December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: fortune and predictions...
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:55 PM 2/14/96 -0500, Jean-Francois Avon (JFA Technologies, QC, Canada) wrote: >GREETINGS! > >>(BTW, why don't you respond to the list?) > >Actually, I just did. I was tempted to mail the stuff directly to you but then, >I realised that you might have interpreted what I said as a threat. Huh? I didn't even notice. Well, I guess after a few months of promoting "Assassination Politics", I'm so thick-skinned that nothing fazes me anymore. >So I posted it >publicly. (Isn't CPunks about being untrustfull... :) The reason I'd prefer most of the discussion on the list is simple: I have a limited amount of time, and I'm promoting an idea. If you have a good argument that I should be able to address, I want everyone to have the benefit not only of your comment but also my response! >I brought an argument in my post. I could develop it further on private e-mail with you. I'll read it. However, my mail has slowed to a trickle today. There's something wrong, somewhere. It'll come flooding in, in a few hours I'll bet. >You will certainly understand my argument. I'd be delighted if you can prove me wrong. We shall see...

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Re: [ASSASSINATION NOISE] Re: V-chips, CC, and Motorcycle Helmets
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 08:11 PM 2/14/96 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote: >At 11:36 AM 2/13/96 -0800, you wrote: > >>The Rushdie incident is simply so far removed from "Assassination Politics" >>that it can't possibly be used to refute it; I still believe it actually >>demonstrates how much effort somebody has to go to, to protect a targeted >>person. One targeted person is easy to protect. 10,000 would be FAR >>harder. And the moment a few of those guys got "whacked," the rest would >>want to resign their jobs and hope they would be allowed to retire in peace. > >Rushdie is just low on your target list. I agree that it's much harder >to protect 10,000 people (say the Iranians put out a contract on Baha'is >and other heretics, at $X/head...) but it's still abusable. Does the fact that some system is "abusable" mean that it is not better than the current system? Or are you under the impression that the current system is NOT "abusable"?!? The reason I mention this is that I get the strange impression that the system I advocate is being judged by a different standard than the status quo. "Double standard," is the usual term. Is this fair? Let's consider the Rushdie situation in more detail. Why is he in danger? Because, obviously enough, some high-ranking LEADERS in the Moslem faith put a contract out on him. Okay, if they're high-ranking, and they're well known, and they're putting out contracts on people, RECIPROCATE! See how this works? If "Ayatollah X" says, "Kill Rushdie and we'll give you a couple million dollars," then "AsPol" that Ayatollah to death, a dollar at a time. Pretty soon, no "high-ranking" Moslem would DARE put out a contract on a Rushie-like character, for fear of getting killed himself. Of course, it is true that individual Moslems could ALSO use the "Assassination Politics" mechanism, but they would have to be self-motivated, because the system is designed to be anonymous. Keep in mind that "nobody" would have ever heard of the name "Rushdie" if it hadn't been for that contract. > Maybe the >Anonymous Captains of Industry put out a contract on strike leaders. People keep talking about "leaders" as if we NEEDED leaders SHEESH! Stay stuck in your old ruts if you want, but the fact is the world is changing from a "leader-centric" system to a distributed-control system, assisted by digital anonymity. >>From a cypherpunks perspective, yes you could run an assassination lottery, >though it might be hard for the assassin to collect - how do you prove >that _you_ were the hit man, and not merely the nearest person to a phone >after it happened? How do you prevent an anonymous escrow agency from refusing >to deliver the cash? Some of the protocols may be difficult to work out. There are a lot of interesting questions implied by the above paragraph, and I will be happy to discuss them, in the next note, tomorrow. If anything, I am surprised that there hasn't been more commentary along these lines than has occurred up to now. Frankly, if I want to discuss the POLITICAL aspects, I typically do that in NWLIBERTARIANS(a)TELEPORT.COMO, not Cypherpunks. The main reason I subscribed to Cypherpunks is that I wanted the TECHNICAL issues discussed, debated, and perfected. The problem, I think, is that people (like, for instance, Perry) complain about the political-implications discussion of AsPol, but he clearly doesn't want to move the discussion to a more technical "Cypherpunks"-type level, with detailed discussions of protocols, trust issues, etc. I _DO_. >Meanwhile > WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE > JIM BELL > REWARD 13 demo-cyberbucks Hey, I'm not easily offended! Actually, while I think this is rather funny, I am fully aware that the truth is that my idea will upset a few million apple-carts. And yes, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm one of the first victims of this system. (I am careful to point out, however, that I believe a system such as this to always have been inevitable; Jim Bell is merely one of the first to notice the ultimate implications of this system.) As I said long ago, there are some words in "A Tale of Two Cities" which describes my feelings on the subject. > >An assassination-sponsoring society is _not_ a polite society. Question: How would you know? Since we've never had anything even remotely approaching the system I advocate, how can you say how "polite" it would be? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com Klaatu Burada Nikto -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMSLpnPqHVDBboB2dAQESewP/X2KCgxxdWtCe/T26Pp7QadhwgkYv7bHT PFj9SYKh07WlMQKQaL6kWvwtlx/LWJGjEWvU5wBBgp4Xrslmy6KKkjtjl0TwiGnA sEKYCrjvXthSjcydt9O7zHRV+z9/khN+qw1WumCzQHSbbaW7DpaK4eQRmmOqcqD6 565Ay/AFJVY= =/dWe -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Another CDA Protest Idear
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To the message_fronter of the public majordomo lists I control (win95netbugs and win95netbugs-digest), I have temporarily added the following, as a way of limiting my liability: ############################################################################ ## WARNING: Any use of this mailing list in violation of section 502 of ## ## the Communications Decency Act of 1995 will immediately be referred to ## ## the appropriate authorities for prosecution. See http://www.eff.org/. ## ############################################################################ I will of course remove this notice, or maybe move it to the footer, after a couple messages go by with the notice prepended. No need to be *totally* obnoxious. I'll probably also post a notice that all submissions to comp.os.ms-windows.announce (I'm the new moderator) must comply with the CDA. Hmm, I haven't had time to put up a "submissions guidelines FAQ" yet. This could be fun, but I will keep it clean. - -rich llurch(a)networking.stanford.edu WARNING: Use of the above email address across international boundaries implies consent to monitoring by the National Security Agency and other lawfully recognized bodies. All domestic USA use of the above email address must also comply with the Communications Decency Act of 1995. Violations will be reported to the Federal authorities for prosecution. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMSMFE43DXUbM57SdAQFyCQP9EPAgWF2xRLVyKYQww7xl92uK8kS/tFx6 4mUzkI2MhFTwfKCeEZvtmBzcGYhICDuJXZGGnHVNpaFSJKBJvRGfRazAMrcf1/Aq V8RHXqBA6OgFpHTAh90dpuB/azGcOsP5YN9lVe3t+bCnlivVXA0N71PXC82e/ORd 5DZnU/3LPo0= =esOC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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No Subject
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Something for Jim Bell and his ilk to think about: "If we could climb the highest steeple And look around at all the people, And shoot the ones not wholly good As we, like noble shooters, should, Why, then there'd be an only worry --- Who would be left to bury us?" - Walt Kelly

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Leahy moves for Repeal of Communications Indecency Act
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 22:52:21 EDT From: oldbear(a)arctos.com (The Old Bear) (by way of rah(a)shipwright.com (Robert A. Hettinga)) To: rah(a)shipwright.com Subject: Leahy moves for Repeal of Communications Indecency Act Organization: The Arctos Group - http://www.arctos.com/arctos Path: sundog.tiac.net!arctos.com!oldbear Newsgroups: tiac Lines: 366 NNTP-Posting-Host: arctos.com X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows [Version 1.0 Rev B final beta #4] X-Newsreader: Yet Another NewsWatcher 2.1.2 ----------begin forwarded text---------- Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 21:32:00 +0000 From: "Cyber Rights" <caj(a)tdrs.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <roundtable(a)cni.org> Subject: cr> UPDATE: Leahy Proposes Repeal of Communications Dece Senator Leahy, last year's white knight of the Net, has struck another blow for online decency. Thanks to Todd Lappin for getting this out so quickly. --caj Craig A. Johnson <caj(a)tdrs.com> ====================================================== Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 17:08:57 -0800 (PST) To: toddl(a)wired.com From: telstar(a)wired.com (--Todd Lappin-->) Subject: UPDATE: Leahy Proposes Repeal of Communications Decency Act Senator Patrick Leahy has introduced legislation designed to repeal the Internet "indecency" provisions of the telecommunications reform bill President Clinton signed into law last Thursday. The text of Leahy's proposal, as well as his (very articulate) floor statement, follows below. Both are worth reading. Leahy was one of only five Senators to vote against the telco bill on February 1, 1996. He is also one of the few legislators on Capitol Hill who truly understands what the Net is all about. If you'd like to send the Senator a message of support, his e-mail address is: senator_leahy(a)leahy.senate.gov. Onward, --Todd Lappin--> Section Editor WIRED Magazine =================================================================== FILE s1567.is S 1567 IS 104th CONGRESS 2d Session To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to repeal the amendments relating to obscene and harassing use of telecommunications facilities made by the Communications Decency Act of 1995. