December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Cypherpunk Enquirer Request
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:13 PM 3/21/96, Andrew Loewenstern wrote: >Would some kind soul please forward to me a copy of the latest Cypherpunk >Enquirer? My filter mistakenly tossed the last copy and the archive at >hks.net is still down. I just did this. Hilarious stuff. Interesting that no one complains about this use of anonymity! (By the way, with 1000+ subscribers, a "would some kind soul" request is possibly a dangerous thing to request. Game theory has some advice about rolling dice, etc., but I doubt this works well.) >(who should probably rewire his filter to toss messages into a temporary >'holding tank') Indeed, with Eudora (for the Mac and Windows), I filter offending messages into a file I call "Kill," though it is persistent and can be perused at any time. With the traffic having gotten lighter these last couple of weeks, I confess to looking at it more often. Some messages I "delete," which Eudora moves to a Trash file...and STILL doesn't delete the messages until the Trash is explicitly emptied! Lots of layers of protection. (Though I confess there have been times when I got an insulting or infuriating item in the mail and decided to remove all temptation to reply by immediately trashing it and then giving the command "Empty Trash." At this point, only a determined effort with Norton Utilities or the like could have any hope of recovering the deleted stuff. A a post offends thee, pluck it out.) --Tim Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Cypherpunks Key-Signing at Networld
by Chris Claborne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Planning on attending Netoworld / Interop? Want to connect your PGP public key ring to San Diego? If so... Send me an e-mail before 3/29/96 and we will create a meeting place. Best time for me will be Monday night (4/1/96). I can be reached during the show (via my newton so don't mail bomb me) at 76340.2422(a)compuserve.com ... __o .. -\<, Chris.Claborne(a)SanDiegoCA.ATTGIS.Com ...(*)/(*). CI$: 76340.2422 http://bordeaux.sandiegoca.attgis.com/ PGP Pub Key fingerprint = A8 FA 55 92 23 20 72 69 52 AB 64 CC C7 D9 4F CA Avail on Pub Key server. Dreams. They're just screen savers for the brain.

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Re: Kid Gloves or Megaphones
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 19:26 3/21/96, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: >From: IN%"stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com" "Bill Stewart" 16-MAR-1996 01:55:32.07 > >>Depending on the details of Ian's method, I don't think the debate >>needs to be taken to the public, or even done - it may simply be a >>done deal once the technology's out there. If Mark Twain Bank or >>Merita Bank or the Federal <Exonive-Deleted> Reserve wants to offer >Digicash(tm) with Payee-Non-Anonymity, they can always make it a contractual >>requirement that their payees not use anonymity techniques in return for >>being paid. > > Wouldn't the viability of such a clause depend on the anonymizing >scheme in question? If the bank's cooperation isn't needed (i.e., going through >a proxy), then such a limit would be empty. It is true that the issuer is unable to discover that double blinding is being used. The real problem with the protocol is that it requires payor/payee collusion, which may make it difficult to execute. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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NT's C2 rating
by Ben Rothke 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>The fine print says its insecure as soon as its connected to a network. Try running the C2config.exe found in the 3.51 resource kit, Should NT detect that you have network connectivity during the C2 test, you will get the following error message: "C2 compliance requires that no networking software be installed on your system. One or more network services have been detected on your system. Select OK to use the Network Control Panel Applet to remove these services. If you click on Help, you will get the following bit of information: Windows NT networking services were not included in the NCSC C2 evaluated configuration. For your system to conform to the evaluated C2 configuration, the network services must be removed or disabled. Should you click on OK, if you are on a NT workstation, you have just disconnect yourself from the network. If you ran the test on a server, you have just shut down your network. ------------------------------------- Ben Rothke Citicorp Global Information Network NY, NY "Views expressed are exclusively my own & not of my employer" -------------------------------------

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Re: IPG message
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Seymour, TX Snake Oilers just keep getting better all the time, now that they've left Houston, or was it Boulder! Goat-getting hype about "What is specially claimed as copyrighted and or patentable" (blatantly incorrectly using those terms, and forgetting to include trademarks), several amusing new product names, bombastic claims about speed and strength, anecdotes about things he heard Dr. Von Neumann Himself say, and a sum-of-Linear-Congruential generators algorithm which is not only breakable but far slower than RC4 or RC5 or OTPs about which he's said less recently than before. And hardware random number generators achieving multiple megabytes per second of random numbers on a simple serial port! >Note: The zipped files are considerably larger than the original > because they are random unzippable data files. UnAuTHorIZed ReproDUCTion and DIS-SEMINATION Are STRICTLY ProHIBiTeD! Yee-Hah! P.S. Ralph - you now owe us the keys to your company (Percy still gets his 10%), plus all your remarkably copious Slack! #-- # 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: Electronic Frontiers Houston Cyber-Political Questionaire.
