December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Wasting time and bandwidth on Bell
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:08 PM 6/7/96 +0100, P.J. Ponder wrote: >Or they automatically delete any posts that come from or relate to the >puerile bullshit Bell is infamous for, and choose not to get dragged into >this type of time- and bandwidth- wasting garbage. Of which this post is >just another, of course, but i get so damn sick and tired of the constant >imposition of 'AP' and related nonsense on this list. It is to be expected that among the citizens of this world, there would be those who have so much moral or economic stock in the current order that they would strongly resist any serious change. (maybe they're already on top, or they hope to be in a few years, etc.) Until a few years ago, almost everybody probably figured that the main effect of computer networking (and the Internet) on politics would be to allow people to send letters to their Congressmen faster while destroying fewer trees, or letting people send in their votes by email rather than travelling to a voting booth. Simple changes. Non-threatening. Don't rock the boat. Don't upset the apple cart. Don't make a wave. It will be a great shock to most of you to hear that the real changes will not only be figuratively "revolutionary" but also LITERALLY revolutionary. >>3. Congress would have no problems passing a law outlawing AP, if one >>does not exist already. >I would be satisfied if they just outlawed e-mail about it. I guess this guy never heard about the 1st Amendment. Or maybe he did, but he concluded that it must have been a mistake, because it's not the kind of thing that the people in charge today would vote for if they had a choice in the matter.. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: INteresting tidbit
by Chris Adams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

** Reply to note from stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com 06/07/96 11:15am pdt > >> 4. The ability to crack DES-1 in near real-time mode is present. > >> (See above). > >First, this has been loosely confirmed for ages. Someone was mentioning >> that FBI offices supposedly have software that (on a 486) can crack a DES-1 key >> in under an hour. Multiply * modern high capacity computers = problem. >> However, this does not nessesarily follow from > > Sigh. This is of course hopelessly bogus. You can't even crack RC4/40 in > under an hour on a 486 machine, thoguh you can do it very fast on custom > hardware. I figured it had been sensationalized. I received an email from someone who had actually played with such a beast (or claimed to have) and I believe he mentioned it had an addin card. > > >This Message Was Sent With An UNREGISTERED Version Of PMMail. > >Please Encourage Its Author To Register Their Copy Of PMMail. > >For More Information About PMMail And SouthSide Software's Other > >Products, Contact http://www.southsoft.com. > > I won't encourage you to register it, but at least please find a way to > quiet the sucker down. Mailers that do one line of advertising on unregistered > shareware are semi-tolerable. Mailers that do 4 lines are highly rude. > Fortunately, a good binary editor makes it easy to go in and turn the message > to something quieter, like -'s or :-)'s... I just did that. Took awhile to find a decent OS/2 email program... I'm not sure the new one is better, but it sure is less intrusive. That and a little bug that resulted in some messages getting dumped here (still wondering how it managed that) cost them a sale.

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Re: ID this 31173 NCR keyboard
by qut＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Does it have any identifying numbers? There's a bunch of labels and printings inside the board, the pc board says ELE 2001; the chip says NCR '82 and 31960; and a couple labels on the inside of the case that don't make any sense. Do I have any chance of getting term support for this, or getting a new keyboard like this? It seems ideal. > NCR OEMed a line of ADDS Viewpoint terminals for a while, > and while the numbers no longer come to mind > (unless they're like 2920), they might look familiar > if I saw them. This keyboard sample doesn't look > quite like them, though. Most of their keyboards > like that were for terminals, not for PCs. > Are the connectors even PC-like? The connector and cable is standard XT-like. > Also, if there are function keys through F20, it might very > well be a 3270-emulator of some sort. > > At 01:52 PM 6/6/96 -0700, you wrote: > >Oops. I wrote that just looking at the keyboard. > >Picked it up at Seattle's Ex-Pc for $3. > >It's so old, I think it requires a non-PC BIOS. > >No manual, labels etc. > > > >Anyone have a clue as to what this is: > > > >NCR > > > >F1 F2 [...] F18 F19 F20/RESET| > >ESC [...] TAB |[five direction keys] > >CONTROL Q [...] }/] CONTROL |CLR 7 8 9 / > >CAPS_LOCK A [...] ~/` |NEW | - 4 5 6 * > >[up] |/\ Z [...] [upup] |LINE | + 1 2 3 |NEW > > [space] | 0_ 00 . |LINE > > > >It was designed for easily customizing your keytable, > >being an actual flat terminal with square keys easily > >pulled out and interchanged. > > > >The back of the keyboard has three switches for > >the boolean selection of languages: US English, > >UK/Int. English, French, German, Swedish/Finnish, > >Danish/Norwegian, Spanish, Italian. > > > >So, where to get a NEW keyboard like this: > > > >FLAT, with a full set of SQUARE, EASILY pulled out keys. > > > > > > > # Thanks; Bill > # Bill Stewart +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com > # http://www.idiom.com/~wcs > # Rescind Authority! > > -- Kill Your Television

