December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: [SCARE]: "If you only knew what we know..."
by frantz＠netcom.com 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

At 12:37 PM 5/23/96 -0700, sameer(a)c2.org wrote: > > Paraphrasing the "Wired" item, "No person who has ever received "The > Briefing" has ever again argued forcefully for the rights of citizens to > use strong cryptography." I assume that since Senator Leahy is a co-sponsor of the Burns bill, "The Briefing's" effects are not long lasting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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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Re: [SCARE]: "If you only knew what we know..."
by jim bell 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

At 12:07 PM 5/23/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: > >"If you only knew what we know..." > >("...you wouldn't support encryption, you wouldn't push for privacy >legislation, you would order all citizen-units to have tatooed ID numbers >on their arms...") > >Though I normally avoid "Wired," I did pick up the latest issue to skim >through. A couple of good things, actually, including a nice summary of the >state of crypto laws, etc. (I don't recall the author, as I didn't buy the >issue.) > >A great discussion of the Deepest and Darket Secret in Washington, the >special "If you only knew what we know..." briefing given to legislators, >staffers, etc. to convince them of the Evils of Cryptography. There is a clue here. If that briefing is so effective, why don't they give it to the entire country? We "all" know (at least around CP) of a number of sorta-bad things that might occur as a consequence of allowing good cryptography. (none of which, on balance, even come close to justifying banning or restricting good crypto, or justify GAK, etc.) However, very few of them require more than a little imagination to invent on our own, and given communication most of them will be thought of and disseminated without being revealed by the government. So it's a bit difficult to imagine why they'd avoid discussing those issues in public. The clue, I think, is that this briefing is given to "legislators, staffers, etc". Presumably, whatever arguments they use in this briefing are quite selective and tailored to appeal to government types. They're telling these people of a argument against good encryption that works for government-types but NOT ordinary civilians. It isn't that they don't want the average civilian to know of these arguments, they simply don't want the populace to know what subset of these consequences the government is really concerned about. Okay, what kind of thing would terrify government-types but not most civilians? >Paraphrasing the "Wired" item, "No person who has ever received "The >Briefing" has ever again argued forcefully for the rights of citizens to >use strong cryptography." >I surmise that either Sen. Burns has not yet been given The Briefing, or he >is for some reason more resistant than most other burrowcrats to the scare >tactics used in The Briefing. >I sure would like to know what's in this briefing. >--Tim May It probably starts like this: "See, there's this guy named Jim Bell...." B^) Seriously, though, I can't see how it could be anything other than the typical Crypto-Anarchy-type scenarios, but presented as if they are a Bad Thing as opposed to being a Good Thing. This would fit all the criteria: They appear to be extremely bad from the standpoint of the government-types, are not particularly convincing to the citizens, and the government wouldn't want the public to know what they're most concerned with. It might start'em thinking. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: GAK3
by frantz＠netcom.com 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

"That's a very powerful thing. Suppose the king of England, or the French government, for example, says that you must use our way of assigning identity, and if you do not use our way to assign identity you don't get to play. By doing this they get complete control over the system. Good points and bad points, but if they can make it stick, it's a very powerful position to be in. Indeed it's the position of the king or the sovereign. The identity by fiat." ... [Discussion of Microsoft/Visa proprietary, patented and non-disclosed CA system elided] "So if you allow this sort of a vertically-integrated system to come into place, whoever controls that vertically-integrated system will have control not only over the liquidity--that is, issuing you money--they will end up with a monopoly over the control of the content. Having a monopoly over the content, of course, gives them the power to tax, and the power to get revenues as a percentage of those sales transactions. "So we conclude by asking these questions: If identity no longer comes from your bank, but from your PC operating system, what role does your bank have in granting you liquidity? And if your identity comes from your PC operating system, why can't the PC operating system grant you liquidity? And, indeed, granting you liquidity is known as extending credit. And extending credit is, and has been, historically the function of banks and banks alone. "The point of this discourse into identity and liquidity is to get you to think a little bit about the power of the way that these different systems go together using the bionomic model. If we indeed live with historical, pyramidal kinds of structures, we step right into an economic world where there is, by default, the accident of handing someone else the ability to provide us taxation. If we, on the other hand, maintain autonomies--small self-organizing groups with a language that allows us to communicate from group to group--along with that economic freedom comes a social freedom." - Bill Melton, CEO-CyberCash Inc. Quoted in: http://www.upside.com/news/archive/speech/melton/melton.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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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Re: Floating Point and Financial Software
by tcmay＠got.net 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

