December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

CDA Court Challenge: Day #2
by Declan B. McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The DoJ also quizzed Donna Hoffman about anonymous remailers. They wanted to make sure that she wasn't an expert on them, had conducted no studies of remailers, and had collected no statistics on their use. -Declan ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The CDA Challenge, Day #2 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Declan McCullagh / declan(a)well.com / Redistribute freely ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 22, 1996 PHILADELPHIA -- At 2:21 pm today, one of the judges hearing our challenge to the Communications Decency Act finally "got it." "The folks in Luxembourg don't give a damn what our laws are. So my son, who's 10, can still view 'Sexy European Girls?'" asked U.S. District Court Judge Stewart Dalzell. "That's correct," replied Scott Bradner of Harvard University, who took the stand today to describe net.technology. Bradner told me afterwards he thought Friday's hearing went well -- he had come to Philadelphia to testify because this "is such an important issue." Judge Dalzell's remark hints that he, at least, is starting to understand the Internet -- and the consequences of the court's eventual ruling. This comes not a picosecond too soon for those of us who have been fidgeting in our seats, wincing as Department of Justice attorneys misuse technical terms and hoping the judges can sort through the cyberconfusion in just six days of hearings. Dalzell has a keen sense of humor and seems sympathetic to our arguments. In fact, I'd guess he's been doing some out-of-court web-surfing himself. In an _astounding_ question at the end of the day, he asked Bradner: "Isn't it true that the exponential and incredible growth of the Internet came about because the government kept their hands off of it?" Bradner gladly agreed. (What else would he say?) The other two judges aren't quite as reflective. In an incomprehensible decision last month, Judge Ronald Buckwalter granted us only a _partial_ restraining order preventing the Feds from enforcing the CDA. Now he's justifying his original mistake by taking a critical stance during this hearing -- that is, when he's not dozing. During one of his more alert moments, Buckwalter asked if labeling all online content is possible: "Your problems are technical and financial? If thse problems are solved and we agree on the definition of indecent, is it possible?" "Yes, it is," our witness replied. Buckwalter also asked earlier: "What do you mean by saying the Internet is a very democratic medium? Isn't there someone who steers discussion?" As proof, he held up a copy of a recent Atlantic magazine article that claimed the most popular USENET newsgroups are moderated and are therefore "quasi-authoritarian." I suggested to our attorney, Chris Hansen from the ACLU, that he clarify what percentage of newsgroups were moderated. On redirect, Hansen posed that question to Donna Hoffman of Vanderbilt University. She replied that most newsgroups are unmoderated. Later, Bradner of Harvard University added that moderated newsgroups amount to less than 10 percent of the total. Dolores Sloviter is the third judge on the panel. As the chief judge of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, she penned a sparkling decision upholding free expression in a phone sex case. In this hearing, Sloviter's questions are the most pointed and incisive. When Robert Cronenberger of Pittsburgh's Carnegie Library was testifying, Sloviter asked him if under the CDA "would something have to be removed from your collection?" Cronenberger replied: "We don't know. We would be afraid that someone might find something indecent or patently offensive." The Department of Justice attorneys are an interesting lot. Jay Baron is a short, heavyset man who tries hard to land roundhouse punches during cross-examination but instead comes across as prone to malapropisms. I think he was the DoJer who confused <http://www.eff.org/> with <http://www.itef.org/> and "ISP" with "IP address." Before the hearing resumed for the afternoon, I introduced myself to him. He recognized me as a plaintiff and said he included one of my articles on Marty Rimm as evidence (!) and used it during depositions. <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/rimm/> Tony Coppolino is more reserved and didn't say much when we chatted, except to say that his office is busy enough with this case that they won't be sending anyone to the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference next week. I was impressed by the poise of Patricia Rosado, the DoJ's point person on porn. Yesterday she floated the MacKinnonesque theory that porn is harmful not just to minors, but