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES February 9 (legislative day, FEBRUARY 7), 1996 Mr. LEAHY (for himself and Mr. FEINGOLD) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation A BILL To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to repeal the amendments relating to obscene and harassing use of telecommunications facilities made by the Communications Decency Act of 1995. [Italic->] Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, [<-Italic] SECTION 1. REPEAL OF AMENDMENTS. Effective on the day after the date of the enactment of the Communications Decency Act of 1995, the amendments made to section 223 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 223) by section 502 of the Communications Decency Act of 1995 are repealed and the provisions of such section 223 as in effect on the day before such date shall have force and effect. [end bill text] Floor Statement On Repealing The Communications Decency Act February 9, 1996 _________________________________________________________________ Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, last week, the Congress passed telecommunications legislation. The President signed it into law this week. For a number of reasons, and I stated them in the Chamber at the time, I voted against the legislation. There were a number of things in that legislation I liked and I am glad to see them in law. There were, however, some parts I did not like, one of them especially. Today I am introducing a bill to repeal parts of the new law, parts I feel would have far-reaching implications and would impose far-reaching new Federal crimes on Americans for exercising their free speech rights on-line and on the Internet. The parts of the telecommunications bill called the "Communications Decency Act" are fatally flawed and unconstitutional. Indeed, such serious questions about the constitutionality of this legislation have been raised that a new section was added to speed up judicial review to see if the legislation would pass constitutional muster. The legislation is not going to pass that test. The first amendment to our Constitution expressly states that "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech." The new law flouts that prohibition for the sake of political posturing. We should not wait to let the courts fix this mistake. Even on an expedited basis, the judicial review of the new law would take months and possibly years of litigation. During those years of litigation unsuspecting Americans who are using the Internet in unprecedented numbers and more every day, are going to risk criminal liability every time they go on-line. Let us be emphatically clear that the people at risk of committing a felony under this new law are not child pornographers, purveyors of obscene materials or child sex molesters. These people can already be prosecuted and should be prosecuted under longstanding Federal criminal laws that prevent the distribution over computer networks of obscene and other pornographic materials harmful to minors, under 18 U.S.C. sections 1465, 2252 and 2423(a); that prohibit the illegal solicitation of a minor by way of a computer network, under 18 U.S.C. section 2252; and that bar the illegal luring of a minor into sexual activity through computer conversations, under 18 U.S.C. section 2423(b). In fact, just last year, we passed unanimously a new law that sharply increases penalties for people who commit these crimes. In fact, just last year, we passed unanimously a new law that sharply increases penalties for these people. There is absolutely no disagreement in the Senate, no disagreement certainly among the 100 Senators about wanting to protect children from harm. All 100 Senators, no matter where they are from, would agree that obscenity and child pornography should be kept out of the hands of children. All Senators agree that we should punish those who sexually exploit children or abuse children. I am a former prosecutor. I have prosecuted people for abusing children. This is something where there are no political or ideological differences among us. I believe there was a terribly misguided effort to protect children from what some prosecutors somewhere in this country might consider offensive or indecent online material, and in doing that, the Communications Decency Act tramples on the free speech rights of all Americans who want to enjoy this medium. This legislation sweeps more broadly than just stopping obscenity from being sent to children. It will impose felony penalties for using indecent four-letter words, or discussing material deemed to be indecent, on electronic bulletin boards or Internet chat areas and news groups accessible to children. Let me give a couple of examples: You send E-mail back and forth, and you want to annoy somebody whom you talked with many times before -- it may be your best buddy -- and you use a four-letter word. Well, you could be prosecuted for that, although you could pick up the phone, say the same thing to him, and you commit no crime; or send a letter and say the same word and commit no crime; or talk to him walking down the street and commit no crime. To avoid liability under this legislation, users of e-mail will have to ban curse words and other expressions that might be characterized as indecent from their online vocabulary. The new law will punish with 2-year jail terms someone using one of the "seven dirty words" in a message to a minor or for sharing with a minor material containing indecent passages. In some areas of the country, a copy of Seventeen Magazine would be considered indecent, even though kids buy it. The magazine is among the 10 most frequently challenged school library materials in the country. Somebody sends an excerpt from it, and bang, they could be prosecuted. The new law will make it a crime "to display in a manner available to" a child any message or material "that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs..." That covers any of the over 13,000 Usenet discussion groups, as well as electronic bulletin boards, online service provider chat rooms, and Web sites, that are all accessible to children. This "display" prohibition, according to the drafters, "applies to content providers who post indecent material for online display without taking precautions that shield that material from minors." What precautions will Internet users have to take to avoid criminal liability? These users, after all, are the ones who provide the "content" read in news groups and on electronic bulletin boards. The legislation gives the FCC authority to describe the precautions that can be taken to avoid criminal liability. All Internet users will have to wait and look to the FCC for what they must do to protect themselves from criminal liability. Internet users will have to limit all language used and topics discussed in online discussions accessible to minors to that appropriate for kindergartners, just in case a child clicks onto the discussion. No literary quotes from racy parts of Catcher in the Rye or Ulysses will be allowed. Certainly, online discussions of safe sex practices, or birth control methods, and of AIDS prevention methods will be suspect. Any user who crosses the vague and undefined line of "indecency" will be subject to two years in jail and fines. This worries me considerably. I will give you an idea of what happens. People look at this, and because it is so vague and so broad and so sweeping, attempts to protect one's self from breaking the law become even broader and even more sweeping. A few weeks ago, America Online took the online profile of a Vermonter off the service. Why? Because the Vermonter used what AOL deemed a vulgar, forbidden word. The word -- and I do not want to shock my colleagues -- but the word was "breast." And the reason this Vermonter was using the word "breast"? She was a survivor of breast cancer. She used the service to exchange the latest information on detection of breast cancer or engage in support to those who are survivors of breast cancer. Of course, eventually, America Online apologized and indicated they would allow the use of the word where appropriate. We are already seeing premonitions of the chilling effect this legislation will have on online service providers. Far better we use the laws on the books today to go after child pornographers, to go after child abusers. What strikes some people as "indecent" or "patently offensive" may look very different to other people in another part of the country. Given these differences, a vague ban on patently offensive and indecent communications may make us feel good but threatens to drive off the Internet and computer networks an unimaginable amount of valuable political, artistic, scientific, health and other speech. For example, many museums in this country and abroad are going hi-tech and starting Web pages to provide the public with greater access to the cultural riches they offer. What if museums, like the Whitney Museum, which currently operates a Web page, had to censor what it made available online out of fear of being dragged into court? Only adults and kids who can make it in person to the museum will be able to see the paintings or sculpture censored for online viewing under this law. What about the university health service that posts information online about birth control and protections against the spread of AIDS? With many students in college under 18, this information would likely disappear under threat of prosecution. What happens if they are selling online versions of James Joyce's Ulysses or of Catcher in the Rye? Can they advertise this? Can excerpts be put online? In all likelihood not. The Internet is breaking new ground important for the economic health of this country. Businesses, like the Golden Quill Book Shop in Manchester Center, Vermont can advertise and sell their books around the country or the world via the Internet. But now, advertisers will have to censor their ads. For example, some people consider the Victoria's Secret catalogue indecent. Under this new