December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Publicity on PICS
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Whoops... I misread the press release from the ACLU. The judges haven't made such a decision yet, unfortunately. Sorry. -Allen

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Re: self-ratings vs. market ratings
by Joseph M. Reagle Jr. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:04 PM 5/10/96 EDT, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: >From: IN%"blancw(a)MICROSOFT.com" "Blanc Weber" 10-MAY-1996 16:21:20.63 > >>The more automated that filtering becomes, so that the viewer (be it an >>adult or a child) requires less and less personal involvement in >>evaluating what is appropriate (or even interesting) for themselves, the >>more weak & piddly (ignorant & psychologically dependent) those people >>could become, falling into the habit of having others - or an automatic >>robocop - I was talking about this with one of the other students giving the presentation on RSACi yesterday at Sloan. I was argueing how vice tends to be associated with radicalism and how it seems to break people out of their exclusive communities... (nevermind, it was a weird complex discussion.) Regardless, I ran a roundtable on a topic similar to this. The problem of information sharing agents evolving into exclusive communities over time. _______________________________________________ Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 20:25:20 -0500 To: roundtable(a)rpcp.mit.edu From: "Joseph M. Reagle Jr." <reagle(a)rpcp.mit.edu> Subject: Roundtable 2/21: M. Van Alstyne - COMMUNICATION NETWORKS AND THE RISE OF AN INFORMATION ELITE COMMUNICATION NETWORKS AND THE RISE OF AN INFORMATION ELITE Do Computers Help the Rich Get Richer? Marshall Van Alstyne (MIT Sloan School) CAMBRIDGE ROUNDTABLE Wed, Feb. 21, at 1:00 E40-212 Several researchers have suggested that information resources are not created equal and that information processing capacity is not distributed uniformly. In 1995, for example, only 17% of the adult population in the US and Canada, roughly 35 million people had any form of access to electronic services. But what if access were universal? If each enterprise and individual were granted a digital portal onto a National Information Infrastructure, would equal access to channels mean equal access to information? One unfortunate answer is no. Circumstances exist under which a telecommunications policy of universal access could lead to an increase in the gap between the information "haves" and the "have-nots." Policy needs to provide incentives for information sharing and not just access to channels, otherwise results might be reversed from those originally intended. We present a formal theory of information sharing in groups which shows why the information rich might get richer still, why there might be balkanization of groups on the internet, why different objectives within a group will motivate sharing or shut it down, and why it's not just what you know but whom you know. One of the advantages of the model is that there are several explicit parameters that can be altered to illustrate different effects of different policies. For anyone who is interested, the first draft of the paper is available from URL: http://web.mit.edu/marshall/www/home.html _______________________ Regards, Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words. -Spinoza Joseph Reagle http://farnsworth.mit.edu/~reagle/home.html reagle(a)mit.edu E0 D5 B2 05 B6 12 DA 65 BE 4D E3 C1 6A 66 25 4E

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Re: Penet-style web remailer?
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com" "Bill Stewart" 11-MAY-1996 06:53:43.98 >Well, if you look at the remailer part of the web page, it's just >one of many web pages that are a form interface to a remailer CGI program. >Basically a friendly way to use a standard 1-way Cypherpunks remailer. Yes... but he does appear to keep track of the log file; he had up the name of someone who allegedly misused it a few days ago. He states: "If this remailer is used for something illegal, it can be traced. Also, if people use it to insult me, I will probably want to look in the logs and find out who it is!" >There is an amusing stealthed message at the bottom of the page, >designed to attract high relevancy ratings from spiders..... Have people never heard of the "keyword" meta header? -Allen