also to women. Today she greeted our witnesses with a barbed, stinging cross-examination. Unfortunately for Rosado, she was up against Cronenberger, a likable gent who came across as a traditional librarian close to the judges' own ages -- not a net.geek like Donna Hoffman and Scott Bradner. (At one point, Judge Sloviter demanded that Bradner explain URLs and linking in English, not net-ese.) The judges gladly related to Cronenberger's description of the Net as a library -- finally, something they could grasp! The ACLU's Chris Hansen expanded on this in a brilliant redirect, pointing out that the concept extends beyond that of a traditional library, allowing a user to link "from the fourth floor of Wiedner Library in Boston to the third floor of the Carnegie Mellon University library in Pittsburgh." Rosado from the DoJ rallied with questions like: DoJ: "You can do a keyword search on the seven dirty words?" DoJ: "Would a search on Abraham Lincoln turn up articles about sex?" R.C.: "I've read many articles about his sex life, or lack of sex life. DoJ: "Would a search on travel turn up articles about sex?" DoJ: "Would a search on geology turn up articles about sex?" R.C. "Only if rock is put together with roll!" <laughter>) DoJ: "Would a search on food turn up articles about sex?" DoJ: "You exercise discretion as to what you make available. You don't carry everything, do you?" DoJ: "You select materials that reflect the local community standards?" Not surprisingly, the DoJ is trying to keep the hearing focused on porn and sex. (At least it keeps Buckwalter awake!) Not the truly extreme stuff that obscenity laws already ban online, but the softcore Playboy-style cyberpix that would be permitted in the absence of the CDA. The Justice Department asked Vanderbilt's Hoffman: DoJ: "You stated in your deposition that you were generally familiar with the web page called Bianca's Smut Shack?" Judge Dalzell immediately looked up, startled: "Bianca's WHAT?" DoJ: "Bianca's SMUT Shack." Judge Dalzell: "Oh, okay." Other DoJ questions included a passing reference to would-be cyberporn researcher Marty Rimm, who claimed that pornographers were using the Net to recruit customers. (Last month, the DoJ attached Rimm's study as an exhibit in their response to our complaint and cited it as evidence of the pervasiveness of nasty stuff on USENET.) Some examples: DoJ: "You will concede, will you not, that this law will not have a profound adverse effect [on password-protected smutty sites]?" DoJ: "Pornographers are using USENET newsgroups to advertise, are they not?" DoJ: "Tell us about bots and spiders." Judge Dalzell, trying hard: "That's an acronym, right?" My fellow plaintiffs are wonderful. Kiyoshi Kuromiya testified the first day, followed by Patricia Nell Warren. Warren and I had dinner on Thursday with Jonathan Wallace of the Ethical Spectacle; we talked about the political and social forces behind the push for the CDA. I asked Wallace why he came down from New York City -- he told me because "this is the most important free speech case in 60 years." Today I sat next to the DoJ's net.experts, who kept leaning forward to whisper technical data into the ears of the Justice Department's attorneys. One of the two experts was from Brigham Young University. The other was Steve Nesbitt from the Department of Defense. One or both likely will be testifying as expert witnesses for the DoJ, but Justice isn't releasing the list until April 3. Stay tuned for more reports. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- We're back in court on 4/1, 4/12, 4/15, and 4/26. The DoJ will be taking depositions from our remaining witnesses the week of March 24. For more information and breaking updates, check out: http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/ To subscribe to the fight-censorship announcement list, send email with "subscribe fight-censorship-announce" in the body to: majordomo(a)sojourn.com Other relevant web sites: http://www.eff.org/ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/rimm/ http://www.cdt.org/ http://www.aclu.org/ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: DAZ_zle
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:53 PM 3/21/96 -0500, John Young wrote: > Foreign Affairs, March/April, 1996, features two policy > essays on "The Information Edge: A technological change is > transforming the nature of power and the United States is > clearly in the lead." [deleted] > He observes that misunderstanding of > revolutionary technology all too often has had unexpected, > disastrous, consequences: "A revolution in military affairs > is under way. It will require changes of a magnitude that > military people still do not completely grasp and political > leaders do not fully imagine." Sounds like this guy has been reading my stuff.

