December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: PILATE SAYETH UNTO HIM... (fwd)
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:39 AM 5/24/96 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: >If there was an absolute Truth as you postulate the results would >be many and varied. For instance, > >1. If the Truth were absolute everyone would have to accept it as such > even if they disagreed or said it wasn't the Truth, Only if they were infallible. >2. What is the litmus test for ultimate Truth? How do you tell it from > regular truth? How do you tell it from a lie? From the Lie? The usual methods. >3. If there were a ultimate Truth then this implies that it is possible > to have a system which can fully describe itself. This is an argument against divinity, not an argument that the truth does not exist out there in the world and pretty well knowable most of the time. All your arguments are just variants of the claim "Subjectivism must be true because it must be true", which is obviously self contradictory --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Mixmaster version usable with POP?
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One application of an anonymous remailer that has come up is using POP to get into an account via which remailing could be done without the remailer having to run on the machine receiving/sending the mail. It would instead occur on a machine running the remailer software and equipped for doing POP. Has anyone written a mixmaster version (or additions onto Mixmaster) that will do this automatically? While having the entire remailer with logs and private key in a different country would still be best, if an anonymous POP account were used this would still shield the remailer operator from forced disclosure. It would also cut down on the costs; for instance, offshore.com.ai's monthly price for a UNIX shell account is 50$ a month, but theirs for an email-only account is 20$ a month (albeit with only 20 M/month of mail). Thanks, -Allen

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Re: Children's Privacy Act
by Bruce Baugh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:45 PM 5/25/96 EDT, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: >such as monopolistic and oglipolistic corporations). You do have a choice in >dealing with other entities. I make that choice; I minimize my use of a credit >card, for instance. I've had months where my bill was $0.00. Now, if the >agency in question is required to collect such information because of coercion, >then that's wrongful, and that information shouldn't be retransmitted. Righ. But in addition to the forcible acquisition of information, there's the unwitting acquisition - you are never informed that party A has transmitted information X to party B, who in turn passed it to C, who garbled it and then passed the erroneous info to D.... I'm a raving anarcho-capitalist, and I see not the slightest ethical problem in requiring people to tell me what information they're gathering on me. At that point I can make an informed decision to deal or not deal with them - and that's a complex decision. I might well prefer to do business with, say, Tim's House O' Stuff even though it's collecting more info than I'd prefer, if there are compensatory factors. But I can't weigh my options in a void. -- Bruce Baugh bruce(a)aracnet.com http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce

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Re: An alternative to remailer shutdowns
by hendersn＠zeta.org.au 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 24-MAY-1996 22:52:03.64 > >>Remailers on the attack points (first in chain, last in chain) simply MUST >>be disposable as tissue. They must be run as anonymously as possible, >>with as little connection to the ISP's assets as possible and immediately >>disposable. They must be easy to set up, runable without root and there >>must be a much more efficent tracking mechanism. (Mr. Levin has done a >>terrific job, but even more needs to be done). This is what I was groping for before, I think. I would like to set up an anonymous remailer, but I have little to no idea how to go about it. I need something that I can set up cheaply and easily on a machine that I don't have root on, and that I could close down in a flash if there was a problem. I'm proposing a stop-gap measure that could take some of the heat off genuine remailers - simple, easy-to-create remailers that do nothing except anonymize the fullscale remailer that's being used. If you make it so that Type-I and Type-II remailers can _only_ remail to these simple remailers as well as other remailers, you've insulated them from the overt threat of being caught as the last remailer in the chain. Hopefully the number of full-scale remailers would then start increasing instead of decreasing if there is less reason to threaten them. As for traffic analysis uncovering the previous remailer in the chain: how would discovering that the previous remailer in the chain was utopia.hacktic.nl be any different from the message actually appearing from utopia.hacktic.nl? The Church of Scientology doesn't have the resources to do full-scale traffic analysis, so hacktic's role would never have been discovered. And what would you do if it turned out that the previous remailer was middle-man(a)alpha.c2.org? Who do you prosecute? >>It only takes ONE operator to get a tiny ($2500-$10,000) fine or judgement >>and that will be the end of most of the mailers. Poof. > > What, pray tell, is the result of a judgement in which the person >manifestedly doesn't have the money to pay? I couldn't pay a 10,000 dollar >judgement; I don't have that much money. I would guess it'd be some form >of attachment of income; this wouldn't get them much... You either pay up as your income allows you, or you file for bankruptcy. Neither option is likely to make other remailer operators feel good about themselves. Zed(hendersn(a)zeta.org.au) "Don't hate the media, become the media" - Jello Biafra PGP key on request

