December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: New Remailer (hidden)
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cool. I've got a test message going now. Does your remailer accept PGP-encrypted email? It's really critical for high-security applications, at least for first remailer hops, but your key's not on the MIT keyserver. BTW, how do we know you're not a plant? :-) Aside from having an interesting nym, you've probably got the first remailer that makes it difficult to tell who's running it. You could be Sameer, or you could be Louis Freeh, but we don't know. At least folks like Xenon were known to be real people.... Even if you _are_ a plant, of course, we can still use your system, but I'd want to do encrypted email through other remailers on one end or the other. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 # goodtimes signature virus innoculation

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Re: anonymous companies
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 18-MAY-1996 11:16:57.48 > At 06:42 PM 5/16/96 -0700, Wei Dai wrote: > > Solution: smart contracts. This is Nick Szabo's idea of building > > contractual obligations into cryptographic protocols so that the parties > > have no choice but to fullfil them. But again we don't know whether this > > will actually work for this problem. >But what happens when there are nuances or circumstances which contracts >do not anticipate? This "complete" reliablity is also a curse for >flexibility which fast moving entities need to survive. That's an argument for combining them with escrow agencies. If the escrow agency is less likely to need to intervene, then they'll charge less... the principle of insurance company risk estimation. -Allen

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Re: Why does the state still stand:
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"jimbell(a)pacifier.com" "jim bell" 18-MAY-1996 02:54:47.09 >On the other hand, the government also has enormous "obligations" that keep >it close to bankruptcy. It wouldn't take a great deal of interference in >its ability to collect taxes to put it solidly in the red based on current >receipts. And remember, if the individuals who populate government could be >persuaded that their tenure would be forcibly shortened if they didn't >resign, they wouldn't stick around. Once that cohesiveness of jointly >sucking on the government tit is eliminated, I think they'll cut and run. >These people are working for a fat paycheck and the promise of a retirement >package, and it wouldn't take much convincing to show them that they won't >get either for very long. I'm convinced that's why so many Senators and While quite a lot of people in the government are working just for the paycheck, there are also some idealists - and some who are working for a "power paycheck" rather than a "cash paycheck." I'm willing to bet that that's the case with the NSA and its _general_ opposition to cryptography. You'll have three basic groups: A. Those who are idealists. This can be divided into two categories. 1. Those who idealize the power of government, such as via a devotion to democracy. These oppose cryptography because it weakens the government. 2. Those who are primarily interested in protecting America from everyone else. These promote cryptography, and need to be supported. 3. Those who (stupidly) believe in the US government enough to "just follow orders," as the Nuremberg phrase goes. If you can get the type 2 idealists in power, these will do the right thing. B. Those who want power. These oppose cryptography because they will lose power if it is widely implemented. C. Those who are just there to get a paycheck. These will act in most situations about like an idealist of type 3, but when push comes to shove won't be willing to back it up seriously. I'd appreciate feedback from anyone who's dealt with the intelligence community more than I have (not particularly difficult) to confirm or deny the above classification system, and give some idea as to the proportions within the NSA, government in general, etcetera. -Allen

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Edited Edupage, 16 May 1996
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"educom(a)elanor.oit.unc.edu" 16-MAY-1996 23:29:38.03 >AOL TEAMS UP FOR E-COMMERCE >America Online has cut deals to license encryption, digital signature, and >electronic transaction and funds transfer technologies from a variety of >companies, including CyberCash, IBM infoMarket, RSA Data Security, Terisa >Systems and VeriSign. "These new relationships will provide the building >blocks for a secure electronic commerce platform," says AOL's VP of product >marketing. The online service plans to integrate the electronic commerce >technologies into both its online service and its Global Network Navigator >Internet access service. (Investor's Business Daily 16 May 96 A9) Well, at least they're making moves to get cryptography to the AOL masses.... although somehow I suspect that they'll roll over and play dead for any and all GAK pressure, and won't use any variety of truly anonymous digital cash. >ATTEMPT TO BLOCK USE OF CANADIAN SATELLITES >MCI Communications, AT&T and EchoStar Satellite all have filed additional >complaints this week with the FCC about proposals made by rivals >Tele-Communications Inc. and TelQuest Ventures that cite Ottawa's refusal to >allow American companies to beam their programs into the United States as >cause for the FCC to deny the application. (Toronto Financial Post 16 May 96 >p3) An ex-FCC official says the American regulator is unlikely to approve >the use of four Canadian satellites by US-based TelQuest Ventures and >Tele-Communications Inc. to beam signals to the American market unless >Canada's market is opened up to U.S. services. (Montreal Gazette 15 May 96 G3) One wonders what the FCC would do if they weren't US-based companies, and if it weren't from satellites from such an interlocked-with-the-US country as Canada. -Allen >Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl(a)educom.edu) & Suzanne Douglas >(douglas(a)educom.edu) Voice: 404-371-1853, Fax: 404-371-8057. >*************************************************************** >Edupage ... is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to Edupage: >send mail to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu with the message: subscribe edupage >Jack Kerouac (if your name is Jack Kerouac; otherwise, substitute your own >name). ... To cancel, send a message to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu with the >message: unsubscribe edupage. (If you have subscription problems, send >mail to educom(a)educom.unc.edu.)