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e$'s (mini-rant)
by Gary Lee Jeffers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

e$'s (mini-rant) I have some thoughts on John Humphrey's post. I thought the big problem with E$ was with the clearing house. Is it the consensus that it is the e$ patents? If the problem is that the inventors are sitting on their patents, then why can't we just RIP THEM OFF$ When the patent system was started in the U.S., it was done for the population in order to stimulate the invention process and so improve the lot of the people. Invention is a SPECIAL kind of production. It is not normal mass property! Patents are only property because it is considered that they are of value to the people rather than the owners! Patents pro- cess was started to give property to patent "owners" in order to persuade the inventors to invent for the people. If an inventor "SITS ON A PATENT", then it is ABUSE OF PATENT! Fuck the patent owner! Fuck him with bells on! RIP HIM OFF! its a noble cause! If this has become a serious problem then finding techniques of riping off e$ patent owners is a moral and practical undertaking. Then it should be a topic of Cypherpunks. I am not sure that hoarding of patents is the main hinderance of useful e$. What do other Cypherpunks say? patents? workable e$ schemes! clearing- houses? P.S. Maybe doing private Internet business while hiding from the owner of the e$ patent will be a new privacy concern :-) P.P.S. Thoughts for a rip-off technique. Take a good private e$ tech., restate it in different terms, throw in a few changes, options, extras so it doesn't look so much like the original. Then offer it to the public with a variety of very low cost deals - especially for start-ups. By the time the original inventor gets you into court, you'll have a ton of money he'll have nothing and with our system of "justice" you can bury him. :-) Even if he "wins" - with your privacy skills you can take it with you and hide it - talk to Duncan Frissell. Note: You'll have the money to talk to Duncan, the original inventor won't. :-) P.P.P.S Why not just take the best features of several private e$ tech.s and make a hybrid? It wouldn't even be plaguerism! (sorry, I lost my dict- ionary). Central power is stolen freedom. THE UNITED STATES "FEDERAL" GOVERNMENT HAS NO LEGITIMACY. The United States "Federal" Government - We'll be even more American without it. PUSH EM BACK! PUSH EM BACK! WWWAAAYYYY BBBAAACCCCK! BBBEEEAAATTTT STATE! Gary Jeffers

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Re: e$'s (mini-rant)
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:00 AM 3/24/96 -0600, Gary Lee Jeffers <gjeffers(a)ns.htc.net> wrote: > e$'s (mini-rant) > I have some thoughts on John Humphrey's post. I thought the big problem >with E$ was with the clearing house. Is it the consensus that it is the e$ >patents? If the problem is that the inventors are sitting on their >patents, then why can't we just RIP THEM OFF$ Yes, it's the patents. Chaum owns them, and he's not Easy To Do Business With. On the other hand, a couple of banks _have_ recently started doing business with him - Mark Twain Bank in St. Louis, and Merita Bank in Finland - check the cypherpunks archives (www.hks.net / nntp.hks.net) for details. There were a couple of earlier attempts, in which one group discovered that there are an appalling number of banking laws which make it hard to get a real bank started, and another group discovered that it's much easier to be a Credit Union than a Bank under US banking law, but it's still hard to get a business model that's likely to make non-negative amounts of money that way. The reason you can't just rip them off (unlike, say, PGP's early relationships with RSADSI/PKP) is that electronic commerce can only work well if it's legitimate - if you want real businesses to deal with you, and real banks to handle money for you, they need to be assured that they won't lose their assets in a patent lawsuit. On the other hand, Doug Barnes posted some interesting articles on "agnostic banking", a variant on Chaum's digicash where the bank can run simpler digital cash protocols that don't violate Chaum's patent, but the bank can't tell whether the customer is using Chaum's blinded signatures or not, so the customer can rip off Chaum's intellectual property without the bank having to be knowledgeable or involved (nudge, nudge, wink, wink.) On a non-financial level, Chaum didn't complain about the Magic Money / Tacky Tokens demos that some of the cypherpunks did, and Digicash came out with a play-money version that some of us used before the commercial deal was done. > [patent rant] Yeah, yeah, many of us can rant against patents as well. Been there, done that, even invented stuff and found somebody else had previously invented and patented it. The League for Programming Freedom has some high-quality detailed patent rants, and if you give RMS a grant for airfare he'd probably be happy to go picket Chaum's company for you :-) As far as Chaum hoarding the patents, he's always been willing to deal, but since he's mostly an academic rather than a businessman, he's set a very high up-front price so little guys don't bother him, only mega-banks that will come now that he built it. I'd guess the prices the banks he's now dealing with paid are rather lower than that, but it's a start for getting real business to evolve. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 # "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened # to halt the growth of Internet use. [...] Government control of news media # generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and # social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who # exceed the permissible." - US government statement on China... "SigFiles of Unusual Size? I don't believe they exist!"

