December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

CyberManicheans (was Re: CyberAngels)
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"declan+(a)CMU.EDU" or someone using that identity has written: I fear the so-called "CyberAngels" more than I do the Feds. At least with their brand of jackboots, there can be accountability. The CyberAngels are more like CyberCads, CyberFrauds, or CyberCriminals. Cyber-vigilantes? Odd that their home page has a blue-ribbon. They don't seem to understand what the hell they are doing... it's not a requirement that ISPs require online presence to be verifiable anyway. Even if you're ISP operator knows who you are, it doesn't follow that it's definitely YOUR presence in a usenet post or on IRC. There's plenty of semi-anonymity on the net without using things like remailers or "decense" protocols or DC-Nets. Under their logic, we should all have little bar codes implanted in our skulls and checked at every street crossing and doorway. There's also a difference between rudeness and criminal activity. Anonymity isn't a cause of crime. It's icing on the cake, and criminals will find a variety of other ways around validated User-ID at the ISP level anyway.... which lulls one to a false sense of security, since once you're got a legitimate-appearing ID for your ISP, you can do quickie hit-and-run "cybercrimes" and fall off the face of the earth anyway. There's just so much an ISP or even a clerk at a department store can do to verify your identity. One store I know doesn't accept checks from Post Boxes, believing that they are all-too-often used for fraud... but a street address from a fly-by-night mail box rental is undetectable by them. The Cyber Angels are just as clueless as the authors of the CDA. Cheers, [***CENSORED***]

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Re: A Cyberspace Independence Refutation
by Dave Farber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The President can not rule anything unconstitutional. He can tell justice not to enforce it but sometime local federal prosecutors do what they want and some future administration can decide to enforce it. Only the courts or the congress can change things for sure. Dave At 03:20 PM 2/17/96 -0800, jamesd(a)echeque.com wrote: >jamesd(a)echeque.com said: >> >>j> 1. President Clinton declared CDA unconstitutional and directed >>j> the Justice department to refrain from enforcing it. > >At 01:57 PM 2/16/96 -0600, Sten Drescher wrote: >> Then why is the Justice Department defending it? > >Sorry: My error. As you pointed out he ruled *part* of the >CDA unconstitutional -- a part that no one expected to be >enforced anyway > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > | >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: Libertarians and crypto and such
by tallpaul＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Feb 16, 1996 23:06:27, 'Bruce Baugh <bruce(a)aracnet.com>' wrote: >At 12:43 AM 2/17/96 -0500, tallpaul wrote: > >>While the LP or its majority may not call for the things I've critiqued, >>certainly libertarians have. Nor, as far as I can recall, have LPers >>repeatedly posted to the cypherpunk list material that is on-the-surface at >>least significantly off-topic; libertarians have. And I responded. > >So you get the fun of attacking this straw man called "libertarians" without >any responsibility to identify any actual people it might include other than >a handful of folks that the vast majority of us think are kooks. And you've >also acquired the remarkable mental power, apparently, to discern who is or >is not an LP member based on their posts here. > Libertarians are not "straw men." They actually exist. I've seen them with my own eyes. If B. Baugh is upset that I have not mentioned any of the other libertarians (olf the cypherpunk list) that I have criticized, I would be happy to re-post to the list all of the related messages in other news groups on this topic listing their names. My "sent mail" archives contain a few thousand messages. (Aside to T.C. May: this is sarcasm and rhetorical hyperbole.) The vast majority of the libertarians on the cypherpunk list *might* think that the people I've criticized are "kooks" but I can find no evidence of this. I do note that some people who call themselves "libertarians" have so criticized the "kooks." The second point is, I think, either an error in logic. I have written nothing about my ability to tell what political party someone belongs or does not belong to. I infer that when someone tells me they are a member of the LP, CPUSA, SPUSA, etc. that they are, until evidence dictates another conclusion. If someone is a party member and decides not to make the material public, then they, not I, are responsible for any transient confusion that develops. But I do not demand or expect people to automatically list their party affiliation. I do note that the declared ability to "discern" unannounced party membership has historically been far more a rightwing then leftwing "ability" in the U.S.A. >Neat tricks. > >But until they're joined with a willingness to look at a wider range of >libertarian posts than the fragment that feeds your pet peeves, I reserve >the right to be impressed. Again, these seems to reflect your ability to reach conclusions about other people's behavior based on no evidence. I have read numerous posts by libertarians on the net; who has not! The issues I have responded to have usually centered on thigs like the mass killings of civilians, murder, and hatred of other people based on issues like race, ethnicity, nationality, and/or religion. You may consider these nothing more than my "pet peeves." This is your right. But in an era of increasing global hatred over such issues I do not think many would agree with your accessment of the relative weight of these issues. You need not be impressed; I was not posting to impress you. > >And yes, this is off-topic. So this is all I have to say about it. > I think then that you posted one message too many. --tallpaul

