December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

plaugue of unsubscribes
by Alex Strasheim 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've started sending mail to postmasters when I get one of those "take me off your list!" messages. I explain that the user is on a high volume list, that he wants off, but that he seems unwilling or unable to do it himself. He's harassing the members of the list, who don't have the ability to remove him, and he doesn't seem to be reading our replies to his "take me off!" messages, which tell him how to solve his problem. Then I ask the postmaster to explain how to get off the list to the user. These guys are abusing email, and since they don't read our mail, the postmaster is the only solution. Perhaps if a few of us start writing to the postmasters, they'll help the user figure out how to get off.

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Re: why compression doesn't perfectly even out entropy
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I suspect, that all of us, Perry included, will react the same way if we find that our one time pads read like "Hamlet", or equally likely, "The Comedy of Errors". That is, we will tear the source of the pad apart to find out why it isn't working. If we find that it IS working correctly, we will wish we had used that one truly magic[*] moment to buy tickets in as many lotteries as possible. * Probability much less than 10 ** -50 in the life of the universe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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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CDA Court Challenge: Update #8 (Last Day of Testimony)
by Declan B. McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The CDA Challenge, Update #8 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Declan McCullagh / declan(a)well.com / Redistribute freely ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- In this update: BYU/CMU's Olsen testifies that "-L18" won't harm the Net Judges realize Olsen is a weasel Chief Judge Sloviter's incisive questions Who is Donna Rice? A DoJ attorney can't stop laughing... Closing arguments now set for May 10 April 18, 1996 PHILADELPHIA -- The U.S. Department of Justice doesn't like the way the Communications Decency Act is written. During the the testimony that ended April 15 in Philadelphia's Federal court, we've started to see the DoJ's legal strategy emerge -- and it includes attempts to redefine the CDA. The DoJ's star witness was the amazingly prudish Dan "I'm offended by four-letter words" Olsen, who said that his plan to have service providers card users and tag 'em as adults or minors is a fabulous way to go. But this shifts the burden of protecting kids from smut onto ISPs, a proposal that Congress rejected when they included "good faith" defenses in the law. Olsen, who will fit in just fine when he takes a job this summer as an administrator at censorhappy Carnegie Mellon University, also kept pushing the other half of his plan that would require all "patently offensive" online content be tagged "-L18." On Monday, the DoJ's very own attack-ferret Jason Baron asked Olsen: "Your proposal would not have an adverse effect on the Net as a whole? Olsen deadpanned: "Absolutely not!" This isn't surprising. To Olsen, the Internet is just a bunch of geeks who want to keep everyone else out of their own little world. When U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Dolores Sloviter asked him if his "-L18" system would develop side-by-side with PICS, Olsen replied: "If technical people were left to themselves, it would be likely to happen. I don't think this is true here. Internet people don't like other people telling them what to do. They're afraid of the FCC. They don't want anyone else messing in their pond." +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ JUDGES REALIZE OLSEN IS A WEASEL +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ Even the judges could tell that Olsen is a weasel. The three judges hearing our challenge to the CDA were unsympathetic to the Brigham Young University computer scientist and pinned him down for almost an hour as he tried to slime away from direct questions. Judge Stewart Dalzell is the most net-savvy judge on the panel and the only one with young kids, so I'm guessing they're helping him to grok the Net. He asked Olsen what would happen if U.S. citizens automatically cache overseas material, including "indecent" files. Again Olsen tried to weasel away from the hypothetical, but Dalzell would have none of it: "You assumed away my question." The DoJ witness grumpily admitted: "I'd turn the cache off." Some of Dalzell's questions were stellar: "Assume a chat group is talking about the CDA -- students from 13 to 18. In the course of the chat, an 18-year-old is exasperated and types in 'Fuck the CDA.' Is it your proposal that he should tag that '-L18?'" Not hesitating, Olsen said: "Yes." On the fight-censorship mailing list I maintain, Mark Stein writes: Judge Dalzell was paraphrasing closely from Cohen v. California, a seminal case in which the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a man who was arrested for wearing a jacket with "Fuck The Draft" painted on the back. This Olsen fellow's a government witness, you say? Sounds like he's working for us. Some of Dalzell's other questions were equally fab: "If in one issue of the Economist the word 'fuck' appears, the library [putting it online] would have to go through the entire text of the issue?" Olsen replied: "Somebody would have to make this screening. Somebody would have to make this judgement." (Later he invented the idea of libraries banding together to pool resources to make these decisions. I could feel the hackles of the American Library Association folks rising. I swear, Olsen makes up these mind-fucks on the fly.) Remember Judge Buckwalter? I wrote about him in my first CDA Update, saying that he was the least comfortable with our cybersuit: 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... Buckwalter has come around. Last Friday his comments indicated he was starting to understand the issue. His questions to Olsen on Monday showed that he finally "gets it": Q: If the creator of the material doesn't buy into your system, it creates a big problem... Does this mean plaintiff's proposal makes more sense? A: No. There are different types of proposals... Q: On your declaration, determining which are adults, you don't address economic claims? A: I only address if it's technically possible. +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ CHIEF JUDGE SLOVITER'S INCISIVE QUESTIONS +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ Chief Judge Sloviter's questions were the most incisive -- like Dalzell, she admitted to doing a bit of out-of-court net surfing. She asked Olsen if "children would be blocked from accessing parts of museum collections?" Olsen admitted they would. Some other questions from Sloviter: Q: Would [your -L18 proposal] contain the seeds that the government can do the blocking? Once everything is tagged as -L18, would that facilitate any one entity saying this material should not go out on the Internet? A: Possibly. Q: Can you think of any time in our history where we have blocked material in advance? A: Yes, every editor in every newspaper does this every day. Q: But in an organized manner? A: Every editor in every newspaper does this every day. The EFF's Mike Godwin says: That Sloviter asked this question is incredibly important -- it shows that she recognizes that compliance with the Communications Decency Act would amount to a complex system of prior restraints. Even among those who disagree strongly about the scope of the First Amendment, there is little disagreement about the general prohibition of prior restraints on publication -- the only generally acknowledged exception to this prohibition is the "national security" exception (publication of troop movements during time of war and the like). In previous obscenity/indecency cases, it has long been established that prior restraints on publication are impermissible. The strangest point of the day came after Olsen testified that a PICS-style third-party rating system would "slow the flow." (This was a snide reference to Vanderbilt Professor Donna Hoffman's testimony about how uninterrupted "flow" was important while web-surfing.) Sloviter then asked him how an adult would show -L18 tagged materials to a mature