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Re: (X:x)e$ 's other use
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:31 PM 3/23/96 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote: >Method 3 you'll recognize. There'd be nothing wrong with the Federal >Reserve if they only used methods 1 and 2; individual consumers can >decide whether to trust them not to print a lot more zeros than they should. >And they don't have a monopoly on currency - there are some kinds of >taxes that apply to some private currencies, but you can go into the >average bank today, ask them to write a cashier's check to someone >(and probably still to "bearer"), pay them, and they'll be happy to do it >for only a small commission, and American Express will do it as well. >And people will take their paper, though in the case of traveller's checks >it's sometimes a hassle to accept on an occasional basis. My experience in China in 1993 was that US Federal Reserve Notes were easy to use and American Express Traveler's checks were not. After hearing that the dollar isn't worth anything, it was refreshing to go to a country where they are in high demand. I recommend carrying good old fashioned USA dollars when going to communist countries. Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Frantz | The CDA means | Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 | lost jobs and | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Crypto CD
by Ben Holiday 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm considering the idea of cutting a crypto CD, and wanted to see if there was any potential interest in the idea, or not. Basically what i forsee is a disk with the basic algorithms (DES/IDEA/Etc), and steg tools, along with a few large crypto aps like PGP, and basic cracking software (Crypt Breakers Work Bench, XOR-type crackers, and dictionary attacks with a few dozen dictionaries). I'd also like to include a remail directory with some remailer sources, remailer-aware clients, and the mixmaster sources. And of course as much infomation as possible -- cyphernomicon preferably, possibly even archives of this list.. I would plan to put unix/dos/mac all on one CD. I'm thinking that realistically I can expect 50 megs or so. Possibly as much as 100 if I find a TON of wonderful text. Could be useful to individuals, as well as for groups wishing to create FTP sites etc. Pricing with shipping would wind up around US$20.00, give or take 5 dollars.. I'd like to know first off whether such a thing already exists. Secondly whether anyone would be interested in possesing such a thing. And lastly any suggestions for/about content that I may have missed.. Thanks Benji

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Re: protection on IoMega ZIP drives
by Robert A. Rosenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:45 3/23/96, Alan Olsen wrote: >The big problem is with the zip drivers. There is some sort of >incompatibility between SFS and the zip drivers. (I hacked on it for a >couple of hours with no luck.) Win95 makes the problem worse, as it is >difficult to judge just when the driver for the zip drive loads. (I have a >number of complaints about the zip drive drivers. Lack of documentation is >one of them...) I can state that with a Zip Disk formatted for Macintosh use (and the drive plugged into a Macintosh), the drive and disk are seen by the Macintosh as a NORMAL SCSI HD and eligible for use as a Boot Drive (ie: There is a Mac Driver on the Disk in a SCSI Driver Partition). I've Booted from a ZIP Disk so this is actual not just theoretical <g>. I'd assume that if a Wintel Machine had the Microcode to be able to boot off an external SCSI Drive (something I do not know is normal for Wintel machines as it is normal for Macintosh ones) the same situation would exist for Wintel Zip Formatted Disks. All NORMAL SCSI HDs (or Cartridges) have their driver in a Driver Partition so the HD/Cartridge can be read.

