December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Article on PGP Viacrypt
by A5113643667＠attpls.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Cypherpunks, ---------------- Received: by attpls.net with Magicmail;3 Apr 96 09:19:59 UT Date: 5 Apr 96 02:14:38 UT Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com (owner-cypherpunks) From: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com (owner-cypherpunks) Subject: Re: Article on PGP Viacrypt To: walter(a)cithe302.cithep.caltech.edu (Chris Walter) cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com (Cypherpunks) Message-Id: <199604030451.UAA06038(a)slack.lne.com> In-Reply-To: <<WALTER.96Apr2124421(a)cithe302.cithep.caltech.edu> from "Chris Walter" at Apr 2, 96 08:44:20 pm> X-X-AUTHENTICATION-WARNING: toad.com: majordom set sender to owner-cypherpunks using -f I would have to agree that if businesses are to use PGP that "good" key escrow MUST be provided. Peace ..Tom Chris Walter writes: > > Hi Folks, > > There is an interesting article by Simon Garfinkle in this > morning's(Apr 2nd) electronic version of the San Jose Mercury news. > Its on the index page so I don't think you need an account to read > it. > > The article deals with the new key management features and extensions > in Viacrypt and how PRZ is upset since it allows employers to read > their employees messages. I read it this morning. The gist is that this new evil PGP lets your employer SPY ON EVERYTHING YOU DO! And was written in about that tone. I was disappointed by the article. I don't know if Simson is deluded about the use of Viacrypt PGP, or the article got hacked up by by ignorant/malicious editors, or my understanding of Viacrypt PGP is competely wrong. I thought the purpose to putting key escrow (that's real escrow not GAK) into PGP was to allow its use for business purposes. Often in business use you're not too concerned with keeping secrets from your employer or fellow employees, but do want to keep those secrets within the company. And there is a real concern that you might encrypt company-secret stuff and then fall off your motorcycle and get run over by a truck, leaving your securely-encrypted company secrets suddenly inaccessable to the company... Key escrow, with the keys held by the company, is designed to prevent this problem. The article failed to mention that you're not prevented from using a non-escrow PGP for personal secrets (could Viacrypt PGP prevent you from using PGP 2.6.2? I don't think so) and made it sound like Viacrypt PGP is designed to allow nosy employers to spy on employees encrypted email. I guess it would, if the employers were that nosy and the employees dumb enough to use company-provided escrowed PGP to send personal secrets. But that theory's about as credible as the Clipper chip proponents's "dumb crooks" theory where crooks would want encrypted phones but be dumb enough to forget that the Government held the keys... Simson's the one main-line journalist who writes about internet and computer issues that I still think has a clue, and has written a pretty good book about PGP, so I'd be suprised if he got this so wrong. On the other hand, I haven't used this new Viacrypt PGP and I'm going on what I think that escrowed PGP is really good for. Maybe my feeling about that have blinded me to reality. Or, most likely, the editor(s) hacked the story up either out of ignorance or to present a viewpoint that they had already decided they want to present, truth be damned. If I wanted to present a conspiracy theory about the government wanting to discourage use of PGP for businesses, this would be the place to do it. If PGP gains a foothold in the businessplace it'll be nearly impossible to eradicate, given the fact that (big) business essentially runs the country. Key escrow will make PGP a lot more usefull to businesses, increasing its use. I'm sure you can fill in the rest of the theory. > http://www.sjmercury.com/business/priv401.htm > -- Eric Murray ericm(a)lne.com ericm(a)motorcycle.com http://www.lne.com/ericm PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03 92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF --- NOTICE: This message originally included graphics and/or sounds which can only be received by AT&T PersonaLink(sm) subscribers. You received only the text portion(s) of the message. Please contact the sender for information that was deleted. To learn how to send and receive graphics, voice and text messages via AT&T PersonaLink Services, call 1-800-936-LINK. ----------------

