December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Jim Bell, Apology to list. Was: [Yadda Yadda Yadda]
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:44 PM 4/21/96, Black Unicorn wrote: >All this said, I find Mr. May's and Mr. Sandfort's criticism stinging. Mr. >Bell, and my response to him, manages to sap a great deal of time and effort >from myself and others for no gain aside draining his (and to some extent >my) reputation >capital. These disputes serve little purpose otherwise. It's clear to By the way, I certainly was not making a personal condemnation of Uni, or of Jim Bell for that matter. I was mainly making the point that Sandy's point about setting up a wager is problematic (in fact, Uni makes the same points vis-a-vis his view of how Bell might start finagling about the terms of any bet--this was in fact seen during the Extropians experiments, and is what I meant when I said that more time would be spent debating the bet....). I admit that I once I wrote the word "the Unibells" (Uni + Bell, of course), I liked the ring of it (:-}) and used it for the thread title as well. I was serious that I deleted unread the Bell/Unicorn rants; I suspect nearly all others do as well, so their time spent on these messages these last several weeks was even more of a waste. --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, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Smartcards are coming to the US
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:06 PM 4/21/96, Lucky Green wrote: >At 15:15 4/21/96, Brad Dolan wrote: >>Saw a CNN story Friday about an interesting special debit card >>application in Mexico. They're being issued to poor Mexicans, who can >>use them to buy tortillas and a few other foodstuffs. The cards are tied to >>a behavior-control database and failure to send kids to school, get >>mandatory medical exams/treatments/vaccinations, etc. results in card >>deactivation. > >My first response was: he is making this up. But it shoudn't come as a >surprise to any reader of this list. Expect to see more of it. Why should this surprise you? In the U.S. there are _already_ several programs which are similar to this Mexican example. For example, "food stamps." Not valid for expenditures on alchohol, tobacco, and various other disapproved-of consumables. One hand takes away the tax monies (albeit not from those getting food stamps, as their income is typically exempt from taxation) and the other hand doles out a special form of scrip that can theoretically only be spent on approved-of substances. Someday--maybe when Perry is out of the country at an IETF meeting--I'll forward my article about the scandalous plan to privatize the nation's food stores, thus making food only available to the rich and denying the poor of their access to the foodstuffs deemed nutricious by the Parent-Grocer Associations (PGAs) and available at their local People's Public Food Distribution Centers. (This was a piece I did in the late 1980s, critiquing the critics of schools vouchers and private schools by imagining a world in which food distribution was done at "public stores" and run much the way our public education is run.) --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, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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A better entropy estimation method for random.c/noise.sys?
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've been hacking with the hashing method used in noise.sys and decided to throw it away, since it did more to overestimate the entropy. Until I find something better an xor-checksum of the ast N samples seems to do fine. Alternating samples generate no entropy and samples with periods <= N seem to generate less than 1 bit per sample. The method (in pseudo-code) is as follows: delta = abs( LastSample - sample ) LastSample = sample hash ^= delta /* until I can think of a better hashing algorithm */ swap delta, lastNtable[ indexNtable ] indexNtable = (indexNtable+1) mod N hash ^= delta t = counter /* counts the number of samples so far */ counter++ swap t, lastseen[ hash & (TABLESIZE-1) ] diff = lastseen[ hash & (TABLESIZE-1) ] - t if diff<=N, assume no entropy (or fractional entropy?) otherwise return log2(diff) Comments? Rob. --- Send a blank message with the subject "send pgp-key" to <WlkngOwl(a)unix.asb.com> for a copy of my PGP key.

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Betting (Re: [Yadda Yadda Yadda]....)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:28 PM 4/21/96, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >This is not extropians. We are more anarchic, less ideological >and more goal oriented. I suspect we also delete more messages, too. By the way, my hunch is that virtually none of us know very well what Bell and Uni are saying to each other, so who would possibly agree to be the judge? Maybe Sandy, you will volunteer. Let us know how it turns out, if it turns out and $100 actually changes hands. ... >And you like endless cross-talking better? In any event, the No, I prefer to delete arguments I have no interest in. This includes Bell and Uni ranting at each other, or other ranting at each other (and I don't hold myself blameless here, natch), etc. My memories of the Extropians experiments were that I deleted most of the "polycentric law" court cases and "decision duel" wagers. I recall there were wagers involving Mike Price, Perry Metzger, Tim Starr, Eric Raymond, and others, though I don't recall what the issues were about, nor who won, nor if any money was actually transferred on _any_ of these wagers. What I remember is what James Donald also remembers, that large amounts of bandwidth got consumed in debates about the terms, about the conditions for payout, and about weaseling out of judgments. If Harry Shapiro is reading our list, he can perhaps shed some light on things, as he was a sort of List Judge and Executioner at the time. >> At $500, our problem would become much worse, rather than much >> better. > >Here we agree, 100%. By the way, I recall that bets on the Extropians list rapidly escalated to "serious" levels. I recall one apparently-serious [see below] bet of $10,000. I say "apparently serious" because the bettor did not appear to be joking. However, it also seemed likely he was using the outrageous size to "bluff" his opponent into backing down, just as James Donald alluded to. My "bet" is that the issues in ever formulating such a large bet would ensure that it never got realized...precisely the desired result of absurdly large bets. I'll bet $10,000 that no bet of $10,000 or more ever actually gets settled on this list. (By "absurdly large" I mean in this context. I have many times placed "bets" much larger than this on stock market expectations, but not on "bar bets." Such a bet would never be collected, would in fact be tied up in waffling, finessing, backing off, dissemmbling, shuffling, and, of course, would never be collected upon.) But, again, if Sandy is volunteering to judge, and both Jim Bell and Unicorn accept him and the terms....well, I won't stop them. Let me know what happens, but please include a tag like "[Final Bet Outcome]," as I'll be skipping the likely back-and-forth posturing. --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, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Scientology harassing anon.penet.fi again!
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"frogfarm(a)yakko.cs.wmich.edu" 21-APR-1996 19:39:01.86 >I'm sure within hours of reading this message, you'll be inundated with >requests to have Phil "send me the stuff and I'll post it". The net is >full of people to whom a letter from Helena Kobrin [CoS attorney] is >like a Medal of Honor, who would be happy to relieve Phil of liability >by posting the material themselves. Umm... he'd like to send it out on a mailing list (the RRE newsletter) to which only he can post. Plus, it's simply the stuff that was on cypherpunks. -Allen

