December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: [NOISE] Re: Nazis on the Net
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Rich Graves <llurch(a)networking.stanford.edu> >E. Allen Smith actually might have written: >>I've seen various quotes from Randy Weaver in various publications, >>including Time and other non-right-wing ones. None of them indicated him >>as an actual neo-Nazi or racist >BWAHAHAHA!!! I assume that you are thinking I'm incorrect? Incidentally, I classify a racist as someone who says "this race is evil and should be killed/enslaved/tortured/whatever." Someone who says that different races shouldn't live together is a separatist; it's only when they start having seperate but equal being anything but equal (e.g., apartheid) that it crosses the line into racism. Thus, I don't regard Charles Murray or Richard Herrnstein as racist, for instance. >Here's a URL for a *highly sympathetic* piece on Weaver that complains >that, "I will be happier when the press stops demonizing Weaver -- in >subtle and not so subtle ways -- in news stories and editorials. He is >referred to so consistently as "White Separatist Randall Weaver" that one >would be forgiven for assuming that his parents gave him the first name >"White," while "Separatist" was some old family name handed down from his >maternal aunt": >http://www.omnet.com/What-I-Think/col.09-01-95B.html Yes, it doesn't give any information to call him a racist... it gives information to call him a separatist. I don't support either, but I call the former more evil than the latter. If you thought I had claimed that Weaver wasn't a separatist, you've misread me. >Here are some *highly sympathetic* URLs that mention that Weaver was a >white separatist/Aryan Nations wacko: >http://www.scimitar.com/revolution/by_topic/firearms/enforce/rubyridge/setu… >http://eagle.tamu.edu/~carlp/Liberty/Weaver.Case.AR.html They both, yes, state that he was a white separatist. They don't state that he was an Aryan Nations member... just that the FBI was trying to use him to infiltrate the Aryan Nations. One doesn't have to be a member of something before recruitment by an undercover (or intelligence) operation to be useful for infiltrating it - you just have to be someone that that organization would accept. As a known white separatist, Weaver becoming an out-and-out racist would be more believable than, say, you or me becoming an out-and-out racist. Often, those who are already members of such an organization will be more resistant to turning - more emotional committment, more watchfullness for attempts to frame/entrap, etcetera. >A slightly more balanced piece from the New York Times: >http://eagle.tamu.edu/~carlp/Liberty/Weaver.Case.NYT.html Which, again, doesn't give any evidence that he was an actual racist, as opposed to a white separatist. >FWIW, the Anti-Defamation League, which I am *well aware* has said sily >things about militias and skinheads in the past, mentions Weaver in this >report: >http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?people/w/weaver.randy/aryan-nations I'm glad you mentioned their unreliability; otherwise I would have had to. This one I haven't been able to check (connection refused), but I wouldn't believe them in any case if they did claim he was a racist. >I have also heard Weaver cited quite favorably on the Stormfront list, >which has repudiated Timothy McVeigh because his friend Terry Nichols has >a Filipino wife. This makes McVeigh a Race Traitor by association, of >course. Well, yes, a martyr is quite helpful to most movements. Of course he's going to be cited favorably, so long as they can't find any ideological problems such as the one you mention with regards to Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh. Thank you, you've done my research for me. -Allen

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Re: Bernstein ruling meets the virus law
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:43 PM 4/22/96 -0700, Steve Reid wrote: >Things are only black and white in lawmaker's dreams. :-/ Note also that there are programs which replicate and maintain themselves on several machines in a network in order to provide reliable network services (e.g. print spooling). (The people at Xerox PARC, who did almost everything first, experimented with this kind of program.) If lawmakers are to come up with a rational law, a big if, they will have to differentiate between a bug in a "tame" worm which lets it get loose as a virus, and a virus which was meant to be destructive from the get go. And then they will have to decide what to do about the virus that was designed to write, "Hi Mom!" on as many screens as possible with no malicious damage, and bugs in it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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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SHA_dow
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Three US papers report on hardly any intelligence reforms endorsed by Don't Worry, Boys, Clinton in response to the ole-boy Brown's CIA-CYA-all-the-way dark shadowisms. SHA_dow

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[Flatulence] Re: EYE_suk
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Is it just me, or is this sentence funny? > Underscoring the high-level attention the problem is > getting, the field exercise last week included Deputy > Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick and other senior > officials in Washington, with Gore's staff getting a daily > briefing. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "If they could 'just pass a few more laws', we would all be criminals." --Vinnie Moscaritolo The e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/