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Re: Video retraces as a source of entropy...
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 4 Apr 96 at 5:58, Laszlo Vecsey wrote: [..] > > In pseudo-C: > > > > int retrace(void) { // test for video retrace > > #ifdef __MSDOS__ > > return (port[0x3da] & 8); // Some VGA, maybe EGA cards > > #else > > // your OS here > > #endif > > } > > [..] > > x = 0; > > while (!retrace()) x++; > As far as I know, while(retrace()) will loop until vertical retrace > begins, and then you call while(!retrace()) and that will loop until > vertical retrace is over. (Or it may be the other way around). Sloppy pseudo-C code. The code I've been experimenting with waits until it's no longer in a vertical retrace (if one is still active since the last sample) and then collects the sample when the next vertical retrace occurs. [..] > What if the screen is filled with different colors, or shapes. On some > monitors you can actually see the size of the screen changing, warping out > a little.. maybe the time for retrace will be different when painting > screens with different data. I haven't done a lot of tests yet.... and even then, it's probably very system specific. Rob. --- Send a blank message with the subject "send pgp-key" to <WlkngOwl(a)unix.asb.com> for a copy of my PGP key.

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Re: Why pay???
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:14 PM 4/4/96 -0800, Charles Bell wrote: >On Thu, 4 Apr 1996, Timothy C. May wrote: > >> >> (Goldwater and Heinlein got it slightly wrong when they said "There ain't >> no such as a free lunch." While true in many ways, TANSTAAFL ignorest the >> great willingness of people to donate time, effort, articles, etc. In fact, >> I've put many thousands of hours into the Cypherpunks list, for which I've >> received not a single centime of compensation. And I have no problem with >> this, provided it remains voluntary.) >> > >The fact that you choose not to charge for your time does not make your >time worthless. The value your voluntary efforts add should be assigned >due compensation even if you choose to waive it. > >The failure to take such contributions into account is one of the most >serious flaws in all current economic paradigms. I think this will become >more apparent in decades to come, as old concepts of `work' and `jobs' >obsolesce. IMHO, another failure is that not all compensation can be expressed in money. Feeling good about making a contribution is an example. Another is the "guaranteed" place in heaven for the suicide bomber. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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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Re:
by Rich Burroughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:37 PM 4/4/96 -0800, you wrote: >At 11:52 PM 4/4/96, AndrÈ Gil wrote: >> unsubscrive * agil.home(a)mail.telepac.pt [snip] >What the hell is going on? We seem to be under attack by foreigners. > >--Tim It's hard to understand. I can't velieve it. >Voycott "Vig Vrother Inside" software! >We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed Rich ______________________________________________________________________ Rich Burroughs richieb(a)teleport.com http://www.teleport.com/~richieb See my Blue Ribbon Page at http://www.teleport.com/~richieb/blueribbon New EF zine "cause for alarm" - http://www.teleport.com/~richieb/cause

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Re: Fascinating troll with forged newgroups
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Stewart wrote: >At 03:00 AM 4/4/96 -0800, you wrote: >>Looks like the Nazis forged newgroup messages for rec.fag-bashing, >>rec.org.kkk, and 100 RFD'd groups in order to get their little messages >>across. >> >>How entertaining. What a marvelous new form of net.vandalism they've >>discovered. Or is this not new? > >Oh, no, this sort of thing is not new. It happened more before the >Great Renaming, but it's not new. The other possibility is it's troll >trying to make it _look_ like the Nazis did it. The latter is most likely the truth given that Bnai Brith and the ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal centre all have plenty to gain financially by claiming that the internet is full of neo-nazis.

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Re: More visprint stuff
by JonWienke＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>An alternative would be to supply a distinct name for each octet. Hashes >could >be displayed and verified something like: > >Frog Lizard Snake Tyranosaur >Cat Hat Rat Chair >Star Moon Sun Earth >Lincoln Washington Clinton Kennedy > >Ideally, there would be minimal confusion in the set of images/objects/names >(to avoid the "is that a Tyranosaur or a Lizard?" type questions.) Why not create a list of of syllables (256 would work nicely) designed in such a way that when combined together at random, they would always form a pronounceable (but otherwise nonsense) word pair? These words would be guaranteed to be as unique as the fingerprint, fairly easy to remember, and a perfect icebreaker at parties. (Imagine the reaction you would get if you sidled up to someone and tried "SOBgoFALpinHOGmiDOwop PORtudeINfoGLOPsabRIvar" as a pickup line.) The challenge to this approach, of course, is to come up with 256 reasonably distinct syllables. Jonathan Wienke P.S. AOL's send mail software is a wothless piece of ****. P.P.S. These "unsubrscive" pea-brains all need one of those Louis Freeh-style leather belts with their names embossed on the back in BIG letters...

