December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Witness Protection Program
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The NYT Sunday magazine tomorrow has a longish article on the federal Witness Protection Program. It traces in detail one family's entry, the arrangements for the "death" of the old identity and the new "birth," and describes the unsettling nymity transformation. It also lays out the ballooning cost of a program once thought to be relatively cheap. Some techno stuff about carefully orchestrated communication between the relocated family and relatives. Is everyone in the galaxy still able to get free and easy access to the NYT Web site at: http://www.nytimes.com ?

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This is not...
by mixmaster＠obscura.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Lemeur Alexanderpunks, or perryrants vs. perryisanasspunks, or CDAisdumbpunks, it's CYPHERpunks. Could everyone please get closer to back on topic, there is work to do. Rant at congress, not here! XYZ

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Re: Nyms with keys
by Lynne L. Harrison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Perhaps while you're lurking, you should consider downloading and installing a more recent version of PGP than version 2.4 which you're still using. At 05:24 PM 2/10/96 UTC, deadbeat wrote: > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >I mostly lurk these days. > >DEADBEAT <na5877(a)anon.penet.fi> > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >Version: 2.4 > >iQBFAgUBMRwQdPFZTpBW/B35AQH+7wGAss68V8aPaLMra/yLHtk5CpO2Zt8Yp7B1 >qZKr+hOVJmphvZFmC7UmEk8TZu7a1GTY >=zI0k >-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: V-chips, CC, and Motorcycle Helmets
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:07 PM 2/10/96, "A. Padgett Peterson, P.E. Information Security" <PADGETT@hobbe wrote: >Tim rites: >>The viewer sets her preferences: a 5-5-5 would let everything through, etc. >>The developer of the chip claimed he could mass produce the chip for a buck, >>and this may be where all those estimates of "$1-2 per set" have come from. > >Am in favor of this since it puts the control in the hands of the property >owner. One question would be "how often is the V-rating code transmitted ?" >(are the kiddies protected from channel-surfing ?) Do suspect that the $1-$2 >cost could be met *at the manufacturing level*. This is what I said, that maybe the _chips_ could be made for $1-2, but integrating them into systems (VCRs, t.v.s, tuner cards for computes--did you think we'd let Little Johnny evade the V-Chip by using one of those tuner cards?) will likely cost 20-40x more, based on the usual cost factors. The Canadian V-Chip prototype was shown sending out V-Chip codes "frequently" (seconds or faster), so Little Johnny might see a flash of thoughtcrime, but not much more. >Do also see the need for regulation to put it in. It was required for UHF >channels else no one would try to build one. I am also thankful that is was The whole "mandatory UHF" thing was utter nonsense from the gitgo. In nearly all commercial markets (big cities) there are but a few UHF channels being used, and in most places none are being used. Meanwhile, unused VHF spectrum exists. As someone else posted recently, the "market" solution gave us "cable-ready" sets and VCRs without government/FCC regulation. >required for closed-captioning even though my TVs are not new enough (have >a $99 discount-house box on the TV in the family room. Makes many shows Well there you have it. Many of the poor clearly are not buying new sets that have closed-captioning. Meanwhile, we all pay for it when we buy new sets and VCRs. A hidden tax, that does not benefit those in need. (I'm not a tax strategist, and consider taxes to be theft, but if I were to design such a tax, I'd just steal the money "fair and square" and then pay the $100 or whatever to the deaf--excuse me, "the alternately soundspaced"--to subsidize an external closed-caption decoder. Of course, this would leave the broadcasters, and under no circumstances would I insist that they CC their programs, and thankfully the law does not now require them to.) ObCypherpunks: A truly surprising number of people on this list are on the one hand lambasting the government for thievery, incompetence, corruption, and violation of their rights, while on the other hand explaining why they think some particular intrusion is justified. We have people arguing for mandatory V-Chips, for Data Privacy Inspection Services, for anti-discrimination laws, and for government key signing services. It's not a far jump from arguing any of these points to talking about the "legitimate" (their term) needs of the government to ensure that encryption is not used for criminal purposes, for kidnapping and extortion, for tax evasion, etc. People need to think about the powerful implications of strong crypto, and decide if they are _for_ access to strong crypto by citizens, or _against_ it. All things follow from this decision. --Tim May 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: Need a "warning" graphic of some kind for CDA
by Lynne L. Harrison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:26 AM 2/10/96 -0600, Sten Drescher wrote: > > Then why didn't the Prez announce that he was ordering the >Justice Department to not defend the CDA provisions, like he did the >AIDS expulsion provision in the military spending bill? Because it's an election year and, IMO, the topics he discussed in his State of the Union address gave a clear message that he was going to sign this bill. ******************************************************* 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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WEB: Heterodoxy Bashes MIT and Internet
by Damaged Justice 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Very little cpunk relevance. I bash Heterodoxy for bashing MIT and the Internet at http://yakko.cs.wmich.edu/~frogfarm/hetrant1.html Also available at alt.wired and talk.politics.libertarian. -- http://yakko.cs.wmich.edu/~frogfarm ...for the best in unapproved information Tell your friends 'n neighbors you read this on the evil pornographic Internet "Where one burns books, one will also burn people eventually." -Heinrich Heine People and books aren't for burning. No more Alexandrias, Auschwitzs or Wacos.

