December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Why does the state still stand:
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 15 May 96 at 18:42, Black Unicorn wrote: > Potential, but you can manage risk with things like dead drops from > trusted parties to forwarding agents to offshore drops to.... I can just visualize a trusted party dropping discretely a bright yellow Caterpillar D-12 in a dead letter box... ROTFL! Sorry, but I couldn't resist. I just *love* silly humor... > Realization means that their is a changing of hands or of forms of > assets. Income tax and taxes on currency now are dependent on such > transactions. Someone already noted the problems with just taxing > possession on a given date of e.g., inventory. To tax efficiently > you have to tax an event of transfer. Why? is it because of the nature of a transfer, it lend itself more to reporting and detecting? Or is it simply because of the legal system structure? > Give me context. It's possible to kill the president too. That > doesn't mean it will become the basis of government. I think that Mr. Bell defined the context quite well and thoroughly. And, as he said, the president is unlikely to be the target of choice because it is not the most efficient one. Who cares about the president? Who is he without the govt machine? > That's that anonymous transactions are for. If anonymous transactions are feasible, so will be the AP scheme... AP can be, in a way, characterized as a weapon because it behaves like one. And no weapon in the history of humanity remained unused. > I forwarded two large segments of the work to the list, yes. If > you, or anyone else on the list, would like copies, let me know. Theses were the first two that constitued part 1 of 4. I wondered if you posted the other parts. If so, tell me so I can get to the archives. Regards. JFA DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Limoges porcelain, Silverware and mouth blown crystal glasses JFA Technologies, R&D consultants. Physists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 Unsollicited commercial e-mail will be proofread at US165 $/h Any sender of such material will be considered as to have ac- cepted the above mentionned terms.

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Re: Java & signed applets
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:02 AM 5/16/96 -0700, Lyal Collins wrote: >Signing anything is somewaht a waste of time, unless the verification >siftware is highly trusted, and there is good intergity/authenticity >control of the root public key(s). >So, in geneal - ho hum - until trusted hardware is available on the >desktop. A bootable CD-ROM from a reliable source to verify signatures would be much safer than no signatures at all. Even just running the signature verification program from CD-ROM would make an attacker's problem more difficult. BTW - The problem is not trusted hardware. It is software that can isolate untrusted programs and protect itself. Anything with an A or B NCSC security rating would certainly be attractive. Trusted signature verification hardware accessed by a compromised system can't be trusted. (How do you know what was given to the hardware to be verified? How do you know that the answer came from the hardware?) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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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The Crisis with Remailers
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:29 PM 5/15/96, jamesd(a)echeque.com wrote: >Some nyms are valuable, most are valueless by design. All remailers >should be valueless by design. The penet.fi remailer design is >unsatisfactory precisely because it penet.fi is valuable, hence a >target. If it gets shut down a lot of people lose their nyms, >causing much inconvenience. I agree with this point, and the similar points made by Hal Finney and by several others. We have far too few remailers, they are too tempting as targets, the use of "mail-to-News" gateways is formally separable from the function as a remailer, and there is generally a stagnation in the deployment of new and varied kinds of remailers and their modes of operation. We used to discuss remailer architecture, topology, functionality, and "ideal behavior" quite a bit a few years ago, but seldom do here on the Cypherpunks list anymore. Various reasons: same old discussions, commercialization of Mixmaster-type remailers (so I hear, and Lance Cottrell can clarify this if this is indeed a factor) may be inhibiting free discussion of planned features, and perhaps the discussion is going on elsewhere (on remailerpunks, or the remailer operator's list). (I'm surprised there have been no "Master's Thesis"-level analyses of remailers and the modeling of them. I had expected by now at least a couple of such studies. Even better, some even more advanced studies. The "theory of remailers" was partly laid out by Chaum in his 1981 "Untraceable E-Mail" short article--at the CSUA site at Berkeley, last I checked--but much has happened since then. A practical analysis is needed. Note: the recent paper on remailers by the SAI researcher and another is _not_ what I meant...that was just put together from Raph's page, other sources, and a few days worth of Web searches, as near as I can tell.] A much richer ecology of remailers is sorely needed. A factor of at least 10 or 20 more (100-300 remailer sites), less reliance on specific sites, an "everyone a remailer" capability (which has many elegant advantages!), more traffic, temporarily instantiated sites, digital postage, greater ease of use (especially with crypto and chaining), and such things as nominal terminal remailers choosing to add their own hops (so as to lessen their own target potential). Having some of these improvements will be a big help. In the past we have discussed many ideas related to this; I sure don't have the energy right now to recapitulate the points made over the years. Cf. my Cyphernomicon for some general features, at least as of mid-94. Also, the archives, if they ever become available again. Yes, things are stagnating at this time. Not because we discuss "off-topic" things (as we sure did in 1992-3, for example!), but for various other reasons. I suspect the enemies of remailers will sense victory and will try to force the remaining remailers to shut down or at the least to severely restrict operations. From a high of perhaps 25 remailers, we may soon be down to less than a dozen. These remaining sites will feel even more pressure. The upcoming War on Intellectual Property Piracy, with opening shots against China already fired, will put even more heat on remailers. (A remailer can't just "block" copyrighted material. It ain't practical. And digital mixes (remailers) should not, obviously, be looking at content of packets mailed. (Only the last, plaintext, message can be looked at if things are done right, but I surmise from comments by remailer operators that a lot of the traffic is not encrypted at all, and that the operators do in fact take a few peeks at what's flowing through their systems....more evidence that we are very far indeed from Chaum's ideal digital mixes.) Yes, a crisis has been brewing for months. --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: Past one terabit/second on fiber
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One problem with the development of such high-end technologies is that they tend to increase economies of scale to the point where it's impractical to have anything but a monopoly or ogliopoly. As well as concerns about the degree of control such an organization may be able to exert in and of itself (acting like a government, in essence), there's also that such an organization is easier to pressure than a lot of small providers. Anyone have a suggested solution, or reasons that I shouldn't be so worried? -Allen