At 11:40 PM 5/23/96, Paul S. Penrod wrote: >But there is a simpler method to avoid the problem entirely. There is >suffcient horsepower in uP's these days to support "long hand" division >and multiplication. Granted it takes some extra grey matter to write the >routines, but once done, you can vary the amount of precision to whatever >you desire and not have to worry about accuracy. I've been skipping most of the "floatingpointpunks" messags, but will note that several languages I personally use (however infrequently) have "bignum" support and support full-precision calculations. These include: LISP and Scheme, Smalltalk, and Mathematica. If performance is not an issue, the bignum packages available in C and C++ ought to be sufficient for any financial needs. And Hal Finney is working on a bignum package for Java. --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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Matt says he didn't get "The Briefing"
by Perry E. Metzger 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

The claim was that Matt Blaze got "the briefing". I asked him about this, and this is what he said to me (forwarded with permission). I don't think I actually got "the briefing". They invited the seven authors of the key length report down to DC to talk with a bunch of policy types, but they never showed us the bodies (or the files on us, or whatever it is they show the people who they really want to impress). Perry

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Trust In A Cryptographic Economy And Digital Security Deposits: Protocols And Policies
by Joseph M. Reagle Jr. 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

My thesis "Trust In A Cryptographic Economy And Digital Security Deposits: Protocols And Policies" is now available in digital form for those that might be interested. You can find it on my ecommerce page at: http://farnsworth.mit.edu/~reagle/commerce/commerce.html An intro, table of contents, conclusion, and the refs are in html format. You may download the whole thing as compressed postscript. _______________________ Regards, When we ask advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice. -Marquis de la Grange 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: Innocence & harmless weapons
by jim bell 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

While it was a slick one-liner, it was also wrong. The truth can indeed harm innocents. For example, "The truth is that Anne Frank lived in an Amsterdam attic." is an excellent example of a truth that can, indeed, be used to harm people should it become known. The reason we use encryption is to disguise truths that we don't want others to know, and if those truths become known there may indeed be harm to innocents.. At 05:02 PM 5/23/96 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: >Whose side of the truth? To be honest I was surprised by your simplistic >responce. > Jim Choate >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> SANDY SANDFORT >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> >> At 12:11 PM 5/23/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: >> >> >Tell ya what: name a weapon that CANNOT be used to harm an >> >innocent person. Go ahead, I'm waiting. >> >> The Truth? >> >> >> S a n d y Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Attacks on remailers
by herodotus＠alpha.c2.org 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

The current discussion on the future of remailers seems to have been ignited by two events: the closure of the Hacktic remailer and the FBI's contacting an operator about a threatening message sent through his remailer. We have, however, almost no actual information about the two incidents, especially the type of threats, if any, made against the operators of the two remailers. This lack of information makes it difficult for others interested in remailers to make informed decisions about their future. We need more specific information about these two incidents. -- Herodotus <herodotus(a)alpha.c2.org>

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Re: National Journal article sez net-activism is just political hicks
by jim bell 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

At 03:31 PM 5/23/96 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: > >>Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 11:04:50 -0700 >>From: jwarren(a)well.com (Jim Warren) >>Subject: National Journal article sez net-activism is just political hicks >>Sender: owner-fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu >>Precedence: bulk >>X-URL: http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/ >> >>Tommorrow, Washington's politically-powerful National Journal reportedly >>will publish a know-nothing piece of "journalism" saying that net-aided >>politics is essentially nothing but a batch of ineffective, know-nothing >>nerds and back-water political hacks. At least we now know that the National Journal hasn't heard of Cyber-Anarchy--- or they didn't understand one word of it. >>Check it out on Friday or thereafter -- at www.politicsusa.com -- and >>forward your *informed* comments to the NJ's Editor and Letters Editor. >> >>--jim >> >>On the other hand, maybe we ought to just continue escalating our political >>effectiveness using the net, and let it come as a total shock to the >>Beltway insiders who trust this piece of misinformed blather ... when we >>provide more and more swing votes in contested elections -- as already >>occured with DeFoley8 against ex-Speaker Tom Foley, VTW for now-Senator Ron >>Wyden, me for now-available Calif legislative data, the gun BBS against >>ex-Calif Senate Prez Pro Tem David Roberti, etc. :-) Slowly but surely, they're learning! Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Children's Privacy Act
by tcmay＠got.net 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Lauren Amy Gelman said: >The text of the Children's Privacy Protection and Parental Empowerment >Act is available at the Epic "Children's Privacy" web site: > >http://epic.org/privacy/kids/ > >Read it before you trash it! We at LolitaWatch GMBH are amused that legislators in the United States are attempting to legislate that which can be so easily bypassed with the world-wide Internet. In fact, anticipating such restrictions on the collection of some data, we moved our operations to Aalborg, Danmark earlier this year. (Forslag og ideer vedr. indhold modtages gerne af: www(a)lolita.nordjyllands .dk ) Danish laws are not so repressive as American laws, and our American friends can so easily access our data bases of information derived from the mandatory age-labeling tags you Americans so conveniently (for us) insist upon. --Klaus Jellingestenen

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