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Re: Req. for soundbites
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>A local TV station has asked me for an interview, after I sent a graphic >of a mono-digital hand gesture with the phrase "censor this!" to the Prez, >Veep, and the area congresscritters (cc'd to 2 TV stations and a radio >station), accompanied by a 'confession' and demand for swift prosecution. > >Anyone got any nifty sound bites I can try to toss in? "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties." "Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?" Both are John Milton, Areopagitica (1644) And theis .sig: Arun Mehta, B-69 Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi-24, India. Phone 6841172,6849103 amehta(a)doe.ernet.in a.mehta(a)axcess.net.in amehta(a)cerf.net http://mahavir.doe.ernet.in/~pinaward/arun.htm "I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any."--Gandhi Bill

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[silly] Re: OK, how *do* you spell it?
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:58 AM 2/10/96 -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote: >I got a spelling ping this morning. > >I'd never really thought about it, before. > >Is it infocalypse or infoclypse? It is Infocalypso. Infocalypso is a new dance involving laptops. It is similar to clog dancing, except the laptops are hit together in a rhythmic fashion while a lively beat is played on magnetic drums. It is usually found in countrys which have alot of spare laptops. It was made popular during certain MIT social gatherings and EFF meetings. The dance has gotten more and more violent as the speed of laptops have increased. --- 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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Re: Yeah, Yeah But what are we gonna do!
by avatar＠mindspring.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:17 PM 2/10/96 -0500, you wrote: >Spam beget filters. > >Most congresscritters delete email from people other than their >constituents already. > >Adam > Untrue most of them have responded to my correspondence. For example, I live in Atlanta Ga. and Senator Bradley is a representative of New Jersey. Here is his letter. By the way I have many more from many other members of both House and Senate. Thank you for contacting me to express your views concerning the Communications Decency Act of 1995, which was recently passed as part of S. 652, the Telecommunications Act of 1995. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to review your thoughts on this issue. Although the advances being made in our nation's information and communications network are revolutionary and welcome, they also provide openings for individuals to transmit obscene materials to children and to lure children. Throughout my career in the U.S. Senate, I have consistently encouraged the recording industry and the television industry to limit explicit violence and sex on television. Given the widespread growth of information networks, I supported the Communications Decency Act as a means to curtail children's exposure to offensive materials and to give parents some control over the things their children see and hear. While I supported this amendment because I believe there is a need for some safeguards against obscenity, I do have some concerns about the implementation of this provision, if it becomes law. There should be a distinction between indecent and obscene material, as there is in other relevant laws. Furthermore, this particular amendment does not adequately reflect the unique nature of the Internet, in which information crosses many computers and access points before reaching the user. Finally, I was disappointed that the Senate did not have an opportunity to consider an alternative proposal suggested by Senator Leahy. This measure would have provided more safeguards to ensure that First Amendment rights were preserved, but still would have accomplished the overall objective of the adopted version. Determining who should be held responsible for disseminating obscene material may be difficult. I am concerned that this could lead to an overall chilling effect on online communication as users fear that they may be held responsible for material they did not originate. Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind as the joint House-Senate conference committee attempts to reconcile the differences between the two versions of the Telecommunications Act of 1995. Again, thank you for contacting me to share your views. I hope to hear from you again in the near future. Best wishes. Senator Bill Bradley Washington, DC 20510 (202)224-3224 > Charles Donald Smith Jr. ||The government is my shepherd I need not work. It alloweth me to lie down on a good job. It leadeth me beside stilled factories. It destroyeth my initiative. It leadeth me in the path of a parasite for politics sake. YEA, though I walk through the valley of laziness and deficet spending I shall fear no evil, for the government is with me. It prepareth an economic utopia for me by appropriating the earnings of my grandchildren. It filleth my head with false security. My inefficiency runeth over. Surely, the government should care for me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in a fools paradise forever.................AMEN! || nuke'm if ya got'em||

