December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: #E-CASH: PRODUCT OR SERVICE?
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 20:19 7/16/96, Stig wrote: >Perhaps this has already been voiced on the main list (I get a filtered >helping or two of cypherpunks), but *I'm* surprised that such a generic name >as 'Ecash' was granted trademark status anywhere. > >It's like giving Microsoft a trademark on the term 'Email'... It's nuts! >Was the term ecash not in use before DigiCash showed up on the scene? No that I am aware of. Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, DigiCash's Ecash is the only ecash that I am aware of. The other "ecashs" lack various properties of cash, as previously explained by Bryce. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November. Vote Harry Browne for President.

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Re: Opiated file systems
by Cerridwyn Llewyellyn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>a (hidden) drive to your computer using a reasonably surreptious link that >is difficult to trace. Say, an IR optical link, a single bare (unjacketed) >optical fiber, a LAN with hidden nodes, or a similar system. Maybe an I find the idea of the optical fiber very interesting. Is there such a beast currently available? I really don't know anything about fiber, and therefore it would be very difficult for me to construct such a system myself...

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Minneapolis radio on Netscape US Version
by roy＠sendai.scytale.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- KCFE has a brief and shallow "Business Report" in the afternoon. Yesterday, one of the items was Netscape's getting permission to make the US version available over the Internet. The bit mentioned a "strengthened method of scrambling data" and also mentioned the Gov't concern that it might be downloaded by terrorist groups. Some good, some bad. - -- Roy M. Silvernail [ ] roy(a)scytale.com PGP Public Key fingerprint = 31 86 EC B9 DB 76 A7 54 13 0B 6A 6B CC 09 18 B6 Key available from pubkey(a)scytale.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMe7JdBvikii9febJAQE28wP/eyvR1jfi5oU4sHwsnro6EwbHMr45Qptb wdX+0CDEtLCZv2eXQt+guWy4jIuEMrvd5obFiTGDJECkQ1aecYNiosQgdyJzqNgb 5xm98V7MlWBWGr7P5Ev4uOsC7mXbPvnPZ2BiCtlG5H+jnv4KKv7fr1ZtSngU+8Xl vDCp8MwQN9Q= =ZVdP -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Reverse Engineer
by Jerome Tan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

What do you mean by "reverse engineer?" I have heard this word several times especially in the world of hacking, but... can someone tell me what it really meant?

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Cookies etc...
by EVERHART＠Arisia.GCE.Com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On VMS, I have an applique which can be used to control completely what can be opened by apps you don't trust. It is perfectly capable of ensuring that nothing you haven't authorized is opened behind your back, mainly by telling you before the open proceeds what is being tried and giving you the ability to prevent it. Forcing use of some other disk (or scratch area) instead is of course also possible, selectively. The problem of things like cookies being left around without explicit permission (or other covert actions) would seem to be that there is no basis for assuming that the app is doing any of this as the agent of the person running the app. With EACF I can completely control this sort of thing; native out-of-the-box VMS has some facilities for partial control as well, which can be adequate. In doing so, they step outside the normal paradigm of assuming the "subject" is the user. I would contend that the "subject" should in fact be considered much more complex than user ID. At minimum, use of a tuple containing userid, program being run, location of user, privileges present, time of day, and identifiers ("group memberships") would seem to be needed for serious efforts, so that "subject" has some relation to what actually happens. The ability to treat certain actions as dynamically altering security or integrity levels is important too. Apps that leave files on your system without telling you are doing covert functions; these should be treated with great suspicion. So where are the critics of this? Does leaving such files constitute unauthorized computer use? I would say so. Anyone see the marshals coming to Netscape or Microsoft to haul anyone off to jail? Leaving files around would seem to deserve INFORMED consent. Do we get it? If your OS isn't as secure as VMS, maybe you want to think about this. ;-) Glenn Everhart(a)gce.com

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Re: An interesting instance of poltical anonymnity, now
by Cerridwyn Llewyellyn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:56 AM 7/18/96 EDT, you wrote: >Don't feel sorry for Klein - he's a fucking statist who opposes freedom of >speech. If CBS fires the creep for lying, it'll serve him just right. Than they should fire him on that basis (anti-free speech etc), not on the basis of preserving anonymity. //cerridwyn//