child. Olsen replied that a "teacher or parent could log on." Sloviter parried: "Wouldn't that slow the flow?" At this point, Olsen began to discharge a series of short, staccato bursts of high-pitched giggles, sounding like a rabbit being tortured to death. Damnedest thing I ever saw. The audience stared in horror. Basically, the DoJ fucked up with this witness. Olsen was such a censorhappy nut and so delighted with his "-L18" scheme that the court realized it went too far -- that it was obviously unconstitutional. In other words, he was our best witness. +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ WHO IS DONNA RICE? A DOJ ATTORNEY CAN'T STOP LAUGHING... +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ I would have loved to have been in Washington, DC when Grey Flannel Suit -- AKA AFSADAFOSICCI* Howard Schmidt -- was deposed on April 1. Imagine an entire business day filled with nothing but talk of cyberporn, with everyone trying to be serious and lawyerly. Some representative samples, from page 244 of Grey Flannel's deposition: A: The next one, the same [screen] with panties.jpg reflects the image that appears on the screen after clicking on Panties. A: The next one, the same [screen] with boobs.jpg reflects the image that appears on the screen after clicking on Boobs. A: And the next one is cunnilingus.jpg, which reflects the image that comes onto the screen by clicking on Cunnilingus. But my fave part was when former party girl and ex-No Excuses jeans model Donna Rice-Hughes was mentioned. In the past year, Rice-Hughes has leveraged her fame from the Gary Hart presidential campaign into a budding career as a morality crusader at the anti-porn group "Enough is Enough!" Read on for an excerpt from page 282 of Grey Flannel's deposition... Q: Are you acquainted with Kathleen Cleaver? A: No, I'm not. Q: Have you ever heard that name? A: It does not ring a bell, no. Q: Are you acquainted with Bruce Taylor? A: Not that I'm aware of, no. Q: Are you acquainted with Donna Rice? A: The name Donna Rice rings a bell it seems, but I don't know from what. [The ACLU attorneys and Pat Russotto from the DoJ can't stop laughing.] DoJ's Tony Coppolino: "I'll explain later." ACLU's Margorie Heins: "It's a honest answer." ACLU's Chris Hansen: "Even Pat couldn't remain serious through that." DoJ's Tony Coppolino, trying again: "I'll explain later!" * AFSADAFOSICCI = Air Force Special Agent, Director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Computer Crime Investigations +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ CLOSING ARGUMENTS NOW SET FOR MAY 10 +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ The closing arguments for our case now are scheduled for May 10, with April 29 as the deadline for submitting our findings of fact and conclusions of law -- a lengthy collection of documents that will include everything we believe we've proved in our case. (Closing arguments were pushed up to early May since we didn't feel a need to call any rebuttal witnesses. After all, we had Olsen!) Our attorneys and the DoJ each will present two hours of closing arguments on May 10, though the timeframe is flexible. The three-judge panel likely will issue a decision three or four weeks later, and appeals will go directly to the Supreme Court. What will the Philly court decide? Bruce Taylor, the president of the National Law Center for Children and Families, told me that he's "confident" the court will uphold the indecency portions of the CDA. However, the former Federal prosecutor said he's "worried that the court may accept some of the technical or infeasibility arguments" against the law. I'm sure we'll talk more about it on May 9, when I'll be on a panel at the University of Pennsylvania with Taylor and Cathy Cleaver. Fortunately, one of the strongest aspects of our case is that we're correct. Stay tuned for more reports. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- We're back in court on May 10 for closing arguments. Quote of the Day: "We teach them proper principles and let them govern themselves." -Prophet Joseph Smith Mentioned in this CDA update: CDA Update #6, with details on Dan Olsen's "-L18" proposal: <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?num=2143> Brock Meeks on 4/12 and 4/15 hearings: <http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/96/16/index1a.html> Mark Eckenwiler's report on the recent CDA forum at Cornell University: <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?num=2226> CDA forum at the University of Pennsylvania, scheduled for May 9: <http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~fatf/cda-forum.html> IETF draft of "Internet Philosophy" article: <ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-iab-principles-02.txt> Net-Guru David Reed's article: "CDA may pervert Internet architecture": <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?num=2093> Censored by the CDA <http://www.iuma.com/Cyborgasm/> Dan Olsen at BYU <http://www.cs.byu.edu/info/drolsen.html> Fight-Censorship list <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/> BYU's censorship policy <http://advance.byu.edu/pc/releases/guidelines.html> Rimm ethics critique <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/rimm/> Int'l Net-Censorship <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/zambia/> CMU net-censorship <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kcf/censor/> University censorship <http://joc.mit.edu/> Grey Flannel Suit <howardas(a)aol.com> Carl Kadie's CAF site <http://www.eff.org/CAF/> Blue Ribbon T-Shirts <http://www.fqa.com/romana/blueribbon.html> This report and previous CDA Updates are available at: <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/> <http://www.eff.org/pub/Legal/Cases/EFF_ACLU_v_DoJ/> <http://www.epic.org/free_speech/censorship/lawsuit/> To subscribe to the fight-censorship mailing list for future CDA updates and related discussions, send "subscribe" in the body of a message addressed to: fight-censorship-request(a)andrew.cmu.edu Other relevant web sites: <http://www.eff.org/> <http://www.aclu.org/> <http://www.cdt.org/> <http://www.ala.org/> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: why compression doesn't perfectly even out entropy
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:52 AM 4/18/96 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: > Its tiny little statistical toeholds like that which permit breaks. True, as far as it goes. But I see an even bigger threat to password security. Yesterday, I subscribed to the New York Times Net News service. It asked me to select a username, and a password. Obviously, smart people are not going to the same password on multiple systems that they expect might be exchanging information, but we all know that reality is that people DO this, especially on systems they don't initially expect a great deal of security on. The problem is that a service like that (or a BBS operator, etc) at least as a passing chance of figuring out a person's password, or the password itself is a clue as to what kind of keyspace to search. (Upper case only? mixed? Only text? Spaces used? Etc.) Besides that, the password is probably passed in the clear. I think what is needed is a system to transform a password (perhaps by hashing, then perhaps encryption) so that the BBS/other service receives no useful information as to the password, or the method used to select the password, or for that matter the length of the password. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Cybercash vs Mark Twain Digicash?
by Christian Odhner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello. I've been off the list for quite a while now, so I'm not up to date on the current ecash schemes. My company (a major internet service provider with a lot of web advertising clients) is looking into which digital cash method would be best to support for use on our customer's web pages. The head of the web department has taken a look at several, and is torn between Mark Twain's stuff and Cybercash. I was wondering if people who have looked at these systems could give me a rundown on the major differences. I know that Mark Twain is nice and secure (or at least I *think* I know that) but Cybercash is signifigantly easier to use. Any comments would be welcome, and to keep list volume down (I assume it's still as busy as ever) I'd be happy to recieve replies via direct email, and sumarize for the list. Happy Hunting, -Chris Odhner - GoodNet -