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This is not "This-is-not-punks" either
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:11 PM 2/10/96, Mixmaster wrote: >Lemeur Alexanderpunks, or perryrants vs. perryisanasspunks, >or CDAisdumbpunks, it's CYPHERpunks. Could everyone please >get closer to back on topic, there is work to do. Rant at >congress, not here! >XYZ Is anyone stopping you or anyone else from talking about quadratic residues, or Fiat-Shamir protocols, or the IETF proceedings? I didn't think so. People talk about what is on their mind. This week it's the CDA, a while back it was Jim Clark, and at various times we have talked about a truly vast number of subjects. Sometimes we talk about C code (not often), often we repeat ancient conversations about random numbers and steganography, and very occasionally we get into a new topic. This is not surprising, echoing as it does the patterns of conversations in real life. The scolding by people who think things are "off-topic" is not constructive. If they think people should be talking about some topic they consider more appropriate, let them start talking about it. Crypto is a hard subject, the technical part of it. If the list confined itself to this subject, very little discussion would take place. A Wei Dai might announce a new package every few months, someone might ask whether IDEA is better than Blowfish every couple of weeks, and maybe a Hal Finney would note that his analysis of RC4 is complete. Not much discussion, given the "depth" of these subjects. (And isn't sci.crypt a much better place for these discussions anyway? Why have the Cypherpunks mailing list at all if the only "appropriate" topics are those that duplicate what is already going on in sci.crypt?) Finally, I am always struck by how the most consistently scolding folks here ("Can't we get back to crypto?") are also the ones most prone to going off on their own rants when the mood hits them. Perhaps this is what they fear--the fear that someone else will say something that *must be rebutted* and thus cause them to go off on their own rant! Instead of ignoring the words that bother them, they declare that a topic is not suitable. Worse, they even engage in what psychologists call "magical thinking": they confuse cause and effect and claim that the actions of others will "cause" bad things to happen. We see this is the stupid comments along the lines of "I hope you're happy when the NSA wins, all because you made the list talk about Vince Foster instead of DES!!!!" People will talk about what they want to talk about. The way to shift the focus to what you think should be talked about is to write interesting and persuasive posts, not decry the topics others think important. The best way not to have the list "sidetracked" is to not respond to things you think are off-topic. Another version of this plaintive wail about topicality is the repetition of that comforting mantra "Cypherpunks write code." Overused in the extreme (though based on good ideas, that actually implementing systems is more interesting and more world-changing than merely discussing theory), this is used by people who wish others would shut up about some subject. As a way to have the last word. Sort of like writing, "As I've just finished explaining to you dullards in this 5-page post about why the Jacobins were actually proto-Libertarians, I must repeat that "Cypherpunks write code." So I now ask must ask you to accept what I have written on the French attitude toward libertarianism and get back to what this list is really about. If you continue to argue with me, you will be doing the NSA's work for them." (There's that magical thinking again.) (Why anyone would want others to shut up is beyond me...this is what filters are for. Anyone who can't filter out messages, either directly or by deleting them quickly, probably isn't in a position to "write code" anyway, so what's the issue? No, what I really think the issue is for these "control freaks" (to use the accepted term) is that it simply grates on them that other people are not more like themselves, are not interested in the same things they are at the same time they are. And they think that by scolding others they can force them to change their ways. Guess what? It doesn't work.) I was recently accused in private mail, and maybe public mail as well, by someone of "diverting" the list into a discussion of the Hiroshima bomb and its moral implications. I disagree. When Rich Graves asked originally, "Who holds up the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as great victories against tyranny?" I said "Since you ask, I do. A land invasion of Japan would've likely cost half a million American lives, and perhaps a million or more Japanese citizen lives, according to comprehensive studies I think are on the mark." This simple response--admittedly not related to DES or IETF or even Netscape--elicited flames, charges of racism, counter-arguments, and such. So? While I chose to sit out most of that flame war, you didn't hear me wailing "Can't we just get back to talking about Diffie-Hellman?" This is what filters are for. And what ignoring threads is for. I repeat, if you want others to spend more time talking about the things that you think need talking about, then set an example and begin the conversation. Don't just childishly wail about what others are talking about isn't "on charter." --Tim May, who will continue to write about what he wishes to write about 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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