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Re: Scientology harassing anon.penet.fi again!
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Umm... I'm getting quite a few offers to forward the material in question; thank you. But it's just the stuff that was on cypherpunks earlier. And he's wanting to know if _he_ can safely legally (w/regards to the Scientologists) put it on _his_ mailing list - which isn't a discussion list. Sorry that it apparantly wasn't clear, although I have no idea how it wasn't. Thanks, -Allen

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Re: Smartcards are coming to the US
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:15 PM 4/21/96 -0400, Brad Dolan wrote: >Saw a CNN story Friday about an interesting special debit card >application in Mexico. They're being issued to poor Mexicans, who can >use them to buy tortillas and a few other foodstuffs. The cards are tied to >a behavior-control database and failure to send kids to school, get >mandatory medical exams/treatments/vaccinations, etc. results in card >deactivation. Interesting method of social control. "Do anything we don't like and we revoke your ability to spend money through government approved outlets." What a Brave New World we live in... --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon

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RE: Betting (Re: [Yadda Yadda Yadda]....)
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, I don't know about Sandy or Tim, but I found the rants between Jim & Uni somewhat amusing (although I myself only skimmed through them) because for every huff&puff which transpired between them, Uni was prompted to dig up more info from the depths of his knowledge, and this effect was quite interesting, psychologically, as well as in regard of the info which came out of it. I expect Jim & Uni could become great friends! (giggle) .. Blanc

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Re: Add-in encryption module to Netscape
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:55 PM 4/20/96 -0700, frantz(a)netcom.com (Bill Frantz) wrote: >I have thought about the sources of entropy available to a Java applet, and >there aren't many. You should design your protocol so entropy is not >needed on the applet side. Entropy is normally used to pick symmetric >encryption keys, and Initialization vectors If your applet wants to set up a Diffie-Hellman connection, it'll need a random number to set its half-key; a scribble window may be good enough. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215

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Re: OS/2 encryption
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:53 AM 4/21/96, mirele(a)xmission.com wrote: >Well, anything to slow them down. It was reported to me that when Dennis >Erlich was raided last year, they rendered his computer unbootable because >of the deletions they had made. As it is, I haven't been able to find an >appropriate security utility beyond PGP (which I've been using for over a >year anyway). So this discussion is moot. Good luck finding something. You might want to see if there's a Norton version for OS/2; their Diskrete product for DOS may not be the highest quality system in the world but at least it's a start, and maybe they do OS/2. There are two ways the Bad Guys can get your system, or the data off it - they can get a search/seizure warrant, or they can subpoena it into court, and you have a lot more control over the process with a subpoena, though the court may be able to compel production of your password (that's debatable, and it's been much debated here and on Cyberia-L, but a search or seizure warrant _can't_ get your password if it's not written down.) Therefore, if they do a seizure, and your file system is encrypted, the Bad Guys can trash the whole thing, or random blocks, but without the password they can't selectively delete data, and trashing the whole thing could look _real_ bad for them in court. >Look folks. *This* is what it's about. I like a little humour. So what >I've been doing is taking *posted* documents and running them through a >filter (the "encheferizer" of alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork) and then >reposting them to alt.religion.scientology. I have been doing this for >over a year. It's only been recently that (a) the Church <spit> started >cancelling them and (b) that they started threatening me over it. Parodies are legal, but translations may still violate copyright, and essentially you're doing an automated translation into some bizarre language space. So if you're using real* CoS documents, you may have a problem. [* Yeah, I know, "real CoS documents" is a bit of an oxymoron. ] Does the Chef do Clam Chowder? # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215

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