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(Fwd) Re: TCM: mafia as a paradigm for cyberspace
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sorry Vlad Z. Nuri, but this message was intended for Cypherpunks, to be cc'd to you. Unfortunately, I wrongly addressed it. To CPunks: the reply that should have hit CPunks: ============================================================ To: jf_avon(a)citenet.net Subject: Re: TCM: mafia as a paradigm for cyberspace Date sent: Sun, 19 May 96 19:52:45 -0700 From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri(a)netcom.com> there is no ethical basis for killing. please kindly keep your trash out of my mailbox I've evaluated all sides of the story, and am not influenced by corrupt machiavellianism ============================================================= -------Original Message Follows ------- From: Self <Single-user mode> To: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri(a)netcom.com> Subject: Re: TCM: mafia as a paradigm for cyberspace Reply-to: jf_avon(a)citenet.net Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 01:59:00 On 18 May 96 at 12:43, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: > maybe talk to Jim Bell some more. perhaps > eventually you will perfect the method of perpetrating the perfect > killing!! I really do admire you, because killing people without > getting caught is surely a great unrecognized art, and one of the > most unappreciated and misunderstood. something that has only been a > dream to the blighted wretches prior to our glorious new phases of > cyberspatial technology, which makes human morality completely > obsolete. I think that you are writing way out of context. First, wether or not the AP scheme is used for the control of government, as Jim Bell pushes it, does not mean that it will not be implemented for other purposes, such as killing successful businessman or your neighboor's son who is screwing your wife (noticed that she smiles all the time since a while? ) . Second, everybody like Jim Bell who is pushing the AP scheme is doing so on ethical basis: that the coercion the government imposes on to the individuals by regulations, and guns backed taxation justifies the killings. I have to see yet any cypherpunks who seems to agree with AP that envision another use than govt control. Third, you will notice that even Jim Bell discusses issues of anonymous transactions and businesses that, if conducted properly, makes the AP scheme irrelevant. So, it seems that AP is only a tool instead of being an end in itself. Fourth, you lack some basic psychological insight: intrinsic murderers do enjoy the knowledge of the details of their actions and the derived perception of power. AP prevents that by anonymising everything: a donator cannot know if he caused the death of somebody (unless he spends several tens of grands himself, but then, there are other, more satisfying ways for a power seeker to fullfill his passions...) . You seems to oppose the proposed violence entailed by AP but you positively blank out what everybody who reflected on AP put in the opposite pan of the balance, i.e. the ethical standards of contemporary govt actions. And you'll also note that the anonymity issue generate more interest from more CPunks because it (hopefully) will acheive the same goal without any killing. Until you accept to evaluate both side of the story, your recriminations opinions are as evident as the magnetic monopole... jfa DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee; Limoges porcelain, silverware and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants; physists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 Unsollicited commercial e-mail will be proofread at US165 $/h Any sender of such material will be considered as to have ac- cepted the above mentionned terms.

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Re: SEVERE undercapacity, we need more remailers
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It occurs to me that a certain number of companies have schemes that could easily be used to set up anonymous, transient mailing output ends on anonymous remailers. These are AOL (with its famed lack of true credit card verification) and free email services such as Juno. The idea would be to have a remailer address that took in mailings, then sent any that were to go other than to another remailer via a temporary account. Now, this would have the potential problem of decreasing remailer reputation among those in such companies; for AOL, it would also decrease the chance of anyone paying attention to the remailed messages (people deleting stuff from @aol.com automatically, etcetera). -Allen