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Patents suck
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jean-Francois Avon (JFA Technologies, QC, Canada) wrote: > Man's survival tool is his mind. > > Patents and copyright are establishing the ownership and protection > the result of the exercise of his survival tool. > > Therefore they are good. > > To try to eliminate them is equivalent to promote slavery. I take some disagreement with that. With patents, there is a problem of large companies owning them yet doing nothing with them except suing other companies or individuals. For example, look at arithmetic coding: there are many patents owned on it, yet a lot of software using this means of compression may be in violation of the patents... are the patent-owners publishing software or makingh efforts to license it widely? If anything, such patents are getting in the way of using many algorithms. Patents would be better if there was a good-faith attempt on the part of the holder to "use it or lose it". Somebody sitting on a patent and doing nothing with it deserves to lose it after a number of years.

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Indian datacom freed?
by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Indian Techonomist: bulletin Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. All rights reserved Indian datacom freed? by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh February 16: Today, in a "brainstorming" session to discuss the new datacom policy proposed by The Indian Techonomist, the Department of Telecommunications indicated its enthusiasm for a free datacom environment in India. As no official decision has yet been taken, I cannot make the details public for the moment. There is one exception: the Telecom Secretary (and Chairman, Telecom Commission) R K Takkar has made it quite clear that content providers in cyberspace will receive all the free-speech protections available to other media. Mr Takkar said that existing laws for obscenity and national security were enough for the Internet, and in any case were not the concern of the DoT. Mr Takkar said that there was no need to licence on-line content providers, and indicated that Internet service providers would not be responsible for illegal content, apparently implying common carrier status for ISPs. The other parts of the proposal, relating to low entry barriers for ISPs and free competition met with a largely positive response. The full text of the proposal is now available at http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/newdcom.html Apart from Mr Takkar and myself, present at the meeting were Telecom Commission Members P Saran and P Khan, as well as some other senior DoT staff. I would like to thank Vinton Cerf and Lawrence Landweber for the support given by the Internet Society to the proposal. The Indian Techonomist: bulletin. http://dxm.org/techonomist/ Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab(a)techonomist.dxm.org) Tel +91 11 6853410; Fax 6856992; H-34-C Saket New Delhi 110017 INDIA May be distributed electronically provided that this notice is attached

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Cybercrooks
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Dream of the Internet Becomes Worst Nightmare Manhasset, N.Y., Feb. 16 -- Technology managers, who dreamed of the Internet as a new business tool and championed their cause to senior management, are waking up to nightmares of security gone awry, reports CMP's InformationWeek in its February 19 issue. "The incidence of cybercrook attacks to mine or sabotage a company's information resources is rising rapidly," states Bob Violino, editor-at-large of InformationWeek. "What is especially alarming is that despite the fact that companies like Rockwell International and Merrill Lynch and various government agencies employ the latest firewall and encryption technology available, they are experiencing security breaches on a regular basis." Business users have been particularly skittish about the Internet since last September, when two computer science students at the University of California at Berkeley cracked the public-key encryption code used by Netscape Communications Corp.'s popular browser software. "There are more experts than ever in the intruder community who know the infrastructure of the Internet," explains Cathy Fithen, CERT's team leader of strategic incident response. "In the past we saw people breaking into systems using passwords. Now they look for flaws to exploit involving networking protocols and source codes for operating systems." The fear of invasion is well founded, according to federal law enforcement agencies, which have stepped up their investigations of online intrusions. "We're aware that this is a serious problem for any industry using the Internet," says Jim Freeman, special agent in charge of the FBI's San Francisco office. "Salvation from the government, or from vendors with new security products, seems unlikely," says Violino. "History shows that as soon as new security tools are developed, hackers learn to crack them. And while not every company possesses trade secrets, security is still a must for everyone in business. For now, at least, absolute security is one thing the Net can't offer." But, companies are so focused on Internet intrusions from outsiders that they often fail to consider the possibility of an inside hacker. According to John Reinke, chief information security architect at Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. in New York, "There is no modern large organization that I now of that does internal firewalls." At Bell Laboratories, where an internal network links some 300,000 host computers around the world, security is a constant concern. "We're bigger than the entire Internet was in the late 1980s," says Bill Cheswick, technical staff manager at the labs' computer science research department in Murray Hill, N.J. "Our firewall keeps the bad guys out but you can't say there aren't bad guys inside the company." --

