December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: An alternative to remailer shutdowns (fwd)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:33 AM 5/21/96, Hal wrote: >From: Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> >> There should be a section in there dealing with 'knowingly'. If not then we >> should immediately bring charges against any and all newspapers who have >> ever printer a ransom letter, or perhaps even the Unibomber Manifesto since >> there is clear evidence of 'threat to injure the person of another'. > >I think Jim is right about the knowledge requirement, which although not >stated explicitly in the statute, has been held by the courts to be an >essential element. My point in quoting is more to show an example of the >kinds of clearly illegal postings which operators have to deal with. "Scienter" is the legal term for having knowledge. This is one reason we often talk about the dangers of remailers looking at what flows through their systems. Not so much to establish "common carrier" status, especially as that kind of status is just not something one sets out to establish!, but because the protection of being ignorant gets tossed out as soon as one admits to screening, or editing. This is not perfectly accurate in all situations. A bookstore owner is generally not held liable for the contents of the books in his store, even though he makes certain choices about what to carry and what not to carry. A magazine editor is more often held liable for content of articles (e.g., infringing materials, libel, etc.). We discussed this many times when I was on the Cyberia list. As best I could figure things out, the bookstore owner is excused from liability because we can't expect he'll have actually read the books in his store, even if chooses which ones to carry, but we expect that the editor of "The New Republic" has personally looked at all of the articles, or had a staff of underlings do so. BTW, I think that remailer operators don't fit either the publishing or bookstore models. While it is tempting to compare them to telephones, I think a better comparison is to *package delivery services* like the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, Federal Express, Airborne, etc. As we have discussed *so many* times (:-}), these package delivery services cooperate in various ways with law enforcement investigations, e.g., shipping of drugs by FedEx, but they are not held liable for illegal materials delivered or for crimes committed with the aid of their services. (And these delivery services DO NOT always insist on valid return addresses, in case anyone brings this up. Letters can be dropped in mailboxes, obviously, and pre-paid mailers are available. When I've used FedEx, I don't recall any checks of my identity.) --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: Remailers & what they get out of it...
by loki＠infonex.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:17 PM 5/19/96, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: >From: IN%"ravage(a)ssz.com" "Jim Choate" 18-MAY-1996 09:43:06.96 >>To me the biggest problem with the crypto work right now is that not enough >>professionals are involved. If more remailers and such were initiated as >>a business there would be legal avenues to explore. Also, in this vain is >>the apparent lack of support for commercial ventures by developers of such >>apps as MixMaster (whose license explicity prohibits commercial use). > > It prohibits commercial use? That's silly. Is it a >holdover from when the idea was to turn Mixmaster into a company? > Mixmaster is licensed under the GNU copyleft. -Lance ---------------------------------------------------------- Lance Cottrell loki(a)obscura.com PGP 2.6 key available by finger or server. Mixmaster, the next generation remailer, is now available! http://www.obscura.com/~loki/Welcome.html or FTP to obscura.com "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come." --Nietzsche ----------------------------------------------------------

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DOS/WINDOWS Mixmaster Client
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anyone know if there is a DOS or Windows version of the mixmaster client?

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Hiding remailers behind nymservers...?
by Steve Reid 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- This 'middle-man' remailer... What does it really accomplish? Sure, the operator is hidden, but that's only because of his/her nym at c2.org... AFAICS, the 'middle-man' has just taken the liability off himself and put it on the unhidden remailers. Why not just use the existing unhidden remailers??? I think this is similar to the idea that came up about having some (but not all) remailers only deliver to other remailers, for use as any link in a chain except the last link. The operator doesn't have his email address attached to spam, and there's very little liability because Co$ and other pressure groups will always(?) go after the last remailer in the chain, since that's the only one they can know was involved. I think the pseudonymously hidden remailer is an interesting idea, but I don't think it offers anything over the unhidden remailers, since it's still depending on the unhidden ones.. If you want to aviod liability, what's wrong with running a remailer that only delivers to other remailers, as I mentioned above? Am I missing something here? ===================================================================== | Steve Reid - SysAdmin & Pres, EDM Web (http://www.edmweb.com/) | | Email: steve(a)edmweb.com Home Page: http://www.edmweb.com/steve/ | | PGP (2048/9F317269) Fingerprint: 11C89D1CD67287E68C09EC52443F8830 | | -- Disclaimer: JMHO, YMMV, TANSTAAFL, IANAL. -- | ===================================================================:) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMaEhlNtVWdufMXJpAQEUbwf9F1081yRIazOUcr/z+ifihD5PLTr70V9X zvp13QXvPVao5Jg1N83Tfrar7zQYnvHU2RYPVBLecxZAY0hhbRRhOF/GVhkfcm2g ehNuQdTxilVTRbCez49zLpXxQEKvnullLYOZY3qv1xe9MaqjuS5C73c3H5oNhQTz B79cdvLynsIrhXD5oLyZyUxX/fggsFIfQsAh6a1KAdC0OclF1/dm1WeJKADSMFq4 bBt5BZcd410tfwpy+VTD5TUt7tb2wAOv56tVKVcPIXPZ04hr4Nlww6pQ+dtR4/B0 j1lzfrdDxos6h33abB9TpKrfo8uBsGxlkGyefqre+qvfexZwv/Wpmg== =sJVW -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: An alternative to remailer shutdowns