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Re: EFF/Bernstein Press Release
by John Deters 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>On Thu, 18 Apr 1996, Mark Neely wrote: > >> Well, that puts legislation making virus authoring a crime >> into a new (and difficult) position. My understanding is that it isn't illegal to author a virus, but it certainly would be to release it. Preventing someone from writing a virus would be prior restraint, which is a big no-no with lots of precedent. See the excellent page at EFF for a discussion on prior restraint: http://www.eff.org/pub/Legal/Cases/sjg_neidorf_eff.summary (Oooh, how's that you net.legal.beagles, citing web pages instead of cases?) So, you'd be able to write all the viruses you wanted. Turn 'em loose? Well, then you've stepped in it. -- J. Deters >From our _1996_Conflict_of_Interest_Statement_, re: our No Gift policy: "If you receive any alcoholic beverages, for example, a bottle of wine, you must give the gift to your location Human Resources Manager." This memo is from the Senior V.P. of Human Resources. +---------------------------------------------------------+ | NET: jad(a)dsddhc.com (work) jad(a)pclink.com (home) | | PSTN: 1 612 375 3116 (work) 1 612 894 8507 (home) | | ICBM: 44^58'33"N by 93^16'42"W Elev. ~=290m (work) | | PGP Key ID: 768 / 15FFA875 | +---------------------------------------------------------+