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Re: Edited Edupage, 9 May 1996
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:09 PM 5/15/96, Doug Hughes wrote: >environment, lack of education, lack of money, lots of factors. Nobody >is holding a gun to anybody's head saying "Don't Read". But improving >literacy is a goal that needs to be undertaken. Do you not agree that >low literacy is a bad thing and needs to be taken care of? If not, why >not? Naturally, you can't force someone to read who doesn't want to. No, I don't think "low literacy" in some subcultures is something that "needs to be taken care of." If members of that subculture think it a bad thing that their kids (not to mention themselves) are not readers and are not sufficiently literate to thrive in a high-tech world, then they need to take steps to change the basic values of their subculture. As I mentioned, many subcultures--too numerous to name, actually--have a strong belief in literacy, learning, and success, and are doing extremely well in modern American society. Other subcultures do not, and are seeing the fruits of their bad values realized. (One notable subculture currently has 40% of its adult male population either in prison, on parole, under indictment, or otherwise involved with the legal system in a debilitating way. This same subculture now has close to an 85% illegitimacy rate.) There is nothing "I" can do about such subcultures. Loads of tax dollars have not helped. As Charles Murray points out in "Losing Ground," the loads of tax dollars and special giveaways to some subcultures have very likely made the situation much worse than it was 30-40 years ago when the programs started. >Some people on this list argue that the current representative govt >system is bad, and that true democracy is better. You can't have true >democracy without education. (You can, but it would be very bad). >True democracy relies on people being educated, the more the better. >(Actually, education benefits the entire society.) "True democracy" is actually much worse than what we have now. The advantage of what we are doing with strong cryptography is that it undermines democracy. --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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A cryptographic alternative to escrow agents (Matts' half coin)
by Matts Kallioniemi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Black Unicorn wrote (was: Why does the state still stand) >> . What if a company does not pay as expected - other than adopting >> Assassination Politics, what method could an employee use towards >> getting their expected remuneration for work done? > >If payment is made weekly, it should be made in advance to an escrow agent >who would issue a certificate that the payment for employee r2dd54 has >been received. The payment would then not be released to anyone without >the consent of the corporation and the employee. > >Obviously the escrow agent would have to be trusted. It should be possible to avoid that trusted escrow agent using blinded ecash and Matts' half coin algorithm. Bob wants to buy a $100 service from Alice. Alice wants to get paid if she performs the service. Bob and Alice each create half of a $300 ecash coin. They send their half coins to the ecash mint for signing, with instructions to withdraw $200 from Bob's account and $100 from Alice's account for the signing of a $300 coin. When the mint has received both half coins, it signs the complete coin, withdraws the money and returns the signature to both Alice and Bob. Nobody can now use the coin alone because they don't know the other half of the random coin number. Next, Alice delivers the service to Bob. If Bob is satisfied with the service, he and Alice write a message to the mint requesting that the complete coin be credited with $100 to Bob's account and $200 to Alice'. Alice has now been paid. If Bob refuses to pay, Alice will never give him her half coin and he loses $200, but he got a $100 service, resulting in a net loss of $100. If Alice refuses to deliver the service, Bob keeps his half coin and she loses $100. Both participants lose $100 each if they don't complete the deal. That way they have the same incentive to come to an agreement. To simplify the messages to the mint you could use two coins. One for $100 and one for $200. That way there would be a one-to-one relation between deposits, withdrawals and coins. The algorithm described above (Matts' half coin) is copyrighted by yours truly Matts Kallioniemi. Patents pending. Matts Kallioniemi <matts(a)pi.se> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQEVAwUBMZzMVBVFhWUyiUQRAQHs8Af/TQf8zLYfwictsXoqvOahCvQ1aJ4F6Dem w6PARUXIhb0XWIFYRZSiXGsRoUVpWiWtupSIf7PHG/dkGfAamvq0wgQpEJm3+7IP 6qSaOYovKnY19GxTo9QHkyHQ8LFu+CSVJMMPoZtX6tCJX62VkFuJapI1CLQOPb78 Ntqf8kNiX1/IpOfrqiF0Fx1YV2nTno417q4vaJYnZWQFJ+sYf5q0NG0xahDPlwUx I11AtFcpIGOCHek3GGAgH9KYSt6UpAOmk57bSne5+zMN5U78cGDsizLYm+MDtzAx Nt4FYoeYxM0gKs529ruUgTdfZNqVtsXjjeNlbVBi4hyfczs3b3I7ug== =oLLR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Why does the state still stand:
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 15-MAY-1996 20:46:58.17 >So what, pray tell, is the IRS going to do? Impose a "we see no income" >fine and seize property? >They can audit, but audits are winable too. An offshore company simply >keeps dropping cash into the local business. That's not a crime. The >local business is losing money like crazy, but who is to say they are >defrauding per se? Bad business judgment is hardly tax fraud, and how do >you know (with a properly blinded ownership) that the assets that are >pouring into this company with all these expenses are taxible in the U.S. >in the first place? Well, the IRS could ask the very sensible question of where is all this property going to? It's not going to be on the lot of someone is renting it via ecash. You could claim it had been destroyed, although there are supposed to be tracking mechanisms for cars. For land, houses, etcetera, they're going to be suspicious when they find someone living in them. Now, they may not have enough to prosecute on - but they can keep an eye on the business' employees + the people driving those cars around or living on that property to try to catch them doing something illegal; sort of a reverse Al Capone. If enough people are doing this, this surveilance does become impractical. But the transitional period is important. -Allen