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private key encryption program for you to hack at
by Jack Mott 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ok, I have been working on this for a while, and I wanted to let you guys have a go at it. I wrote a private key encryption program that I think should be hard to break, I will provide you with the EXE (MS DOS) file, some ciphertext, AND a big chunk of plaintext. The key is not ridiculously large, but it won't be anything obvious so don't bother brute forcing. To encrypt, the program read in some system/time specific info, uses it to encrypt the file along with the key. It then write the system/time specific info to the end of the file encrypted with the key. I THINK that the only weaknesses should be predicitability of the system/time info, or possibly finding patterns in the encrypted values. I dont want to give out any source code yet, but it anyone wants some pieces of it just ask. crackme.zip file with paradox.exe, cipher.txt, and plain.txt -- ___ ___ _____ / \/ \ / \ || | || | || | ||he \_____/row thecrow(a)iconn.net "It can't rain all the time"

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Re: New Beta Test of PGPfone available WINDOWS '95 Included!
by jis＠mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(A copy of this message has also been posted to the following newsgroups: alt.security.pgp, sci.crypt) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I have received reports that some people are getting only partial files when downloading PGP and PGPfone with our new distribution server. This problem is caused by higher then normal packet loss on the Internet. Some browsers (notably the AOL browser) give up when they fail to receive any more data for a period of time (caused by high losses or other conditions that block our server). For now people should continue to attempt to download PGPfone and PGP until they get a good copy. Trying late at or on weekends when the net load is lower may help. I am working on a "fix" where our server will let the browser know up front (there is a way to do that with http) how large an item to expect. This hopefully will improve the situation, if not complete fix it. However this change will not be installed until at least Tuesday. So if you can wait, you might want to wait until Tuesday if you are having difficulties getting a complete distribution from MIT. Note: I will send out another message when this fix is in place. -Jeff -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMVVrMMUtR20Nv5BtAQEQ3gP/XjwEPbqSJXJesRYo+N4aAcMfl3O2PGoP LP/uGOOLCyx05EXkJidGly4IjY/qK325J8xDADCpJdoJgcM3CH+7EPghxAEmCIRd MttmADDv6U3QHnvPn7/L2mDtItueOCLsdeWtj7bQnRECoS/XsdQAUgZFbLlWsNhd uFm3bVG82LI= =m3v8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Crypto CD
by Vipul Ved Prakash 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Could be useful to individuals, as well as for groups wishing to create > FTP sites etc. Excellent Idea. At least I haven't seen one around. > Pricing with shipping would wind up around US$20.00, give or take 5 dollars.. > I'd like to know first off whether such a thing already exists. Secondly > whether anyone would be interested in possesing such a thing. And lastly > any suggestions for/about content that I may have missed.. How about PGP key archives? Vipul .od8888bo. \|/ .d%::::88::888b. (@ @) .d888::::::::8:888%. ------------------oOO-(_)-OOo----------------- 88888:::::::88888::%. You walk across with your flowers in your hand d888888:::88;888888::b Trying to tell me no one understands 888888888:888888888888 Trade in your hours for a hand full of dimes Y8888888::::::888888%P Gonna make it baby in our prime. '8888888:::::::8888:%' ---------------------------------------------- '88888888:::888888%' Vipul Ved Prakash Fax : +91-11-3328849 '8888888::88888%' Positive Ideas. Internet : vipul(a)pobox.com '"Y88%B8P"' ---------------------------------------------- PGP Key : Finger <vipul(a)pobox.com> PGP Key fingerprint = 35 FF A2 CA BD 6B 80 82 61 30 F2 23 96 93 77 E4 ~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=~-=

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