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Re: Berkeley ftp site moved again?
by Ian Goldberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- s1018954(a)aix2.uottawa.ca wrote: > > I've been unable to get through to ftp.csua.berkeley.edu > and www.csua.berkeley.edu for the past two days. > > Does anyone know if the site (and the cpunk archives with it) > has moved or if it's just down? (I'd mail root, but what's the > point if the machine's down?) > > Sorry if I've missed this being mentioned before. It's just down. - Ian - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMSZ7+SoZzwIn1bdtAQE74QF+LpQ4ArMpxZXxCF0HjKDkoa2oW8vMGUgP igMRtrhpScWkQOuAcXWun4/T+2hIHxCk =dKmJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Text of personal use exemption
by Ian Goldberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Michael Froomkin wrote: > > http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/personal-use.txt > Interesting. Note, however, the following proviso (123.27(a)(1)): (1) The software product(s) are to be used only on a simultaneously temporarily exported Category XIII(b)(1) hardware product or a simultaneously exported item on the Commerce Control List (CCL) This seems to say a couple of things: o I can't bring my copy of PGP or kerberos with me on a floppy, intending to use it abroad on a conveniently available computer; I must bring a computer with me. o The computer I bring with me must be a Category XIII(b)(1) hardware product; that is, something that is illegal to export (now, except for personal use), or be on the CCL. That second one seems weird. Does the CCL have things like normal portable computers on it? Otherwise, this exemption seems pretty useless... - Ian - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMSaALCoZzwIn1bdtAQHakAF+Lu9NxtqTvIobwT8epPPK/aWP38ldAO1m zJpcRffvIUmcKjB+U+A2OxAnSFRGd6r7 =cvI8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Remailers Pose Risk
by Michael Peponis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Computerworld, February 12, 1996, Front page: > "Anonymous remailers have a lot of nasty potential," said > Stephen T. Kent, chief scientist for security technology at >So do kitchen knives or automobiles. So do brain-dead journalists and "security experts". Oops, take that back, no probability involved, they are nasty problems. [..] > One snowy day last month, for example, about 25% of the > workforce at a defense contractor in Rockville, Md., went > home after they received a bogus E-mail message dismissing > them for the day. The message originated from an anonymous > remailer that allowed the user to impersonate a senior > company official. :Was that a remailer or simply forged mail? How long have people been bitching about putting digital signatures on stuff like that. If it was signed, it could of been verified if indeed it was legit or not. Irregardless of where it came from, anybody stupid enough to believe everything they read, without checking out it's validity, deserves what they get. [..] > "As in the case of smallpox, yellow fever, flu epidemics, > AIDS or malaria, it will take disasters before the public > may accept that some forms of restrictions on the > electronic freedom of speech and that privacy may be > worthwhile."FNORD! What?? like anonymous electronic media spreads the disease somehow. To the person who wrote the article, you have proved beond a shadow of a doubt that you are dense as a brick. Wrong type of virus, you mean the other kind. > Do's and don'tsAhem > Unethical or illegal uses of anonymous remailers:[..] > - To violate copyright laws ... Scientology... > - To encourage others to commit unethical or illegal > behavior Oh Boo Hoo, the moral decay of society, that is your problem shithead, not mine, some of us survive no matter what happens to the rest of you. Regards, Michael Peponis PGP Key Avalible form MIT Key Server,or via finger

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Legal status of Indian Reservations and CDA
by Michael Peponis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If I remember correctly, are not American Indian reservations considered qusi-sovergin states under the law? If this is true, what would stop me from negotiating with some tribe to establish an ISP on the reservation and then placing whatever material I wanted on that site without fear of reprisals from the US goverment. After all, if they are a soveign state, decency is covered by whatever laws they have, if any, not the CDA. If this is true, the Indians get the benift of having state-of-the-art telecommunications in thier communities, plus residual job creation, and everyone else gets freedom of speech. Any comments? Regards, Michael Peponis PGP Key Avalible form MIT Key Server,or via finger

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