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Re: Why I Pay Too Much in Taxes
by Ecafe Mixmaster Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Black Unicorn wrote: >Looks like someone paying offshore for Mr. May to me. Again, 30% >withholding requirement unless you intend to hide it. You just don't get it, do you. The offshore payment is for licensing (or computer operations, consulting advice, buying worthless software, investment in penny stocks, use your imagination...) It has NOTHING to do with Mr.May. Those payments are something that the (drunk) CEO decided on and he is completely responsible for it. Why he ordered all those expensive services before he left on permanent vacation is anybody's guess. >The only way to avoid this is to conceal Mr. May's involvement. Right! >Also note that payments to an account for which Mr. May is the >beneficiary can trigger realization in several circumstances. The beneficiary is a trustee that doesn't ask too many questions. There are plenty of those available. >You also fail to mention the reporting requirements for U.S. citizens >holding offshore assets of significant size. "Laws are for people who can't think for themselves." >Either it is a tax avoidance plan, or it is a tax evasion plan. >Which is it? A little of both, to confuse the enemy. >Practically speaking I think you have merely altered the plan to >adjust for my comments and are stuck between both fact scenarios now. Nothing altered. I just didn't explain it in too much detail before. There are still details left out (like how to find a cooperative CEO, offshore bank and trustee). This is an extremely cheep setup. For most high bracket wage earners it could break even in the first month or two. Once the structure is in place it doesn't cost any more. To stop paying taxes completely you would need to lower your taxable profile slowly. If you already have enough money in the bank for your living style, you could take out a significantly smaller salary. If the tax man asks what happened to your high income, you explain that you lost your old job and had to accept a less attractive offer. That can happen to anybody. >I would think you'd advertize it here if you had anything worth selling The problem with selling services like this is that any buyer with half a brain worries that it is a sting operation. Therefore the customers are mostly friends and acquaintances. >Off the shelf companies and trusts have their uses but anyone proposing >to sell a standard tax avoidance/evasion setup off the shelf should >trigger major alarm bells. I agree completely. This is not an advertisement, just a chat on the theory of tax planning in the modern day of worldwide strong encryption. Today it is easier to communicate with an offshore trustee than it has ever been before. Just keep your pass phrase away from the tax man and you'll be fine. X

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Re: Mandatory Voluntary Self-Ratings
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"vznuri(a)netcom.com" "Vladimir Z. Nuri" 11-MAY-1996 03:38:35.85 >the idea with the rating system is that the rating signs the signature >of the page, which is itself digitally hashed or something. in other >words, the rating is on the "state" of a page at some time. the system >would at least be able to detect a change in the state of a page, >and inform the user that a rating may no longer be valid due to obsolescence. >but you are correct that page changes are probably more problematic >for market ratings than self-ratings. One wonders what their hashing method would be. If it's not very cryptographically secure, one could (via selection of image file names, comments, etcetera) cause it to be the same hash for a very different set of images. (A Fun With Animals page from riding lesson photos to bestiality, for instance.) >2. will self-ratings be deliberately misused by people protesting the >system? will it be a problem? And how are you defining "misuse"? If the system is not good, then rating something differently than how the system says it should be is using it properly, not improperly. -Allen

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Re: Publicity on PICS
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"reagle(a)mit.edu" "Joseph M. Reagle Jr." 10-MAY-1996 02:18:58.44 >From: IN%"EALLENSMITH(a)mbcl.rutgers.edu" "E. ALLEN SMITH" > It is _very_ confusing to follow though. >>CompuServe, Microsoft, Prodigy and Netscape Communications will soon give >>their customers software enabling them to block access to material they >>judge objectionable on the Internet's Worldwide Web. > Consider that Compuserve had a deal with SurfWatch, which was >incorporated in it "Internet" in a box, with a lot of Spry goodies. Now >Surfwatch has been purchased by Spyglass (a competitor or Spry). Also, >Compuserve offers RSACi services through CyberPatrols RSACi compliance (got >some weird derivitive and cross-liscencing works going on here!) and urges >its users and 3rd party people to use RSACi... I don't suppose that someone at Netscape can give us more information on this than is currently out there? All we've seen so far are the press reports, which are often inaccurate. -Allen