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE >Electronic Frontiers Houston Cyber-Political Questionnaire. I'm not currently a candidate, though I've had the pleasure of running for Congress as a Libertarian a couple of times, and I'd like to comment on some of the issues. >Please answer the questions on the reverse side. Attach additional pages if required. Hmmm - that'll be a bit tough on line. Got any spare anti-electrons? I could run it through rot-13 :-) >1. Do you think that electronic publishing should enjoy the constitutional >protections that accrue to print media? >2. Do you think that electronic publishing should enjoy the constitutional >protections that accrue to broadcast media? >3. Do you think that electronic publishing should enjoy the constitutional >protections that accrue to libraries? The Bill of Rights was a good start, but courts have seriously mishandled it over the past 200 years, whether to support the public mood on an upcoming war (as in the Schenk (sp?) case, which gave us the appallingly misused "fire in a public theater" dictum), or to permit censorship of speech that offends the popular morals, or to support oligopolies through restricting access to radio and TV broadcasting to government-approved companies. I tend to agree with Hugo Black's position that the people who wrote "Congress shall make no law...." meant what they said. In particular, even supposing, as Holmes did, that there are types of speech so offensive and valueless as to not be protected by the First Amendment, the Constitution also doesn't specifically empower them to ban it either. >4. Do you favor new laws to regulate the content of electronic media? Yes - there's a lot of old law and FCC regulation that needs to be repealed, and that takes new laws. >5. Do you think that the First Amendment rights of free speech protect >private use of encryption? First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Tenth >6. Do you favor laws to regulate the private use of encryption? Nope. >7. Do you agree with restrictions on the export of technology that >incorporates cryptography? No - nor of other technology, either. >9. Do you support the right of a private individual too publish printed >materials anonymously? Not only do _I_ favor it, the Supreme Court also supports it. Electronic materials as well. >10. Should the government play a role in providing access to computer >networks? Yes and No. Governments have a role to play in providing access to existing government-run systems that have public information. >11. Do you think that the government should guarantee universal >access to computer networks? No. Government-provided services are government-controlled services. And governments can't guarantee services - they can only force people to buy them (with their own recycled money) from pro-government providers, while interfering with competing technologies and services that the market would otherwise provide. From a Liberal perspective, Internet access is already available on the open market for less than the cost of cable TV, in most of the country - trading government control of the most important media of the next two decades for the cost of a half-pack of cigarettes a day per citizen would be a really bad choice. >12. Do you think that access to government computerized information >is a right? >13. Should all governmental records that are available to the public be >made available via computer resources? >14. Should access to computerized governmental records be free? Not strictly - the public does own most of the government's information, but providing subsidized access to it isn't an appropriate use of tax money. Providing at-cost access certainly is, for information that the government should be giving out, and restricting distribution of that information or giving monopoly access to rent-seeking private companies certainly is wrong. But there's a lot of information the government has today that it shouldn't - people's private data that they've been forced to provide to bureaucrats, or information that wasn't quite as forced such as census data. Most of that data should be destroyed. And there are difficult questions, such as how to reveal details on CIA/NSA/FBI abuses without violating the privacy of people they spied on or interefered with. >15. Should the government regulate electronic financial transactions >and require traceability? Of course not. (I do distinguish between banning fraud and embezzlement, which is arguably a reasonable government function, and regulating the communications often used in those activities.) >16. Do you approve or disapprove of the wiretap provisions in the >1994 Digital Telephony bill? Disapprove. >17. Do you favor expanding law enforcement