by William Ono 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 20 May 1996, Don may have written: > Re: "permitted" list > > Addresses must be hashed. That makes sense. I don't think the processing time is very significant here. Even using somewhere where collisions can be created is not much of a problem, as email addresses tend to be picky for syntax. > Possibly auto-added to the list when mail comes > from that address. How would mail spoofing be prevented? Sending mail with a given From: address is laughably trivial, even making Recieved: look feasable is easy. Having people PGP-sign their 'add' requests might work, but then anybody can create any keys with any email address attached to it. Asking the remailer operator to verify each key would be unimaginable. Sending back acknowlegements suffers from storage problems, processing power problems, and also makes it significantly easier for traffic analysis. (One mail in, one mail out, one mail in, lots of mails out. Pairs of mails roughly corresponding.) On the whole, I think the idea of 'permit lists' is good, but not one that is very workable under the current "structure". IANACoNE (cryptologist or network expert) -- ** NOTE NEW KEY ** As of 08/28/95! Old key 0x2902B621 COMPROMISED! William Ono <wmono(a)direct.ca> PGP Key: F3F716BD fingerprint = A8 0D B9 0F 40 A7 D6 64 B3 00 04 74 FD A7 12 C9 = fingerprint PGP-encrypted mail welcome! "640k ought to be enough for everybody."

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Re: The Crisis with Remailers
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:25 AM 5/21/96, Lance Cottrell wrote: >An interesting problem with anonymous postage is that it is likely to kill >cover traffic generators. > I doubt it. It's easy enough for remailers to, for example, pass out free tokens to other remailer operators. (Jukebox and other coin-op concessions often pass out tokens (slugs, or marked coins) to storeowners and bartenders to use to stimulate the market.) --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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Long-Lived Remailers
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:56 PM 5/20/96, Rev. Mark Grant, ULC wrote: >With regard to the problems of remailers being shut down when we want >long-lived addresses, wouldn't seperating the input and output be one >possibility? That is (like Hal's Alumni remailer) you'd send mail to >'remailer(a)anon.ai' and it would be forwarded via a disposable account >elsewhere. All messages would appear to come from 'disposable(a)foo.com' and >if that account was shut down a new one could be opened to replace it >while incoming mail simply backed up at the main remailer account. This is a very good idea. It keeps the advantages of having persistent accounts (which other users, chaining programs, etc. can use) while making it appear that the mail is coming from another account. "Security through obscurity," I hear you snort. Well, not really. The _legal_ account is the one that an unhappy recipient sees on the "From:" line. The Church of Scientology sees "disposable(a)foo.com" and fires off a letter to foo.com requesting that foo.com cause this account to disappear. So it does, but "transient(a)bar.com" picks up the slack. An idea worth trying, of formally/legally separating the functions. Of course, in some sense this is a special case of having disposable accounts for "instant remailers" (see recent thread on this). >The only potential problem I could see would be that the disposable ISP >might have logs which could track the outgoing messages back to the other >account. You'd also obviously need to open the disposable account >anonymously or using an ISP who'd protect your identity. Traffic analysis will be quite easy to do, of course, as all mail sent to the persistent address comes out of the "disposable(a)foo.com" address. Q.E.D. (Hal, to use him as the example, could start using his own choice of remailer hops to accomplish much the same result. We've talked about this for a long time, too. If I ran a remailer, I think I'd route *all* traffic leaving my site through at least one other remailer...kind of a "hot potato" effect. Of course, if _everyone_ did this, an infinite loop would result. Lots of interesting twists, though, as messages could be set to "leak out" of the loops.) But this scheme, here, and Mark's scheme, are variants on the idea of trying to make the remailers less clearly-identifiable targets. --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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WELCOME TO THE NEW ROMAN EMPIRE