law, advertisements that would be legal in print could subject the advertiser to criminal liability if circulated online. You could put them in your local newspaper, but you cannot put it online. In bookstores and on library shelves, the protections of the First Amendment are clear. The courts are unwavering in the protection of indecent speech. In altering the protections of the first amendment for online communications, I believe you could cripple this new mode of communication. At some point you have to start asking, where do we censor? What speech do we keep off? Is it speech we may find politically disturbing? If somebody wants to be critical of any one Member of Congress, are we able to keep that off? Should we be able to keep that off? I think not. There is a lot of reprehensible speech and usually it becomes more noted when attempts are made to censor it rather than let it out in the daylight where people can respond to it. The Internet is an American technology that has swept around the world. As its popularity has grown, so have efforts to censor it. For example, complaints by German prosecutors prompted an online service provider to cut off subscriber access to over 200 Internet news groups with the words "sex", "gay" or "erotica" in the name. They censored such groups as "clarinet.news.gays," which is an online newspaper focused on gay issues, and "gay-net.coming-out", which is a support group for gay men and women dealing with going public with their sexual orientation. German prosecutors have also tried to get AOL to stop providing access to neo-Nazi propaganda accessible on the Internet. No doubt such material is offensive and abhorrent, but nonetheless just as protected by our First Amendment as indecent material. In China, look what they are trying to do. They are trying to create an "intranet" that would heavily censor outside access to the worldwide Internet. We ought to be make sure it is open, not censored. We ought to send that out as an example to China. Americans should be taking the high ground to protect the future of our home-grown Internet, and to fight these censorship efforts that are springing up around the globe. Instead of championing the First Amendment, however, the Communications Decency Act tramples on the principles of free speech and free flow of information that has fueled the growth of this medium. We have to be vigilant in enforcing the laws we have on the books to protect our children from obscenity, child pornography and sexual exploitation. Those laws are being enforced. Just last September, using current laws, the FBI seized computers and computer files from about 125 homes and offices across the country as part of an operation to shut down an online child pornography ring. I well understand the motivation for the Communications Decency Act. We want to protect our children from offensive or indecent online materials. This Senator --and I am confident every other Senator-- agrees with that. But we must be careful that the means we use to protect our children does not do more harm than good. We can already control the access our children have to indecent material with blocking technologies available for free from some online service providers and for a relatively low cost from software manufacturers. Frankly, and I will close with this, Mr. President, at some point we ought to stop saying the Government is going to make a determination of what we read and see, the Government will determine what our children have or do not have. I grew up in a family where my parents thought it was their responsibility to guide what I read or would not read. They probably had their hands full. I was reading at the age of 4. I was a voracious reader, and all the time I was growing up I read several books a week and went through our local library in the small town I grew up in very quickly. That love of reading has stood me in very good stead. I am sure I read some things that were a total waste of time, but very quickly I began to determine what were the good things to read and what were the bad things. I had read all of Dickens by the end of the third grade and much of Robert Louis Stevenson. I am sure some can argue there are parts of those that maybe were not suitable for somebody in third grade. I do not think I was severely damaged by it at all. That same love of reading helped me get through law school and become a prosecutor where I did put child abusers behind bars. Should we not say that the parents ought to make this decision, not us in the Congress? We should put some responsibility back on families, on parents. They have the software available that they can determine what their children are looking at. That is what we should do. Banning indecent material from the Internet is like using a meat cleaver to deal with the problems better addressed with a scalpel. We should not wait for the courts. Let us get this new unconstitutional law off the books as soon as possible. ## --- 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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Re: Some thoughts on the Chinese Net