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Re: Senator Leahy, your public key please?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Senator Leahy is the first member of Congress to publicize a PGP key. (There are already fake keys for Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore.) A Washington-area Cypherpunk recently visited Senator Leahy's office and asked if he could verify that the PGP key posted to the net for Senator Leahy was correct*, so he could sign it; while it would be difficult to fake responses to the "PGP Public Key" entry on his web page, it could be done, and a fake key could be publicized in other ways. He was told that there's some Congressional silliness about the issue - what's the political implication of having someone sign your key? Postmaster(a)senate.gov is fine, but are there ethics questions if ACT UP, Big Oil or the Christian Coalition signs it, or if Newt Gingrich or your party's Majority Leader refuses to sign it - are those endorsements? Tim May pointed out that you don't _need_ anybody's permission to sign their key; just do it and send to the keyserver. Even if they don't like you. >What if, for example, Sen. Leahy _did_ end up in the web of trust for Aryan >Nation? Even if he never intended it, this could have some severe PR >repercussions. >An exciting new world we're entering. It's really hard to get handed a straight line like this and have to pass it up, but I'm _not_ going to create an Aryan Nations key, and I'm _not_ going to send it to keyserver(a)canopener.worms.mit.edu. Black Unicorn's experience at Senator Leahy's office implies there are too many clueless Congresscritters around who would recognize the political potential and make a Law to Do Something about it, just as Georgia recently made a law against making links to people's web sites without their permission. While the Republicans in Congress, having somehow found themselves on the side of Free Speech with Leahy against Clinton's administration, may be able to pass laws reducing the government's encryption-export and wiretapping efforts, a good scare like this could make it more difficult. Sigh. :-) I haven't Cc:d this to Leahy - Should I? Meanwhile, what should we do about PGP key signatures? PGP 3.x is still being developed, and keyservers can be updates as needed. While I agree that keyservers don't need to validate keys - that's a job for the web of trust, and the keyserver-admin could sign keys if he/she/it wanted to - it may make sense for the keyservers to only accept keys in messages signed by the key itself. (Just signing the key doesn't help much here; you need to sign the key-plus-signatures.) Does it make sense to include some similar capability in PGP itself? Leahy has at least signed his own key... # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 # goodtimes signature virus innoculation

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Re: Instant Remailers
by cpunk＠remail.ecafe.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Someone said: > >It is possible for someone to operate an anonymous remailer anonymously. > >Just get a UNIX shell account under a fake name, pay with cash, and set up > >the remailing software. The identity of the operator of such a remailer > >would be difficult, if not impossible, to discover. Then someone else said: > (Doesn't Sameer's system offer such accounts? Couldn't there be dozens of > remailers based at c2.org? Of the 16 Type-1 remailers listed in one of > Raph's recent reports, only 2 were at c2.org.) This happened. Remember robo(a)c2.org? Whatever happened to it? (Anyone ever figure out who the real operator was?)

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Re: The Crisis with Remailers
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"loki(a)infonex.com" 18-MAY-1996 20:02:12.04 >I was invited to the digicash API design meeting precisely to make sure it >could be used in remailers. It will not be using the current API. The >problem is that Mixmaster requires exact knowledge of the size of every >object in the message, to maintain constant message size. I could set aside >room for one, two, three coins, but there is no guarantee that the payment >will be made with only that many coins. The current API is going to be high >level. It will does not allow the program to know anything about the >internals of the payment. I need to be able to specify payment of amount X >using no more than N coins. As soon as I have that level of control, you >will see postage in Mixmaster. Good. I can see doing a limited postage now, actually, with relatively simple modifications - the postage goes to the initial remailer front end and to the remailer that sends out the message to something other than another remailer. -Allen

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Re: Remailers & what they get out of it...
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"ravage(a)ssz.com" "Jim Choate" 18-MAY-1996 09:43:06.96 >As long as the remailer is run a 'grins & giggles' affair you are right. There is the increase in reputation capital in _some_ quarters possible through running a remailer. (On the other hand, in authoritarian quarters, it would tend to decrease one's reputation capital...) >To me the biggest problem with the crypto work right now is that not enough >professionals are involved. If more remailers and such were initiated as >a business there would be legal avenues to explore. Also, in this vain is >the apparent lack of support for commercial ventures by developers of such >apps as MixMaster (whose license explicity prohibits commercial use). It prohibits commercial use? That's silly. Is it a holdover from when the idea was to turn Mixmaster into a company? >And for the record, yes, we expect to charge real $$$ for access. Our >current plan is $10/month for each account. Money orders prefered. We have >at this point pondered e-cash methods but it doesn't seem popular enough >at this juncture. How would you be doing this? Only remailing from accounts that have paid up, or what? -Allen

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