by qut＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> On Sat, 18 May 1996, Duncan Frissell wrote: > > > It was understandable to be poor when all the world was poor. It is > > understandable to be poor in those nations today that make the > > accumulation of wealth a crime for most people. It is not understandable > > to be poor (for long) in the US where one can reliably get out of poverty > > simply by doing three simple things: > > > > 1) get a high school diploma EVERYONE GETS A HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA --> HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMAS BECOME WORTHLESS EVERYONE GETS A PHD --> PHDS BECOME WORTHLESS > > 2) get married EVERYONE GETS MARRIED --> MARRIAGE BECOMES SPIRITUALLY BANKRUPT > > 3) get any job EVERYONE GETS A JOB --> EVERYONE TAKES THE PAYCUT > > Only about 2 tenths of 1% of those who satisfy those three requirements > > incomes below the official poverty line. HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE TENS OF MILLIONS IN APPALACHIA WHO GRADUATED MARRIED AND WORK IN POVERTY > > Like most libertarians, I dislike the government. I don't care what a > > person's income is. When I was self-supporting on an income of $200 a > > month in 1979, I was below the poverty level for a single person myself. > > I am not enamored of the rich or poor members of the dependendant classes > > of course. IT DOESNT MATTER WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS DOING WRONG ITS BRAIN IS BUSINESS > > I try and keep in mind that 80-90% of the "take" in government > > programs for the "poor" goes to unpoor government employees. IT DOESNT MATTER WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS DOING WRONG ITS BRAIN IS BUSINESS > > DCF > > > I've done all these things - and rather more in the way of education. But > while I don't fall on or near the poverty line, I'm still poor as a church > mouse. What am I doing wrong? YOUR WHITE LIKE THE 100000000S SUFFERING IN POVERTY IN THE NEW ROMAN EMPIRE > Sean Gabb.

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Re: Senator, your public key please?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:45 PM 5/20/96, Andrew Loewenstern wrote: ... >Your local KCA (KKK Certification Authority) could as easily issue a "This >key is owned by a Nigger." certificate for a public key as TRW could issue a >"This key is owned by a Deadbeat." certificate. Presumably, future versions >of PGP and other public-key crypto systems will support free-form certificate >generation and not the quasi-fixed-definition signatures currently found in >PGP. Indeed, this is one of the things I was referring to. To wit, that one can possibly (emphasis on "possibly," modulo legal actions, a la my point) use "Metzger's Web of Trust" to effectively discriminate. (ObCaveat: I personally think a free society cannot/should not outlaw discrimination in any form, save that by government.) >You can be sure that there will be rallying cries for laws to be passed to >ensure the accuracy of statements made in key certificates, that characters >are not defamed, that libel is not committed, etc... Lots of the same issues >involving any other type of speech and the international and sometimes >untraceable nature of the Net. What do you do about a signature on your key, >posted anonymously to the net, which names you as one of the Four >Horsemen(*tm)? By the way, this issue has some echoes of another technogical issue: the use of neural nets for loan approval software. Turns out that when a bunch of things are entered into a NN loan package, including the all-important default rate, the applicant's age, income, race, sex, education, employment history, credit history, etc., that NN loan packages "end up" rejecting many black applicants, more so than white or Asian applicants. (The NN "concluded" that blacks were higher risks for default than whites/Asians.) Even if no human being ever entered his or her biases and prejudices, the NN spit out this result. I recall there being talk about requiring "equality of outcomes," and that such NNs might have to have deliberately-biased inputs fed in, but I don't know what ever happened to this issue. In any case, I think this sort of issue, and the semi-related issue of "discrimination via key signatures," to be likely important issues in the courts in the coming years. --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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: An alternative to remailer shutdowns
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:47 AM 5/21/96, Rich Graves wrote: >On Tue, 21 May 1996, Declan B. McCullagh wrote: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > >> An alternative I am considering would reduce the utility of the remailer >> while still allowing these "consensual" uses to continue. Presently the >> remailers deal with abuse via "block lists", sets of addresses that mail >> can't be sent to. Generally these are created when someone complains >> about some mail they have received. By setting up blocking, at least >> they will not get harrassing anonymous mail once they have complained. >> But in some cases, as in the case that is causing me headaches now, even >> one message is too much. >> >> My thought is to turn the block list concept on its head, and make it a >> "permit list". Simply, the remailer will only send mail to people who >> have voluntarily indicated their willingness to receive it. You reply-quote process must have been hit with an alpha particle, because all of this was written by Hal Finney, not Declan. --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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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