by printing＠explicit.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 14 Feb 1996, Ed Carp wrote about Chinese censonship: >I think it *will* work, in part because China has a very long history of >repressing and persecuting its own people. Besides, if they really get in >a tight spot, there's always "the nuclear option." >If you think I'm kidding, read the news about China threatening to nuke >Taiwan if they declare independence. I dunno on that one, Did you see the tape of the Chinese rocket with the U.S. telecommunications satellite exploding? But they did censor that pretty quickly! William Knowles Graphically Explicit //!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\ Graphically Explicit Printing - Advertising - Graphic Design 1555 Sherman Avenue - Suite 203 Evanston IL., 60201-4421 800.570.0471 - printing(a)explicit.com Accept, Embrace, Adapt, Create \\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//

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FW: Cyberspace Declaration Of Independence
by gorkab＠sanchez.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 20:53:34 -0500 From: janice <janice(a)mars.superlink.net> To: janice(a)artsedge.kennedy-center.org Newgroups: at.mail.com-priv Subject: (fwd) A Declaration of Independence, for Cyberspace. (fwd) Path: earth.superlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!news.uoregon.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!Austria.EU.net!osiris.wu-wien.ac.at!news-mail-gateway From: avalon(a)coombs.anu.edu.au (Darren Reed) Newsgroups: at.mail.com-priv Subject: A Declaration of Independence, for Cyberspace. (fwd) Date: 12 Feb 1996 11:36:26 +0100 Organization: WU Mail/News Gateway Lines: 173 Sender: daemon(a)osiris.wu-wien.ac.at Message-ID: <199602121024.FAA25713(a)lists.psi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: osiris.wu-wien.ac.at I haven't seen this on com-priv yet...but I may have deleted it without noticing....(sorry if it has been through it already). darren >>> John Perry Barlow <barlow(a)eff.org> dared to speak the following <<< From: John Perry Barlow <barlow(a)eff.org> To: watts(a)hawaii.edu Subject: A Cyberspace Independence Declaration Yesterday, that great invertebrate in the White House signed into the law the Telecom "Reform" Act of 1996, while Tipper Gore took digital photographs of the proceedings to be included in a book called "24 Hours in Cyberspace." I had also been asked to participate in the creation of this book by writing something appropriate to the moment. Given the atrocity that this legislation would seek to inflict on the Net, I decided it was as good a time as any to dump some tea in the virtual harbor. After all, the Telecom "Reform" Act, passed in the Senate with only 5 dissenting votes, makes it unlawful, and punishable by a $250,000 to say "shit" online. Or, for that matter, to say any of the other 7 dirty words prohibited in broadcast media. Or to discuss abortion openly. Or to talk about any bodily function in any but the most clinical terms. It attempts to place more restrictive constraints on the conversation in Cyberspace than presently exist in the Senate cafeteria, where I have dined and heard colorful indecencies spoken by United States senators on every occasion I did. This bill was enacted upon us by people who haven't the slightest idea who we are or where our conversation is being conducted. It is, as my good friend and Wired Editor Louis Rossetto put it, as though "the illiterate could tell you what to read." Well, fuck them. Or, more to the point, let us now take our leave of them. They have declared war on Cyberspace. Let us show them how cunning, baffling, and powerful we can be in our own defense. I have written something (with characteristic grandiosity) that I hope will become one of many means to this end. If you find it useful, I hope you will pass it on as widely as possible. You can leave my name off it if you like, because I don't care about the credit. I really don't. But I do hope this cry will echo across Cyberspace, changing and growing and self-replicating, until it becomes a great shout equal to the idiocy they have just inflicted upon us. I give you... A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions. You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions. You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different. Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live. We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are based on matter, There is no matter here. Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge . Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose. In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us. Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish. These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts. We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before. Davos, Switzerland February 8, 1996 **************************************************************** John Perry Barlow, Cognitive Dissident Co-Founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation Home(stead) Page: http://www.eff.org/~barlow Message Service: 800/634-3542 ***************************************************************** It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia Signers of the declaration of Independence of Cyberspace: --- Andrew F. Daniels Computing Specialist http://nickel.ucs.indiana.edu/~andrew Pager: (800) 958-4503 adaniels(a)ais.net andrew(a)cic.net statements made represent the views of the author and no other organization finger andrew(a)hamlet.ucs.indiana.edu for further details --- PPP A TTTTT M M A N N P P A A T MM MM A A NN N Patrick C. Farabee PPP AAA T M M M AAA N N N P A A T M M M A A N NN pfarabee(a)intersource.com P A A T M M A A N N