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Re: Why does the state still stand:
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"frantz(a)netcom.com" 15-MAY-1996 22:39:50.97 >You could require daily payment and forgo the escrow agent. (Assuming you >are willing to risk a day's pay as an experiment in reputation.) Note that This could work for fixed payments. But what about things like profit-sharing? >What may be a problem for such a company is a social problem. All the >creative groups I have worked with have had close personal relations. >(Although they have not had wide agreement on significant non-work >subjects!) I don't know if good, creative, group-produced products can be >built without such a relationship. Does anyone know of an example of such >a product from an "anonymous" environment? No, but you might want to take a look at some psychiatrists & clinical psychologists who are doing some work over the Net, including anonymnity. It's discussed in the most recent or next-most-recent US News & World Report; I'll try to remember to bring my copy in to give the URLs mentioned. I did spot that they could use some boosts on the anonymnity and privacy side - they weren't using encryption, and the payments were via credit card. Someone from Mark Twain or Digicash contacting them would appear to be a good idea, as well as someone encouraging them to use Mixmaster-type anonymous remailers; I'd prefer if someone with more experience than I sent them an email about it. -Allen

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Re: Securing CDROM from piracy
by Vipul Ved Prakash 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > >Is there any way of making > >sure that the guy doesnt pull a fast on on us? Can we ensure that he cannot > >duplicate the thing and start selling it without sharing the profit. > > Well, I suppose you could get it copyrighted before you hand it over for > distribution. I'd also put my logo and other info somewhere in the code, > such as an "About" box. They would have a hard time saying it wasn't > yours. > You are missing the point. Lets say a firm X is marketing my product. Now if they sell 500,000 copies and tell me that they have sold only 100,000, I have no way of figuring out. -- .od8888bo. \|/ .d%::::88::888b. (@ @) .d888::::::::8:888%. ------------------oOO-(_)-OOo----------------- 88888:::::::88888::%. You walk across with your flowers in your hand d888888:::88;888888::b Trying to tell me no one understands 888888888:888888888888 Trade in your hours for a hand full of dimes Y8888888::::::888888%P Gonna make it baby in our prime. '8888888:::::::8888:%' ---------------------------------------------- '88888888:::888888%' Vipul Ved Prakash Fax : +91-11-3328849 '8888888::88888%' Positive Ideas. Internet : vipul(a)pobox.com '"Y88%B8P"' ----------------------------------------------

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Re: CyberTraveler Auction - Unsubscrive
by molecul1＠molecule1.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Dear Molecule, > > >Best regards, >Cathay Pacific Airways Limited >Los Angeles Marketing Department > >P.S. remove yourself from the CyberTraveler program, (should you wish to). >Simply go to http://www.cathay-usa.com/remove.html. Thank you. > >>>Dear Cathay, > >>> Unsubscrive Molecule1(a)electriciti.com > >>> In peace & wish the purest of wishes. >>> sincerely, >>> M1.

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