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Wired didn't like this one....
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Sender: e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com Reply-To: rah(a)shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga) Mime-Version: 1.0 From: rah(a)shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 21:21:19 -0500 Precedence: Bulk To: Multiple recipients of <e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com> Subject: Wired didn't like this one.... -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- ...but I like it. Said it was a little too "fast paced". (For WIRED???) I'm starting over on another, so you guys might as well see this one... It *was* supposed to go into their Idees Fortes (Or, as my brother Mike in Albuqerque says, in his best Jose Jimenez, "Stron' Gideas") section. Now something else is, once I write it. Feh! It's 800 words. Exactly. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ------------------------ Geodesic Capital? Robert Hettinga I've just finished a bit of anonymous consulting on the net for an anonymous client, being paid, of course, in anonymous digital ecash(tm). I could just store it, offsite even, anonymously. But, I'm saving it for that special retirement habitat in the Belt ("Gerry's Habitats, Inc.: Pie in the sky, Nano-Built(tm) *before* you die!"). I have to *invest* it somewhere. I buy a page of mutual fund reccomendations from a LipperBot(tm). In my case, I just want to buy a broad market index, say, the (ahem) Hettinga Million(tm), and shop around for the fund server which approximates closest the HM's price over time. I link to the server, and buy anonymous bearer certificates for that server's HM fund. Later, when I cash in my certificates, I have enough appreciated capital to buy the custom Bernal sphere of my dreams. Of course, if my tolerence for risk is higher, I could buy shares from a fund manager (bot or otherwise, no way to tell with anonymous cash markets) with a hot hand for picking stocks. OK. Say I don't actually *save* money. I'm someone who borrows money for very short term "assets" like resturaunt meals, and pays the incurred debt off over the long term at some userous interest rate. How do I do this? I issue a personal digital bearer bond for the amount of the transaction. All I need is someone to underwrite the risk. Fortunately, I always have an efficient real-time market to auction it into, one that always knows my payment reputation, thanks to all those money-bots in the ubiquitous network. Voila'! Bring on the chateaubriand for one, waiter, and don't spare the bearnaise, all this thinking about money's made me hungry. What we're talking about here is nothing new, of course. We've had trade ever since we've had artifacts. The ancient "red-paint" culture was just a trading network which ran around the north Atlantic from New England to as far as Ireland. So much for the "New" World. The oldest surviving Babylonian money is a piece of clay saying "three cows" wrapped in a clay "envelope" saying something like "three cows, payable on demand, so say I, (signed) Joe Nebbuchenazzar". This happened shortly after writing was invented, which was actually invented for *accounting*. Mechanical signatures like chops and seals have been around since. Digital signatures and bearer certificates are just a new implementation of some *very* old stuff. Ornate paper certificates, representing shares in companies, or actual stuff, was physically traded for other ornate paper certificates (cash), or actual stuff, at places like the famous buttonwood tree on Wall Street. Pretty soon people didn't have to be there to trade. We built fast industrial communications (staged horsemen or coaches, then ships or trains, then telegraphy, then telephony) but we still had slow switches (people), so we had to build all the communication/organization/market hierarchies we know and love today. In addition, the power of the state (another industrial communication heirarchy) provides a sizable argumentum ad bacculum for people who repudiate trades. If you don't pay, I throw you in jail. Like every thing else, Moore's law changes that. Proportionately, semiconductor switches get more and more cheaper than lines, so the telephone network is no longer a hierarchy. Nodding to Buckminster Fuller, Peter Huber called it the "Geodesic Network", the title of the 1986 government report he wrote describing it. Ironic. I'm here saying this in a magazine founded by deciples of Stwart Brand, himself a one-time Fullerite. All threads lead to Bucky. When you combine a geodesic network with strong cryptography, you get a geodesic economy, which needs geodesic capital. Just change the size of players in either equity or debt scenario, and you're looking at what any large business organization does today. The only thing you're missing is how to deal with non-repudiation. If the state can't tax transactions or financial assets because strong crypto makes them all invisible, states can't exist, much less "bacculize" very well. The solution is the same it ever was: reputation. J. Pierpont Morgan said, when hauled before Congress one afternoon, "Character, sir. I wouldn't buy anything from a man with no character, even if he offered me all the bonds in Christendom." In a geodesic economy, reputation is abstracted to keys, not people. Geodesic capital scales up to bigger stuff than we can do now. A chaotic hoarde of autonomous money-bots swarms on the minutia of the necessary financial complexity. It also scales *down* as processor prices fall. Real time, MicroMint(tm) cash-on-the-router-head auctions for packet switching, anyone? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMWR/ovgyLN8bw6ZVAQHCkQP7BPmSNibfRQLeZETvRkUVGJdPB0WOYrTM yU33wwqDPBEcwfYLgX4oBcAfHv/Kfvr1vH4bBTioEVyanVDtJLt9KL/62kn+Ot+/ BLDdBM6Km1R/xRD9xnvQd5Kyz2INQCmNU7ZJk3BQpK484V74aW6We155fH2ovjr3 TgQ6mYMe7rs= =GVNA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -------------------------------------------------- The e$ lists are brought to you by: Making Commerce Convenient (tm) - Oki Advanced Products - Marlboro, MA Value-Checker(tm) smart card reader= http://www.oki.com/products/vc.html Where people, networks and money come together: Consult Hyperion http://www.hyperion.co.uk info(a)hyperion.co.uk See your name here. Be a charter sponsor for e$pam, e$, and Ne$ws! See http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/ or e-mail rah(a)shipwright.com for details... ------------------------------------------------- --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell The e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/