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Re: Mandatory Voluntary Self-Ratings
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"vznuri(a)netcom.com" "Vladimir Z. Nuri" 11-MAY-1996 04:32:46.80 >From: TCMay >>If a system gets built into the WWW, as with proposals for PICS, it _will_ >>be used by those who want to control content. We should think twice before >>helping in any way. >I agree with your hesitation totally. I can easily see how the system >would be twisted in unspeakable ways. but I can see a lot of very >powerful positive uses too. as long as the best attempts are made to >discourage the former and encourage the latter... again, there is a >question that the future might turn out to be more orwellian if no >action is taken by internet designers whatsoever. I tend to believe >that view. It currently appears that both groups doing PICS ratings are doing it in a way that very much promotes unethical usage (by those wishing to control content). This does not bode well for future uses of it. >>(No, I'm not _against_ private ratings services...but this has little to do >>with _me_, and I won't participate. More importantly, I won't have my >>content have any kind of tag attached! >notice that what you demand is wholly irrelevant. if you put something >out in the public, in a world of free speech, anyone is free to >rate your posting, or your opinions, etc.-- they just set a system >that refers to the message-id of your posts or something. >if what you are instead saying is that you will never insert your >own tags into your content, well that is something you have control >over. but you have absolutely no control over what people "attach" >to your posts in a "virtual" sense. anyone could set up the >TCMay Rating Service and register ratings on everything you post in >public. However, one can do things to disrupt the rating system. Until we've got true AI, a web spider will be able to find and classify a newly-re-URLed page a lot faster than the rating people are able to find it - especially if one goes ahead and submits the web page to all the search engines every time you reclassify it. A search engine could turn over all new pages to be rated - but that would slow them down a lot, and other search engines would be used more because they'd be more up to date. If you have some ratings services that you like - market-determined ones, for instance - you can let them know the new URL also. The above is a bit harder for ratings of USENET posts and mailing list messages, but there are so many of those that they'll be hard for a rating service to keep up with. -Allen

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Re: Publicity on PICS
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"vznuri(a)netcom.com" "Vladimir Z. Nuri" 11-MAY-1996 00:25:38.47 >From: IN%"EALLENSMITH(a)mbcl.rutgers.edu" "E. ALLEN SMITH" >>>The system depends for its ratings on voluntary compliance by Internet >>>providers. >ugggghghghghg. not my ideal use of PICS. I hope that people don't >begin to believe that PICS is this system. Oh? Look at the second method listed for means of getting PICS ratings. >From the ISP, essentially. >>>But there is no way to use the system to seek out pornography or violence on >>>the web, officials insisted. >I don't know why that would be a problem. That they mentioned this is perhaps an indication that they aren't exactly on the side of anyone except pro-censorship parents. >>>"To content-providers, I would say, 'Rate your sites' To parents I would >>>say, 'Set the levels for your children.' And to governments, I would say >>>humbly, 'Think again before censoring the net,"' Stephen Balkam, executive >>>director of the Recreational Software Advisory Council, told a news >>>conference. >> >> Note again the pressure for self-rating. >"content-providers" != internet providers. that former is OK. the >latter is a horrible nightmare. please, please, please, I'd call both a problem, when you're using a system that is meant for censorship purposes as opposed to finding-stuff purposes. If it's a system for finding stuff, then the content provider should be involved; it will vary whether the ISP should be involved (that can be left up to the individual ISP). >> Whatever became of market-ratings? Admittedly, they may mean that each >>country will be encouraged to given an example system... but I still don't >>like the idea of government involvement. >the government becomes just another rating agency. I don't like it either. >but as long as we emphasize, "the individual always has the ultimate >decision", which fortunately this press release does, >little can go awry, hopefully. They try to emphasize individual - or actually, parental - decision, but they seem to have entirely forgotten about the use of this system by governmental censors. It can be used for such either for preemptive censorship (a Chinese firewall) or for spotting people to arrest when you start up censorship. If the government gets involved in doing a rating system, then it can better start doing things like mandating that particular material be rated or you're up on "corrupting a minor". The recent CDA decision (thank you, all plaintiffs, lawyers, judges, and God) does emphasize that mandatory rating isn't constitutional... but A. the Supreme Court may not be as sensible (God forbid) and B. other countries may have other ideas. -Allen

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Again: [hrdware] anti-Tempest video settings
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> It won't make any diifference to the potential attacker. > His aim is to recover the text/shapes of what you are displaying. He > is not generally concerned with the "niceness" of the display, but > rather the contents. But of course. But what I want to know is: is there some combination of display colors that will be visible for the eye, but not for the Tempest equipment? > Also, many guns - red, blue, green actually do > radiate on slightly different frequencies, allowing differentiation > of signals - due to the slightly different physical geometry of the > guns themselves. That might answer it. I suppose that if some "stealth" settings exists, they are highly hardware dependent. My question was not "would it work in all instances?" but rather "had this tactic been implemented successfully in *some* instances?" Or, to the contrary, is it reasonable to assume that modern Tempest equipment can work around theses impediments almost all of the time, therefore making any attempts at this futile? Regards JFA PGP key ID# C58ADD0D at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon Key Fingerprint: 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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Reply to anonymous ping.
by daemon＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Your code name is: an611909(a)anon.penet.fi.

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