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Re: Meta: The Arguing about the Terms of the Wager Continues
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:45 PM 4/23/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: > And so the back-and-forth continues...taking up even more list space > arguing, waffling, finessing, rebutting, disputing, and on an on. > > Exactly as several of us have predicted. True, but one should note that it is Jim Bell that is weaseling, and that Unicorn is not weaseling. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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: 5th protect password?
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ C'punks, At 07:58 AM 4/23/96 -0700, James Donald wrote: >Yeah: fifty thousand dollars. >Not that it makes the slightest difference. > >On the extropians list a number of very large bets were made and >accepted, but nobody ever paid up. (Or very few -- I know of no >cases.) As much as I like the Extropians, personally, they haven't got a clue how to implement practical social systems. It is trivial to set up a wagering system that works--and you don't need all the "polycentric" blah blah. >Now if Unicorn had proposed a bet for one hundred dollars, then >I would sit up and take notice. A hundred dollars is real money. >Fifty thousand dollars is hot air... a) I proposed that a bet of $100 which Jim Bell ignored. That should have made you sit up and take notice. b) Unicorn has the 50Gs and I'm confident he would have paid up if necessary. >... Anybody who was serious about paying >would not make such ridiculous bets. This is a non-sequitor. Anyone serious about winning WOULD make such a bet. Do you really think that a legal scholar as good as Unicorn would just shoot from the hip without knowing he had it in the bag? S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Re: Golden Key Campaign
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I appreciate the temperate responses to my knee-jerk diatribe against RSA's involvement in the golden key campaign. The key logo doesn't actually resemble RSA's very much, although the small versions do seem similar to the golden keys shown in Netscape's browser. So far as I know though Netscape hasn't threatened any lawsuits to make people take crypto off the net so I don't object to that... Now that the patent situation with regard to public key encryption has changed due to the RSA/Cylink split, it appears that the patent which claims to cover all PK encryption has been seriously weakened. There are other PK encryption systems than RSA which are just as good, such as El Gamal or Rabin encryption. Rabin encryption would have the advantage that it could be used with existing RSA keys as long as the modulus is a Blum modulus. PGP at least has always used Blum moduli, perhaps for this eventuality. So an alternative encryption program could use Rabin encryption and work with the existing infrastructure of PGP keys. It would not of course be compatible with PGP for encryption and decryption. This doesn't solve the signature problem; I'm not sure if there is a signature algorithm which could use RSA public keys but which is not covered by the RSA patent. In any case since PGP key certificates use RSA signatures it would not appear to be possible to validate key signatures without infringing on the RSA patents, so that cancels out a lot of the advantages of using existing PGP keys. Hal

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Re: Nazis on the Net
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

E. ALLEN SMITH writes: | (one reason for Hiroshima and Nagasaki being right | was the Japanese alliance with Germany) Was Dresden also right? (more died than at Hiroshima) The firebombing of Tokyo? (10% died in one raid). Stalins execution of his own people? Look at facts, not propoganda, before coming to such conclusions. The conventions of war (namely the aim of keeping civilians out of it, along with good treatment of prisoners) evolved over many centuries, but then come the Brits and the Yanks to destroy it all with their indiscriminate bombing of civilians, using the "they can stop the torture simply by surrendering," and "those bombs saved countless [American/British] lives!" excuses, and directing attention away from their own attrocities by spreading propoganda such as soap made from Jews. Then to direct attention away from themselves even further, the victors judge the defeated at Nuremburg for "war crimes," when the accusors themselves were guilty of terror bombing, the worst war crime of them all. | and the Holocaust (people who claim | it didn't happen are calling my paternal grandfather a liar). Does anybody really claim it did not happen? I doubt it. I assert that those who express doubt over details of the current story (such as the numbers that died in the camps, the existence of gas chambers, or whether Hitler gave an order to systematically kill Jews) are referred to by the media as saying that the Holocaust didn't happen, but that is *not* what they are saying. With regard to your grandfather being liar, that is hard to say without knowing precisly he has said, but if he states that, eg, Dachau was a terrible place, riddled with disease and starvation and terrible conditions, and hundreds of thousands of people died, then who would disagree with him? If on the other hand he asserts that he saw gassed Jews at Dachau, then he is mistaken (although not necessarally a liar.) --- The Nuremberg Trials...had been popular throughout the world and particularly in the United States. Equally popular was the sentence already announced by the high tribunal: death. But what kind of trial was this? ...The Constitution was not a collection of loosely given political promises subject to broad interpretation. It was not a list of pleasing platitudes to be set lightly aside when expediency required it. It was the foundation of the American system of law and justice and [Robert Taft] was repelled by the picture of his country discarding those Constitutional precepts in order to punish a vanquished enemy. U.S. President, John F. Kennedy

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Golden Key Campaign
by Dave Banisar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

