Choices)
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:24 AM 2/11/96 +0000, Ed Carp wrote: >> A foreign person is defined in S 120.11, and means anyone who's not a U.S. >> citizen. Technical data is defined in S 120.33 > >Oh? You mean that I can get busted for giving my Canadian spouse a copy >of PGP? A US *permanent resident* who is not a US Citizen is still a "US Person" for ITAR purposes. DCF

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Smart cards
by A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The largest demand, though, will come from government agencies, like > Spain's Social Security Administration and the Czech Republic's > Healthcare Ministry. China, with a population of 1.2 billion, is > considering a national identification card using this technology, said > Waqar Qureshi, Motorola worldwide marketing manager for smart-card > chips. Been around for quite a while - expensive part is not the cards themselves ($1-$3) but the card *readers*. Warmly, Padgett

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Firewall USA to Firewall China
by A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Q: The Chinese government has declared its intention to filter out > what it considers to be objectionable material from the Internet. If > you were a consultant for the Chinese government, what technology > would you recommend that they use to do that? Multiple layers would probably do it: 1) Acces only to/from sites with which they have a formal agreement 2) Using secure channels 3) With good application filters (could be created - that I do not know of anyone who has is irrevelant - MIMEsweeper is a start.) Mostly it depends on how seriously they want to block certain kinds of traffic and what of the I'net's capabilities they are willing to give up to achieve that goal. Now before I get flamed again, please understand that I separate what *can* be done from what *should* be done. This is a "can" and is also considering the fact that a sovereign nation has the *right* to do this unless it gives up that right. A US company also has that right where it pertains to their property unless again they give up that right (see: common carrier). Warmly, Padgett ps wife informed me that when traffic backs up, it is ok to leave a hole for cross traffic to use but if you make any sort of gesture to indicate that is what you have done, *you* become liable for the cross traffic's actions. Absurd, no ?

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Communication
by A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim rites: >Logic lesson for Padgett: >There are at least three categories here: >1. Government restricts communication. >2. Government neither assists nor restricts communication. >3. Government assists communication. (through stolen tax dollars, BTW.) Oh, now I see where you are confused. To me there are at least six categories - the three you mention but in matrix form with two columns: Wholly inside the USA and from the USA to/from "elsewhere". (2) applies inside the USA and in some cases (3) - and tax dollars are not necessarily "stolen", the Constitution specifies that taxes may be levied for certain matters. (1) does not apply though through the rationale/excuse of "maximising the use for all" some regulations have been enacted primarily by the FCC. It is not improbable that the FCC's area of responsibility might extend to the Internet once considered a "national resource". Not saying right or wrong, just "could" & would not be surprised. In the case of communications with "other" entities, I expect all three to apply in different instances - what makes anon.penet.fi different from the L. A. Times. Now in the case of extra-National communications, I believe that in certain cases the Nation-state has not only the sovereign right of control but the obligation to control. For example just to pick a popular example, France might negotiate a trade agreement with the USA that included an agreement to block all PGP communications between the two countries. That would be legal. What the US does not really have is the *ability* to control communications. Warmly, Padgett

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Re: COO_kie
by Yanni 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> So, Folks, how does one manipulate the cookie in Netscape so that the > user can control what Netscape sees??? > > Michael E. Carboy > carboy(a)hooked.net Simple, read the cookie specs on the NetScape site. :) http://home.netscape.com/ -jon Jon S. Stevens yanni(a)clearink.com ClearInk WebMagus http://www.clearink.com/ finger pgp(a)sparc.clearink.com for pgp pub key My apologies for the loss of bandwidth. :-)

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