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A new law in the making?
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 00:24:08 -0500 (EST) > From: "Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+(a)CMU.EDU> > Subject: FC: CDA Court Challenge: Update #4 > > The court wasn't happy with Boe's response. It gave Shea and the > government until April 17 to decide to include the entire record of > the Philly lawsuit -- and said that if they don't, the court would > appoint its *own* computer expert to demo the Net and blocking > software on April 30. This is a great idea if carried a little farther. Require courts in cases using technical or otherwise special evidence to appoint an indipendant expert to compare compare with the defence and prosecution experts. > litigators who do their homework." (Of course, Taylor conveniently has > deluded himself into believing the CDA is constitutional.) Are *any* of the current legal actions involved using either the 9th or 10th Amendment in their case? > We're back in court on 4/12, 4/15, and possibly 4/26. Good luck! Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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RIC_odj
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

4-5-96. TWP: "At the Justice Dept., Big Government Keeps Getting Bigger" In the tug-of-war over downsizing the government, Republicans and Democrats still willingly take out the checkbook when crime is the issue. Over the past 16 years, a time in which both parties have controlled Congress, Justice's budget has grown by nearly 600 percent and its work force has expanded from about 55,000 employees to 94,000. Justice is only one part of this phenomenal crime- fighting growth. Where the federal government once relied mostly on the FBI, the federal buildup is creating several large police agencies. More than 41,000 criminal investigators now work for 32 federal agencies. "It has grown like Topsy," says former AG Griffin B. Bell. "What I worry about is that people with a badge many times can't manage power." Senior members of Congress with oversight responsibility for DoJ say they are considering ways to consolidate the government's law enforcement agencies under a more centralized command. Among the models under review are the JCS, which aerosols DoD hogstench, and the DCI, who perfumes spy pew. RIC_odj

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No Subject
by agil.home＠mail.telepac.pt 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

unsubscrive * agil.home(a)mail.telepac.pt unsubscrive * agil.home(a)mail.telepac.pt unsubscrive * agil.home(a)mail.telepac.pt

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