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Re: Science News - article on Quantum Crypto
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>The new Science News that showed up in today's mail >has a short but informative article on quantum >cryptography. It explains what quantum crypto is for >us newbies and gives the history of a recent success >in Lake Geneva (Switzerland, not Wisconsin) - an >encrypted message was sent 22.7 km over fiber-optic >cable successfully. It's a nice article. Does anyone know if the new in-line optical amplifiers (not switches!) have any effect on quantum crypto messages? Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- 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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National Cryptologic Museum (Noise)
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I peeled this off of Usenet, Wondering if this is Tim doing a little trolling? Cheers! The Christmas Troll --(fwd)-- Hi all, If you've never heard of the National Cryptologic Museum and have an interest in this kind of stuff, you MUST go take a look. It's at Fort Meade, outside Laurel, Maryland, and actually lies on the grounds of the NSA. I dropped by the other day and was very impressed. The NSA is to be grudgingly %^) commended, although the material on recent operations (post-1950) is understandably a little thin. The very coolest exhibit is a functioning Enigma machine on which visitors are allowed to encrypt/decrypt messages. It really does work well, and I got the same gloating thrill I felt the first time I decrypted a PGP message from a friend. There is also a piece of Gary Powers' U2, a Cray X-MP processor that you can sit on and peer into, several specimens of old Japanese crypto machines, and incontrovertible proof of the Rosenbergs' perfidy and treason, among many other interesting displays. The staff is friendly and informative, but you will not get the current key codes for ICBM launch control out of them, of course. I did not see any mention of PGP or related topics in my brief visit, either. Oh, and most surreal was the entrance: at the end of the road, an almost unmarked gate a yard wide in a razor wire fence, dangling a padlock. I wondered for a moment if it were the right place and if I would be shot if I actually went inside. Allow half a day if you are a serious student of these topics, and an hour or two if not. All in all, it was the second most interesting museum I saw in Washington (after Air & Space). I still don't trust Clipper, but it was certainly nice to see the human side of the big bad spooky NSA. They have done an important job for the country and don't deserve most of the abuse that I see heaped on them on the Internet. --ccm Christopher C. May, M.D. Univ. of Texas Health Sci. Ctr. San Antonio may(a)uthscsa.edu * 72707.413(a)compuserve.com "Too much Law; not enough Order." --

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Re: Online Zakat Payment: Religious tithe.
by Steven C. Perkins 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am resending Mr. Gabb's message edited to show that Mr. May wrote the three lines in question. SC Perkins At 10:34 AM 2/13/96 +0000, you wrote: >On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, Timothy C. May wrote: > > Once again, the gutter religion of Islam reveals the derangement of its > so-called Prophet. > > The world really needs to get around to nuking these folks. > >Oh, Come now! Islam may in its present form be a religion deeply hostile >to liberty. But since "nuking" the whole Islamic world would not be >itself much of a defence of freedom, the only long term answer is to >promote within Islam the same kind of Reformation as eventually made >Christianity half decent. And Tim's comments do not contribute to that. >I don't know how many internet servers there are in the Middle East. >But, if I were an intelligent fundamentalist, I'd be copying it all over >the place. "Look", I'd be saying, "these people really do mean another >crusade to destroy us and our faith". > >I can understand Tim's disgust with these people. But I do question his >manner of expressing it. > > ***************************************************************************** Steven C. Perkins sperkins(a)andromeda.rutgers.edu User Services Coordinator, Rutgers School of Law at Newark 15 Washington Street Newark, NJ 07102 VOX: 201-648-5965 FAX: 201-648-1356 http://www.rutgers.edu/RUSLN/rulnindx.html http://www.rutgers.edu/lawschool.html "Raise your voices to the Sky. It is a Good Day to die." Chief Crazy Horse *****************************************************************************

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