access to telephonic >communications? Sure - cops need phones, too. And access to the communications of other government officials to investigate crime and corruption in government is mostly safe. But demanding access to citizens' private communications is not only _far_ outside the bounds of government's legitimate access and a bare-faced grab for political power by the folks who brought us COINTELPRO and J Edgar Hoover's files, but is a call to violate individuals' rights to use whatever tools they want to protect their privacy to support their power-grab. And they've been so _disingenuous_ about it... >In addition, candidates for national office will be asked the >following additional question: >18. Do you favor legislation which would require a national ID card? No - I favor legislation to eliminate the half-way measure we have, the single "Social Security" tax-id Number, and, until we eliminate privacy-invasive taxes altogether, give taxpayers a large group of numbers so they don't have to give everybody a universal identifier just to pay their taxes. >Candidates for state office will be asked the following question: >18. Should laws requiring fingerprints to acquire/renew drivers licences >be repealed? Yes, as should driver's licenses and other mandatory ID. >Electronic Frontiers Houston is a non-profit group that supports civil >liberties and the development of culture in cyberspace. While I don't live in Houston, I've been a member and usually a supporter of EFF. #-- # 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: Shameless
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sandy wrote: >Actually, I doubt Mr/Ms Anonymous is a provocateur. Reads more >like a paranoid schitzophrenic to me. Dollars to donuts says >it's Detweiler. Doesn't matter if it's Detweiler; what matters is whether it's detweiling.... #-- # 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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CDA Court Challenge: Day #1
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The CDA Challenge, Day #1 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Declan McCullagh / declan(a)well.com / Redistribute freely ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 21, 1996 PHILADELPHIA -- In the shadow of the Liberty Bell in downtown Philadelphia, the future of online liberty is being decided. I arrived halfway through the first day of the hearing in our lawsuit challenging the Communications Decency Act. Overall, it went well, though there were a few surprises, like a series of computer crashes and the Department of Justice's embrace of the rhetoric of crusading anti-porn activist Catharine MacKinnon. But most importantly, the judges are engaged in the case. CDT installed a T1 line, which is the first time a courtroom has had a live net-connection -- judges tend to insist on paper. When Ann Duvall of SurfWatch demoed the web and her software this afternoon, the judges paid attention, asked questions, and were proud when they figured out the concept of a hierarchy of pages on a web site. Her demonstration wasn't without problems. The Macintosh laptop she used to demonstrate Netscape and SurfWatch crashed three times as Duvall tried to click on the Philadelphia Phillies web site. (A great idea, though -- at least one judge appeared interested in the team.) Jonah Seiger and the other CDTers fixed the problem quickly, but then net.latency prevented Duvall from accessing the Louvre or Playboy web sites. Penthouse worked properly, though: "Blocked by SurfWatch." As I'm typing this, I saw a mention that a local television station, WCAU News 10, is going to broadcast a special on the hearing early tomorrow morning. Today's press corps included CNN, CBS, NBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times Online, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Los Angeles Times, and plenty of local reporters. The most interesting witness might have been Dr. William R. Stayton, a psychologist and sex therapist who testified that minors were not necessarily harmed by sexually-explicit materials. Stayton is an American Baptist minister, and holds faculty appointments at LaSalle and the University of Pennsylvania. The DoJ's only female attorney present cross-examined Stayton, spinning her arguments around a twisted MacKinnon-esque logic that I've never heard even from honorary net.mascot Senator James Exon. Seems as though she wasn't just trying to establish that nekkid photos are *harmful to minors* -- she was trying to establish that they're *harmful to women.