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[NOISE] Buying whales with digicash Re: Anonymous stock trades.
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:52 AM 6/7/96 -0400, Perry wrote: >hallam(a)Etna.ai.mit.edu writes: [...] >> Well, Milton Friedman's method for saving the whale is to leave it >> to the free market, if people want whales in the oceans they won't >> buy whale meat. [...] >Dr. Phill Hallam-Baker, PhD, however, does not understand economics in >spite of his PhD and thus attributes views to free market economists >that they do not hold, as in his whole cloth synthesis of a viewpoint >which he ascribed to Milton Friedman which Milton Friedman would never >in a million years espouse. Oh, come on now, Perry - while Friedman has more sense than that, you've been around the Libertarian party long enough to know people who call themselves free-market environmentalists who contend that whales will be best protected if they're owned property, that do-gooder environmentalists will be free to outbid Sushi Inc.* for them, and that initial ownership of the whales ought to be decided by the traditional initial land-ownership method of homesteading. Personally, I view this as rent-seeking by folks who ought to let the whales own themselves, and think they've got as little understanding of free-market environmentalism as the government bureaucrats who massively subsidize the logging of US National Forests, but they _are_ there. [*A wholly owned subsidiary of Taco Bell, but with digicash** and anonymous stock ownership, On the Internet, nobody knows that all restaurants are Taco Bell.] [**Ineffective attempt to pretend some relevance to cypherpunks...] # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # http://www.idiom.com/~wcs # Dispel Authority!

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Re: How to explain crypto?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:50 PM 6/4/96 -0500, Declan wrote: >For example, someone sent me this explanation: > "The 1024 bit key is likely an RSA key, and is not comperable to a 40 bit > symetric key. From memory, 1024 bit RSA is about as hard to crack as 90 > bit symetric." >Is this a reasonable comparison? It's probably close enough for anti-government work; the relative strength depends a lot on whether you're using general-purpose computers or custom crackerboxes, and on the state of the art in factoring technologies. I'd be tempted to be verbose and say that public-key systems like RSA use prime numbers for keys, so they need to be a lot longer than secret-key algorithms like DES or RC4 which can use any number as a key but need to keep it secret. You can double the cracking effort by adding one bit to a secret key or about 10 to a public key. 500-bit public keys and 56-bit secret keys are about the limit of cracking technology for organizations with a couple of million dollars spare for supercomputers, which is your desktop in 5-10 years. The NSA's Clipper Chip used 80-bit keys, which is about 20 years' protection against people who can't use the built-in wiretap or bribe a cop to get a warrant. One problem with these secret hardware designs is that you usually can't tell if there's a back-door unless they tell you - or goof up like they did with the Clipper's short checksum. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # http://www.idiom.com/~wcs # Dispel Authority!

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BIO_nfo
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A biocryptoanarchy link to Adleman's DNA work? 6-8-96. FiTi: "Bioinformatics: the jobs of the future." One of the biggest manpower shortages today is in bioinformatics, the area in which biology meets computer science. Biology is becoming a data-intensive science, in the same way that physics did almost 50 years ago when it became clear that computers would be needed not only to store information but also to process it. There's a great shortage of people, partly because a lot of organisations are simultaneously seeing the need for bioinformatics and partly because the skills required are changing so fast: + Search and analysis, including new mathematical techniques for finding patterns in data; + Knowledge management, including ways to integrate information from different databases; + Mapping and genomics, including approaches to identifying the genetic components of complex traits; + Sequence/structure/function including rapid methods to predict the biological function of a gene from its DNA. The mainstream computer and information technology companies are only just beginning to take an interest in bioinformatics. "There's a huge vacuum there." For an undergraduate scientist searching for a field in which to specialise, there are no better job prospects than bioinformatics or - cheminformatics. BIO_nfo