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re: Opiated file systems
by EVERHART＠Arisia.GCE.Com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hmm... I can set up a cryptodisk on a not necessarily contiguous file on another cryptodisk; the software is free. The second cryptodisk would appear to be just a binary file on the first; would it not be an obscured filesystem? (The drivers have been given away for years public domain for vms, vax or alpha, in source. My old rsx11d driver was published similarly back in 1977 or 78.) In fact, though, the containing file of a cryptodisk does not have to have any specific name or location, and can be hidden away as though it were, say, a sound file or something else among the rest of the system store. Before someone comes demanding your keys, they first have to realize that something might in fact be encrypted. My approach would be to have lots of these obscured cryptodisks for the stuff I wanted private, if I wanted to hide a lot, and have the usual assortment of cleartext stuff of all sorts lying around. The default operation mode forgets the keys automatically once you log off...or even at dismount. If you're stuck with a whole partition being hidden, this is harder to do. When any file of over a few kb can be a separate filestructure when the proper magic is applied, locating the keys can be impossible. glenn

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Netscrape download
by David Lesher 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[From Phil Karn] Netscape's use of a CGI interface to download the US version (128-bit key) of Netscape Navigator raises the possibility that they are "serializing" or "personalizing" each copy they send out, perhaps in response to a DoS request that they do so in order to trace unauthorized redistribution. One way to test this theory without redistributing the actual code is to compare MD5 hashes of the distributions. After two days of unsuccessful attempts at obtaining the code from their overloaded server, I've just successfully downloaded the SunOS, BSDI and Windows 95 versions of Netscape Navigator. Here are the MD5 hashes of the files I received: BSDI version: 4ec4a705e2e4c6560475852fae807c8c SunOS version: e72ff352ca7c619cb31b8f8ef3651b28 Windows 95 version: 8e936813f12a1b3b77ed03d9239ebd5d Anybody care to compare these to the copies they obtain, assuming the logjam on the server breaks sometime soon? Phil -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz(a)nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close...........(v)301 56 LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead........vr vr vr vr.................20915-1433

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Re: #E-CASH: PRODUCT OR SERVICE?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:18 AM 7/17/96, Stig wrote: >Perhaps this has already been voiced on the main list (I get a filtered >helping or two of cypherpunks), but *I'm* surprised that such a generic name >as 'Ecash' was granted trademark status anywhere. > >It's like giving Microsoft a trademark on the term 'Email'... It's nuts! >Was the term ecash not in use before DigiCash showed up on the scene? I agree, but note that Microsoft has gone a long way toward getting the courts to give it full monopoly ownership of the term "windows," or "Windows." I guess that windows-based Symbolics machine I was using in 1984, or those Xerox PARC windows-based D-machine, were violating the standard Microsoft set years later. (I admit that I bought Windows 1.0 about six months before I bought my first Macintosh, but I also note that Windows 1.0 was a ludicrous joke, and did not become a serious product until Windows 3.0 was released in 1990. And Apple had their windows (Windows is a TM of The Microsoft Corporation, all rights reserved) based machine, the Lisa, out in 1982-3.) As for Digicash's claims on "digicash," "ecash," etc., it won't matter much. The whole legal knot (including the patents and claims on the algorithms) makes things more complicated, but I don't worry too much about Digicash claiming people can't use the term "ecash." (If anything, Digicash may have failed to protect the name aggressively enough, and it may have entered the English language as band-aid did.) --Tim May 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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Alternative Journalism
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:04 PM 7/18/96, enquirer(a)alpha.c2.org wrote: > THE CYPHERPUNK ENQUIRER PRESENTS: > ... >"Don't worry about it. It gets worse before it gets better. Come on, we're >going to a party. Tim May and John Gilmore are throwing a Mad Tea Party." > >"Are they really mad?" > >"May's crazy as a loon. You'll like him. Gilmore, he's just still pissed >at Shimamura for that stunt in the hot tub ... " Ssshhh! Don't let it out that I'm crazy as a loon. BTW, "loon" is now considered to be derogatory slur and has been replaced by the more PC term "differently outlooked." We differently outlooked persons are forbidden by U.S. and California law from owning firearms, a method used increasingly to seize the firearms of those who have ever come into contact with the mental health profession. (Hint: Never, ever, ever, ever have yourself admitted to any kind of psychiatric facility for any reason whatsoever! Never, ever, etc. let a family member have you admitted for treatment, observation, or analysis. You will likely find that your right to own a firearm has evaporated if you do any of these things.) Personally, whenever I fill out the forms to buy a gun, I have no compunctions about lying. (The checking procedures are primitive, fortunately, unless one is so stupid as to answer "Yes" to any of the questions the form asks.) That I am a felon has never stopped me from picking up a gun. --Tim May 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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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