* She asked questions like: "Do these pictures depict a healthy view of women as sexual beings?" "Do you believe the pictures are a factor in leading minors to view women as sex objects?" "Do you believe that these pictures are part of a socialization process that depicts women as sex objects?" Stayton rallied, replying: "There's nothing inherently harmful about letting a six-year old view these images." Undaunted, DoJ counsel continued, quoting from the Attorney General's 1986 Commission on Pornography, page 343, entered into evidence as exhibit 80. Seems as though that section talks about how nonviolent and nondegrading sexual materials are still harmful to minors. Chris Hansen from the ACLU on redirect asked: "Why is it not harmful for minors to access sexual materials?" Stayton: "We are born sexual beings... Our children are bombarded with sexuality on all sides... 50% of kids are sexually active by 15-16 years old. 85% are active by 18." To illustrate their point, the DoJ showed the judges and Stayton examples of dirty pictures taken from the Internet, complete with URLs. The pictures were _not_ hardcore; they seemed to consist of solo naked women in various lewd and explicit poses. The DoJ did this to demonstrate the types of _nonobscene_ materials available online that they would be unable to prosecute without the CDA. I would report in more detail on the types of images, but as I and members of the press started to page through the exhibit book after the hearing, someone from the DoJ came over and told us we weren't allowed to look at them "since they weren't available to the public." I argued with him, and he maintained that since they weren't _entered into the record_ then the public had no right to see them. How odd that the Feds are unwilling to divulge the URLs of the dirty pix they use in their case! I also met Cathy Cleaver, who's the director of legal studies for the Family Research Council, and a strong supporter of the CDA. She says she thought the hearing went well for her side. I politely disagreed. By the end of the day, the judges might have been starting to "get it." When Kiyoshi Kuromiya testified about his Critical Path AIDS Project web site, which carries safe sex information, the judges grilled him about the number of minors in the USA with HIV. Later, one Patricia Warren from Wildcat Press: "Is it easier to create an ezine than a magazine?" Another asked her if "gay and lesbian information is likely to be censored?" Tomorrow morning Professor Donna Hoffman of Vanderbilt University will testify. (She was instrumental in debunking Marty Rimm's fraudulent cyberporn study. <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/rimm/>) Stay tuned for more reports. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The DoJ's case has been rescheduled to April 12th and April 15th. For more information and breaking updates, check out: http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/ Other relevant web sites: http://www.eff.org/ http://www.cdt.org/ http://www.aclu.org/ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: A MODEST PROPOSAL
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:03 AM 3/20/96 -0800, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >(Did I get the style right?) C'punks, if you feels as I do, >please take a few moments to sign up for the LIST OF SHAME? >Let's show Bill, Bruce, Matt and all the others what most >Cypherpunks really think about them and Mr/Ms Anonymous. Please add my name. I don't abandon my friends when I disagree with them. 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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DAZ_zle
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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." In "America's Information Edge," Joseph S. Nye, Jr. former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council and Assistant Secretary of Defense, and Admiral William A. Owen, former Vice Chairman of the JCS, argue that information technology is transforming knowledge, and thereby power. They write of a "system of systems, an integration of ISR, C4I and precision force, which represents a qualitative change in U.S. military capabilities." They envision informational "soft power" -- the ability to achieve outcomes in international affairs through attraction rather than coercion -- as reinforcing the "information umbrella" shielding allies in lieu of the nuclear option. In "A Revolution in Warfare," Eliot A. Cohen, Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins, takes issue with Nye and Owen on the radical impact of information technology, and argues that its revolutionary dazzle may distort historical understanding of the more general political and economic forces that are reshaping international and military affairs. 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." DAZ_zle

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