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Re: Announcing CryptaPix 1.0
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"jimbell(a)pacifier.com" "jim bell" 25-MAY-1996 03:29:13.89 >What they ought to do is to "stegofy" this system by binding a picture with >a lower-quality, non-suspicious picture which can be brought up with a >"duress code." The idea has come up before; I raised it a while back, for instance. Your simple version has the problem that if the system is known to hide info in this way, the cops or whoever will just pressure you for the other picture's code. Really, the only way to get around this is to have a system that allows an indeterminate (from the perspective of those who don't have all the phrases) number of pictures/blocks of text/whatever to coexist, thus allowing one to pull up a subset of them and realistically claim that that's all of them. While, as Uni has pointed out, a judge can still toss you in jail for contempt of court, that is preferable to the results for the discovery of some other information (i.e., that which would get you the death penalty). -Allen

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Several things..
by John A. Perry 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- 1. Damn! Another remailer bites the dust. I've removed ncognito from the type2.list/pubring.mix combo on jpunix.com. The updated lists are available by web (www.jpunix.com) and by anon FTP (ftp.jpunix.com) 2. I wonder if we are going to see more "middleman" remailers now that the code has been released? Anyone have any thoughts or ideas on the subject? 3. Since remailers are dropping like flies, I've decided to bite the bullet and wake up nymrod. I no longer have the obligations that I had in the recent past that caused me to question running a nym server. I can now do so with a clear, unfettered conscience. Nymrod is now awake and active, ready to accept your nyms on nym.jpunix.com. The two names that that nym server will answer to are: nymrod(a)nym.jpunix.com (preferred) alias(a)nym.jpunix.com (to support some nym packages) John Perry - KG5RG - perry(a)alpha.jpunix.com - PGP-encrypted e-mail welcome! WWW - http://www.jpunix.com PGP 2.62 key for perry(a)jpunix.com is on the keyservers. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMadvJ1OTpEThrthvAQFrwAQAqcUIMAnSliEX5eZ9R30+NMk3pmrYuxEH TvzdK0mMfvkP+i+/1hj1muw+yAmomNogaphXYMbHDFBYCXjNscFSMCCWyECsjE6H Jm5B8/FzRYuLy83JugHE6KGLcmRkZeSmxG6p7O3W/IAoO2ThAyW8YYYOBZGASqQy qD1gEFWO9EI= =GpYT -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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WhoWhere Robot strikes again
by Stephan Somogyi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I now have a WhoWhere Robot hitting one of my web servers from orion.parsecweb.com and it is most assuredly not honoring the robots.txt file regarding directories to exclude. I also just looked in the bot registry again and the WhoWhere Robot remains unlisted. Needless to say, I'm denying accesses from parsecweb.com from here onward. Stephan ________________________________________________________________________ Stephan Somogyi Central Services Digital Media