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RE: math patents
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:46 AM 4/16/96 -0800, jim bell <jimbell(a)pacifier.com> wrote various amusing paranoid conspiracy theory :-) about software patents. I tend to agree that the concept is bogus, and it's further aggavated by the Patent Office's technical incompetence in the area which has led to granting of patents for things that are well covered by prior art and obviousness to skilled practitioners. However. The first software patent, AFAIK, was Dennis Ritchie's setuid patent from Unix. I'm not sure when it was granted, but it must have been applied for a couple years before Diffie-Hellman was developed. Unlike RSA, where it's fun to talk about RSA/PKP/etc.'s evil conspiracy with the government (in spite of the foreign citizenship of one of them and some amusing uncooperativeness that's let them pull off when threatened) but it's way bogus to argue that in the case of Whit Diffie (I don't know Hellman.) While PKP did acquire the Stanford patents for a while, they weren't the ones who applied for them and didn't form for a while after they were granted. Remember that RSA was developed a couple of years after DH. >I am still mystified, however! If I understand the thrust of the legal >cases you cited, purely mathematical algorithms are still not patentable, >yet the patents on public-key cryptography are about the most purely >mathematical ones that could be imagined. They are not an element in the >process, they ARE the process. The patents are carefully written to make it clear that the process is "protecting private data" rather than "Crunching numbers in some mathematically interesting way." >Patents would not have prevented the Russians from using RSA, nor any other >foreigners, so as far as I can see the only group of people impaired by the >RSA patent were American citizens as a group. (Other than Canadians..) The reason that RSA isn't patentable in other countries isn't because the US is the only place that permits algorithm patents (many countries do, and even provide more than US; e.g. IDEA is patented in Switzerland.) It's because most other countries don't grant patents after publication, and because of the major FUD that the NSA cast over cryptographic research in the 70s and 80s, it's been necessary to publish the theory before applying for patents - if you do it the other way around, the NSA can slam patent secrecy orders on your patent applications, like they did even for a wimpy analog scrambler for CB radio in the late 70s (which _was_ clearly done to impair American access to crypto..) > # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215

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No Subject
by steven farr 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

unscribe sfarr.SAF(a)worldnet.com Steven A Farr

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unscribe
by steven farr 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

unscribe sfarr.SAF(a)worldnet.att.net please take me off your mailing list Steven A Farr

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Re: [NOISE] Toast Fishing in America
by wulf＠horvendile.getty.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 17 Apr 1996, David K. Merriman wrote: > If Microsoft made toasters... > They'd put the slots on the side, the actuator on top, make the > cord too short, and design it to only run properly on 177V, 41Hz. Then > they'd declare the toaster to be the new industry standard. and the toasters would download your toasting habits and preferences to Microsoft HQ... --Wulf

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