December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by mike＠fionn.lbl.gov 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Jul 9, 12:02pm, Mike Duvos wrote: > If we have safe and effective medications which increase > alertness in the school and in the workplace, why shouldn't > everyone be able to take them in small doses as the need arises? So? I hate to be flip, but is there a coffee shortage in your area? Stimulants don't have the same effect on everybody. "Normal" people who take stimulants tend to act a lot like untreated hyperactives: jittery, unfocussed, irritable. Your point about long term use is well taken, many people find the positive effects wear down after a while. Sometimes this is alrite, because in the meantime they have been able to learn coping strategies they were unable to learn before. Sometimes it is not alrite, because their problems are too severe, & they need other treatment.

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ADD and Unix, + Ritalin Questions
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1. Unix aggravates the Attention Deficit Syndrome. Do you agree? 2. USENET aggravates the Attention Deficit Syndrome. Do you agree? Also 3. Are there any long term effects from Ritalin, and can it be discontinued easily? - Igor.

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Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children (Last Word?)
by Tim Philp 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have been watching (ie deleting) all this stuff about children and drugs. Personally, I think that if you leave children alone they will grow up and decide what drugs of choice they want to use. (insert favourite recreational drug here) As for myself, I follow the "bunghole" (tm) theory of raising children. This involves putting the child into a large barrel when they are born and sealing up the barrel. Food, water, and air are given to the child through the bunghole in the barrel. At the age of 18, you drive in the bung! Sorry folks, I couldn't resist! <G> Warmly, Tim Philp

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FW: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[for some reason this went out without my comments earlier] From: Mike Duvos Of course, no amount of reason will disuade the True Believers from embracing yet another disease model, and we shouldn't expect that it would. But I think it is clear to many people that the forced medication of children for the convenience of those who take care of them is getting a bit out of control. ........................................................................

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"perry(a)piermont.com" 9-JUL-1996 07:29:49.72 >get on with their lives. Maybe you would prefer to "help" them by not >letting them get medication. Maybe its "unnatural". Could you explain >to me, however, how you are making their lives better by not giving >them their meds? I mean, what concretely is better about their lives? Quite. Besides which, what's wrong with something being "unnatural"? If you define doing something to modify how one naturally thinks/behaves/whatever as "unnatural", then all education is unnatural, child raising is unnatural, etcetera; all these modify neural patterns in the long run. All this is more in the area of transhumanism than of cypherpunks, BTW, although I can see some _possible_ relevance. Mike Duvos writes: >> Again, to return to the height analogy, doctors have to throw >> short parents seeking human growth hormone[...] >You miss the point. You spoke of involuntarily medicated kids. Most of >the kids aren't involuntarily medicated. I wasn't, and I won't be when I go back on it (shortly, I hope). I noticed the difference that it made (as did my teachers), and I preferred it. >> The price of giving the patient (or the patient's parents) >> everything they want is [...] classrooms full of obedient >> citizen-units in Soma-induced trances. >Ritalin does not induce a zombie-like trance, as the numerous people >on this mailing list who take it can tell you. Most definitely agreed. While on it, I found myself much better able to do what _I_ ultimately wanted to do. -Allen P.S. Thank you, Perry.