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Remailers & liability
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello again to list folks. Had to disappear for a bit due to school & work, but am back for a few weeks before the bar. (doh.) I upgraded from Eudora Lite to Eudora Pro before resubscribing and find its filtering makes the cpunks traffic much more manageable. Cheerfully recommended to everyone who's still got cpunks dumping in their regular mailbox and cursing at the lack of mail kill files. Have been following the discussion re remailers & liability. The use of waivers and hold-harmless clauses and ROT13 and all of the rest seems like it might have some potential where the potential plaintiff you're worried about is a message recipient angered or shocked by receiving mail which bothers them. I don't think they'll do much good where the potential plaintiff is a third party whose gripe is that the material was distributed. I'm thinking here of copyright plaintiffs like Newsweek or Brad Templeton/Clarinet or the Church of Scamentology, or a person concerned about invasion of privacy or defamation. A recipient can't waive/disclaim the rights of a third party, and an indemnity clause isn't worth much without assets and an honest intention to back it up. Waivers and disclaimers also aren't likely to be any help against criminal charges, because the aggrieved party is the State, not the "victim". The real key to long-lasting remailers is relatively judgement-proof remailer operators who aren't scared of going to court. (cf. Grady Ward and Arnie Lerma) Remailer operators are first amendment activists who are going to take heat the same way that environmental and anti-abortion activists have. I talked with one woman who was hit with a judgement by a timber company after she & other activists blocked logging equipment, causing the timber company to lose money (_Huffman-Wright v. Wade_, 317 Or 445, 452, 857 P.2d 101 (1993)) - her comment was that she's able to maintain a reasonable but not luxurious life with the roughly $9000 per year income that the judgement creditor can't touch, and that the minimal possessions which can't be seized by the sheriff are enough for her. Remailer operators may have to choose between comfortable living and their commitment to the principle of free speech. Remailers are attempting to do something that the legal system is hostile to - allow action (potentially harm) without corresponding liability. (If the remailer's not liable, and the sender isn't identifiable, there's nobody to sue and nobody to throw in jail.) Some people on the list take the position that sending and receiving electronic data cannot create the sort of harm that the legal system ought to concern itself with. While this might be the case (I'm not convinced yet either way), it's certainly not the law. Lots of tricky lawyers spend lots of time trying to structure relationships so that it's possible to have activity without liability for their clients. As far as I can tell, the way to achieve this result is through public relations and lobbying (e.g., "tort reform"). Unfortunately, remailer operators aren't as sympathetic as big insurance companies, so we may lose out. :( For what it's worth, I'm still planning to run a remailer again when I get settled down somewhere. (I don't think remailers do much good where the operator isn't root, so I'm not bothering with trying to run one on someone else's system.) My debt/asset ratio is bad enough from all of this school that I don't have much for anyone to levy against. Ha, ha. Anyone want some rapidly obsolescing computer and law books? :( -- Greg Broiles |"Post-rotational nystagmus was the subject of gbroiles(a)netbox.com |an in-court demonstration by the People http://www.io.com/~gbroiles |wherein Sgt Page was spun around by Sgt |Studdard." People v. Quinn 580 NYS2d 818,825.

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PILATE SAYETH UNTO HIM...
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:30 AM 5/24/96 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: > Sorry but the very fact that I don't agree with you is proof enough that > there is no absolute 'Truth' as you use it. That is unless you are > attempting to claim absolute omnipotence on the point of determination. Say Jim, did you major in sociology literature: Here is Dave Barry on college and truth: After you've been in college for a year or so, you're supposed to choose a major, which is the subject you intend to memorize and forget the most things about. Here is a very important piece of advice: Be sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts and Right Answers. This means you must *not* major in mathematics, physics, biology, or chemistry, because these subjects involve actual facts. If, for example, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into class one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer of the quadrant of a rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with *exactly* the answer the professor has in mind, you fail. The same is true of chemistry: if you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you. He wants you to come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have agreed on. Scientists are extremely snotty about this. So you should major in subjects like English, philosophy, psychology, and sociology -- subjects in which nobody really understands what anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual facts. I attended classes in all these subjects, so I'll give you a quick overview of each: read little snippets of just before class. Here is a tip on how to get good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a book that anybody with any common sense would say. For example, suppose you are studying Moby-Dick. Anybody with any common sense would say that Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times. So in *your* paper, *you* say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland. Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative. If you can regularly come up with lunatic interpretations of simple stories, you should major in English. PHILOSOPHY: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and deciding there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch. You should major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs. PSYCHOLOGY: This involves talking about rats and dreams. Psychologists are *obsessed* with rats and dreams. I once spent an entire semester training a rat to punch little buttons in a certain sequence, then training my roommate to do the same thing. The rat learned much faster. My roommate is now a doctor. If you like rats or dreams, and above all if you dream about rats, you should major in psychology. SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and away the number one subject. I sat through hundreds of hours of sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never once heard or read a coherent statement. This is because sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: "Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a casual relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or 'crying,' behavior forms." If you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large government grant. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: Children's Privacy Act
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"bruce(a)aracnet.com" "Bruce Baugh" 25-MAY-1996 09:21:06.18 >I don't see that this is necessarily true for information any more than it >is property. Property can be bought, sold, traded, given away, made...but it >can also be stolen. Just as I have a right to complain if you walk off with >my couch without my permission, so if you walk off with data on my blood >chemistry or credit history without my permission. Certainly, if you were coerced into giving up this information, it would be wrongful - including to knowingly retransmit it. But that's only the case for dealing with governments (and, I would include, other coercive groups such as monopolistic and oglipolistic corporations). You do have a choice in dealing with other entities. I make that choice; I minimize my use of a credit card, for instance. I've had months where my bill was $0.00. Now, if the agency in question is required to collect such information because of coercion, then that's wrongful, and that information shouldn't be retransmitted. -Allen

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