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Re: Is the alpha.c2.org 'Nymserver Down?
by Lynne L. Harrison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:39 PM 6/7/96 -0700, anonymous wrote: >My 'nym seems to be broken again, and I've heard other reports that >the alpha.c2.org 'nymserver is down. Yet, Raph's ping list seem to >indicate it's healthy: > >remailer email address history latency uptime >----------------------------------------------------------------------- >alpha alias(a)alpha.c2.org +-++**++-++* 49:22 99.66% > >What's the story? FWIW, I just pinged Host: alpha.c2.org - 64 bytes received, icmp _seq 1, time=384 ms --- Round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 384/384/384 --- I, however, have also heard that the remailer alias(a)alpha.c2.org has down for a few days. Regards - Lynne ************************************************************* Lynne L. Harrison, Esq. | "The key to life: Poughkeepsie, New York | - Get up; lharrison(a)mhv.net | - Survive; http://www.dueprocess.com | - Go to bed." ************************************************************* DISCLAIMER: The above discussion is **NOT** to be construed as legal advice. Proper protection of your legal rights may require consultation with an attorney in a traditional setting.

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No Subject
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Russ of nelson(a)crynwr.com apparently writes: :"Well, you aren't being :carried off in the middle of the night by death squads, so I'm :not going to waste my time on you when I could help other people :in danger of death." I'm not prepared to argue against that :judgement. I am. Russ, this rant is not directed at you. I'm just weary of the Bell-bashing. Perhaps the reason that our society has evolved to the point of not having to fear deathsquads is because of assholes like Bell who keep prodding us to expand the limits of personal liberty and free speech by their rantings. He makes me think; sometimes the unthinkable, and gives me the opportunity to _reject_ his ideas. Each time I suggest that someone goes *a little too far,* I draw in the circle of my own protected speech a bit more. *My God, he can't say that!" He _may_ be an adult who knows and accepts the possible consequences of his speech. Notice the chilling effect on virtually any discussion when the threat of legal action is suggested. There's the danger. Read the entire quote by Donne. *...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind;...* By protecting Bell's right to speak what he thinks, we serve as an example to the rest of the world of what personal freedom really means. *Those crazy Americans* Bell gives me the opportunity to say that his pronouncements are antithetical to the best interests of the _inhabitants_ of this nation, not simply the government itself. Thank you, Jim.

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Re: Clam Wars
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> 2. The anti-scientologists have caused many cypherpunks > anonymous remailers to shut down via their egotistical > misuse of them, viz. criminally posting copyrighted Co$ > writings to Usenet. They did it knowing that the Co$ is > likely to harrass the remailer operators, causing them to > shut down and depriving everyone of their services. This scenario is beginning to sound suspiciously similar each time it happens: an anonymous individual or individuals utilize a remailer in a way that's deemed abusive, certain individuals complain loudly, and the remailer (or mail2news gateway) either shuts down or blocks the affected newsgroup. Thus far I've seen it happen with the alt.religion.scientology, alt.smokers, and alt.syntax.tactical newsgroups. This is setting a bad precedent. It sends the message that you merely have to fabricate a little "abuse" through one or more remailers to get what you want -- the elimination of your opponents' platform to dissent without fear of retribution. Whether the abuse in any of the aforementioned instances was actually fabricated or not is immaterial. If it wasn't, it very could have been, with identical results in either case. The problem being, with an anonymous attack through a remailer and/or mail2news gateway, how do you identify the intended victim? Was it the NG or the remailer/gateway itself? The first two NGs have one striking similarity: both involve a product or service where those who stand to profit from it have recently been plagued with "whistle blowers" and "defectors" from among their ranks -- the CO$ and the tobacco industry. In both cases, those who've come forward and divulged secrets have reported harassment. I'm at a loss to understand the blocking of the third NG, alt.syntax.tactical, however, unless the intent was strictly punitive. I can't imagine anyone from a.s.t. coming forward to complain about "abuse"! That would be like complaining about foul language on alt.blasphemy. <g>

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Re: NSA/CIA to snoop INSIDE the U.S.???
by Anonymous User 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

: This is a fucking big story. : Allowing the CIA and NSA to snoop domestically, and using only a handful of : suspicions and anecdotes about cybernastiness and evil cryptohackers to : justify this major policy shift -- well, it's fucking amazing. : Nunn's proposal, unfortunately, was more than a "suggestion." This is very serious. Why has there not been more discussion about this on the list? How close/far is this from becoming law? If they are now trying to make it legal for the CIA and NSA to snoop inside the US I would guess that it's happening already. Remember wiretaps? Do it now and they will make it legal later.

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