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Re: MSoft crypto API's
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:19 PM 7/9/96 -0400, George Kuzmowycz wrote: > The June 10, 1996 Network World carried a story on page 8 under the >title "Microsoft breaks crypto barrier", which starts off as follows: > > " Microsoft Corp. last week said it will include cryptography-based >security technology in its operating systems, messaging product and >Web browser through a new set of APIs that will be available both in >the U.S. and overseas. > > " The fact that the National Security Agency is allowing Microsoft >to export the cryptographic APIs is somewhat of a coup for the >software vendor, although the NSA did nothing to alter the current >export ban on strong encryption." > > Later on, it says: > >" Microsoft's Crypto APIs will be available to third-party vendors >writing applications with embedded security. But the hardware or >software Crypto-engines for these applications will need to be >digitally signed by Microsoft before they will work with the APIs. >Under an unusual arrangement with the NSA, Microsoft will act as a >front man for the powerful U.S. spy agency, checking on whether the >vendors' products comply with U.S. export rules." Unexplained: What if the program Microsoft is asked to sign is not intended for export? Presumably, NSA has no authority, then, and thus presumably Microsoft shouldn't be able to refuse to sign anything they're asked. Question: Doesn't this set up an action by Microsoft which would be actionable under anti-trust laws (if it wasn't done at the behest of government?) Couldn't somebody IMPORT a piece of encryption software, have it signed by Microsoft, then take the XOR of the signed and unsigned software and export it? (It's not a tool capable of encryption...) Or: Microsoft presumably has foreign branches, or at least it could easily afford to set up one. What's to stop Microsoft from signing foreign encryption software outside of the US? The software is never exported (since it's already outside the country...), so there's no USA-law involv ement. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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MiddleMan comes out of the closet!
by John A. Perry 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hello Everyone! After a lot of testing, I've come to discover that the middleman reliability problems are vastly due to the nymserver front-end. With this in mind, I've decided to drop the nym for middleman and announce it's actual presence. I am middleman and I wrote the patches to mixmaster to make it work with premail. I want to see the middleman remailer work as a viable remailer and I feel that having the nym front-end has caused a less than acceptable remailer in terms of usability. With this, I'm announcing the new email address for the middleman remailer. It is now middleman(a)jpunix.com. What does this affect? The middleman remailer can be used as a front-end remailer and you don't have to question who is running it. The middleman remailer will still NEVER be the remailer on the end, hence the problems with discovery and persecution by entities that wish to go after "the remailer on the end" hopefully will not occur. Of course anyone wishing to run a middleman remailer can still opt to use a nym, but at the price of a decrease in performance. I will continue to work with Matt Ghio to get the nymserver code to be more reliable. I admit, it needs a facelift. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to email me at perry(a)alpha.jpunix.com. Flames go to /dev/null. John Perry - perry(a)alpha.jpunix.com - PGP-encrypted e-mail welcome! WWW - http://www.jpunix.com PGP 2.62 key for perry(a)jpunix.com is on the keyservers. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMeLqZFOTpEThrthvAQGsggP9EQfhtEb3/ovlzt2gq/skK8YnqJvagisY 2NMYP6X3mL+AkDArDuEYoXwrFIk6fsg7l2a8kOk8FdxezpChTXczyvo85wvV3WSx SHEzGJelI8MIil0tT/noIfS/nrLJzVb5nG8r68tNV0lH5hmMqDC73StWL05xlouc 2NUPZURjIG8= =/0kY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Setting up Internet wave
by support＠vocaltec.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Steve Cypherpunk, Thank you for your interest in the Internet Wave technology from VocalTec. As the Internet Wave is currently in beta-testing, we will keep you informed about new releases of the server utilities and client application. If you don't want to get such information, then send us an Email. In order to get the Internet Wave Encoder utility and server CGI you should follow these steps: 1. Go to the url http://www.vocaltec.com/server.htm (This is the same URL of the form you filled in order to get this Email reply) 2. Click the download reference. 3. You will be be asked for a username and password. enter: username: iwave password: 7365583 4. You will now start downloading the package. 5. Unzip the file, and read the readme.txt file for information on using the CGI utility and encoder. Yours, VocalTec Staff.

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Re: A case for 2560 bit keys
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 8 Jul 96 at 23:09, David F. Ogren wrote: [..] > Despite the above, there are convincing arguments for longer RSA keys. > Instead of asking "Why should we have longer keys?", perhaps we should be > asking "Why _shouldn't_ we have longer keys?" > In a hybrid cryptosystem such as PGP, very little of the computational > process is consumed by RSA encryption. Only a tiny fraction of the message > is RSA encrypted (the session key), and thus the time-critical operation is > the symmetric crypto system (IDEA for PGP). > > As an experiment generate a 2047 bit PGP key and a 512 bit PGP key. > Encrypt a file (preferably of a reasonable size) using both keys. > Depending on the computer you are using, the time difference between the > two keys will be a matter of few seconds or even a fraction of a second. Depends on the computers one uses, and who you are computing with. I've heard some horror stories of people using PGP modified to handle 4kbit or 8kbit keys on 286s that waited <i>days</i> to generate keys and hours to sign or decrypt messages. If you're exchanging messages with people using fast computers, lerger key sizes are practical. Otherwise you need to take the issue of key-size/speed tradoff seriously. > It seems foolish that we use RSA keys that are less secure than our IDEA > session keys. Our RSA keys are much more valuable than our session keys. [..] If very improved factoring methods are discovered, it might not matter. If a new method of cryptanalysis against IDEA comes out, that might make RSA key-sizes a non-issue. AFAIK, PGPlib will support multiple public key and private key algorithms. Rob --- No-frills sig. Befriend my mail filter by sending a message with the subject "send help" Key-ID: 5D3F2E99 1996/04/22 wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com (root@magneto) AB1F4831 1993/05/10 Deranged Mutant <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a message with the subject "send pgp-key" for a copy of my key.

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Re: CWD -- Jacking in from the "Keys to the Kingdo
by Chris Adams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 5 Jul 96 12:41:54 -0800, wendigo(a)gti.net wrote: >: It would actually take less creativity to do the other things, bypass the >: config.sys, etc. The child would thus be perhaps a little TOO creative. :) >B) Forget the CONFIG.SYS ... what about kids using Macs or some future > "Kid Safe" system that has the filters in an eeprom? I'm talking > about bypassing the censorship on the client-server level. Relatively > platform independent. I doubt it will ever happen, for two reasons: 1) people always forget passwords and/or have system problems. There will always be a need for system disks or CDs. If parents don't trust their kids (and the ones most worred don't; if they trust their kids, they're not going to worry about what they're doing in the first place) chances are they're still not going to lock up the CD and keep the kid from borrowing one from a friend, etc. Also, most parents tend to be sloppy with passwords - it's easy to observe them entering it, etc. 2) Most parents need the kid to keep the computer working. They a) don't have the knowledge/skill to keep the kid out and b) need to give him access to repair things. If their kid is in fixing a problem, dropping the security software is trivial (better yet: "Mom. Guess what! The bug was in NetNanny"). // Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> - Webpages for sale! Se habla JavaScript! // Automatically receive my resume or PGPKEY by sending email with a subject // of 'send PGPKEY' or 'send resume'. Capitalization counts so be careful!

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