PRESS RELEASE Wednesday, April 24, 1996 URL: http://www.privacy.org/ipc/ Contact: Marc Rotenberg, EPIC, 202/544-9240 Lori Fena, EFF, 415/436-9333 Barbara Simons, USACM 408/463-5661 Kurt Stammberger, RSA, 415/595-8782 ------------------------------------------ INTERNET PRIVACY COALITION FORMED Golden Key Campaign Launched Groups Urge Good Technology for Privacy and Security Senator Burns to Introduce Legislation ------------------------------------------ WASHINGTON, DC -- A new coalition today urged support for strong technologies to protect privacy and security on the rapidly growing Internet. The Internet Privacy Coalition said that new technologies were critical to protect private communications and on-line commerce, and recommended relaxation of export controls that limit the ability of US firms to incorporate encryption in commercial products. Phil Zimmermann, author of the popular encryption program Pretty Good Privacy, expressed support for the effort of the new coalition. "It is time to change crypto policy in the United States. I urge those who favor good tools for privacy to back the efforts of the Internet Privacy Coalition." GOLDEN KEY CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED The Coalition has asked companies and Internet users to display a golden key and envelope to show support for strong encryption technology. Copies of the logo are available at the group's web page on the Internet. According to Lori Fena, director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the purpose of the campaign is to educate the public about new techniques for privacy protection. "Society's feelings about privacy have not changed, only the medium has," said Ms. Fena. US industry has pressed the US government to relax export controls on encryption as consumer demand for software products has increased. They cite the fact that foreign companies have been able to sell strong products in overseas markets that are now restricted for US firms. Jim Bidzos, President and CEO of RSA Data Security, said that US firms continue to face excessive burdens. "Encryption is the key to on-line commerce. Government regulations are simply keeping US firms out of important markets." The Internet Privacy Coalition is the first attempt to bring together a broad base of companies, cryptographers and public interest organizations around the central goal of promoting privacy and security on the Internet and urging relaxation of export controls. Dr. Barbara Simons, chair of the public policy committee of the Association for Computing said, "The broad support for the Golden Key campaign shows that the reform of encryption policy is a shared goal for companies, users, and professional associations." SENATOR BURNS TO INTRODUCE LEGISLATION The Internet Privacy Coalition is being established as Congress considers new legislation to relax export controls on encryption. Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) today introduced legislation that would relax export controls on commercial products containing technologies for privacy such as encryption. Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said "We believe that Senator Burns has put forward a constructive proposal. We look forward to working with him to ensure that good tools for privacy and security are widely available to Internet users." Hearings on Senator Burns bill are expected to take place in early June. The proposal has already gathered support from a bipartisan coalition in Congress. For Internet users who are interested in following the debate about encryption policy, the IPC has set up a Web page with information about encryption regulations, court challenges, legislative developments, and organizations and companies involved in the campaign. The Internet Privacy Coalition was established by more than a dozen of the nation's leading cryptographers, and thirty associations, companies, and civil liberties organizations committed to strong privacy and security technology for all users of the Internet. URL: http://www.privacy.org/ipc/ ---------------------------------------------- A KEY, AN ENVELOPE -- Both are historic means for communicating privately and protecting personal information. Today, encryption tools provide this privacy in the electronic world. The Golden Key Campaign is being launched to raise awareness and support for the preservation of the right to communicate privately and the availability of new techniques which make it possible. Privacy, a fundamental human right, has been affirmed by the US Supreme Court, the constitutions and laws of many countries, and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Privacy must be preserved as we move from paper to electronic communications. The Internet Privacy Coalition is urging members of the net community to display a Golden Key & Envelope symbol on their Web pages to show support for the right of privacy and the freedom to use good tools of privacy without government restraints. ----------------------------------------------

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Support for crypto bills is building
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[From FARNET's Washington Update. This is interesting principally for the note about the number of co-sponsors.] SEN. BURNS' ENCRYPTION BILL TO BE INTRODUCED BY END OF NEXT WEEK The third encryption bill aimed at blowing the administration's key-escrow policy out of the water is set for introduction probably late next week. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) will introduce a bill that is similar to both the Leahy and Goodlatte bills already in the Senate and House, respectively. Both prohibit a mandatory key-escrow system for the use of encryption in the United States. Both also significantly lift export restrictions on encryption software and hardware. (Export approval would be granted for any bit length that is already generally available in foreign markets. Current policy restricts the export of encryption hardware or software products with keys greater than 40 bits long.) Hill staff said yesterday that they saw strong support for the encryption bills forming in both houses. Thirty-eight co-sponsors have signed on to the Goodlatte bill in the House so far. The Burns bill is expected to garner the support of Sen. Leahy who also has a bill in the Senate. The House bill has been referred to the Judiciary committee and may be also referred to the House Committee on International Relations. The Senate expects to hold hearings in the Senate Commerce Committee sometime in June. While proponents are working to get the bill(s) passed this year, because of the elections this fall, it will be a tight schedule. Furthermore, the bills' supporters are trying to keep the three pieces of legislation from being referred to any of the intelligence or law enforcement committees where some of the strongest opposition is likely to arise. Strong encryption is generally regarded as extremely important to the success of electronic communications. The Clinton administration's various proposals for strict export restrictions and a mandatory key-escrow system have met with significant opposition from industry, privacy groups and netizens alike. Just this week, a court in California ruled that "source code" for encryption programs is speech, and therefore protected under the First Amendment. The case came at the instigation of a programmer who was forbidden to place his source code for an encryption program that he had developed on the Internet in order to get discussion on its merits from his colleagues. The ruling was just a preliminary step in order to continue with the case. It could, however, clear the way for the overruling of export restrictions on encryption source code.

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