December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Microsoft
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>At 02:25 AM 1/4/98 +0100, Anonymous wrote: >> >>Windows is still fucking me up the ass! I'm bleeding to death here! > >Then get a copy of Linux and stop whining! > >Sheesh! Usually when somebody says something like that they're refering more to Microsoft indirectly borking them. For instance, people send around MS Turd documents. You have to buy MS Turd. Some Windows lamers send out HTML email. Many (most?) are clueless on USENET. Many (most?) don't like to type at all, and choke and die when they get into an environment where they have to. People walk into computer labs and are stuck with the pathetic environment that is Windows. And this doesn't even count the "Everyone is running Windows" and "Everything is da web" folks. It wouldn't be so bad if there was full source to everything and it didn't cost an arm and a leg, or if it didn't suck. But there isn't, it does, and that's putting it mildly. I can hear the cries of "You're anti-business!" and "You're just a UNIX weenie!" already. I just remember back when the average net user had somewhat of a clue. When the network went "to the masses" and people went out of their way to make it point and click the drooling lemmings were attracted to it. And of course where the drooling lemmings go the people who take advantage of the drooling lemmings follow, e.g. spammers. My attitude about this pretty much went down the toilet when I was called a "UNIX weenie" because I suggested that a Windows user deliver his own mail while the ISP's SMTP server was down. Then of course the Windows flamer decided to start denouncing the very notion of RFCs, then started rambling about POP3 and IMAP. And of course I implied "that we all run UNIX" because I used the word "daemon" -- yeah, apparently Windows is so bad that this user didn't even know it *could* run background processes. No, I wasn't the original writer, but I see where the original author was coming from...I think. Yes, I use Linux. Yes, I remember MAKE.MONEY.FAST but it was nothing like the spam we get today and was few and far between.

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PGP-out-only vs. hashcash aware remailers?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:40 PM 12/30/1997 -0400, Privacy Admin <woz(a)privacynb.ml.org> wrote: >Since I've switched to type-I pgponly remailer I haven't had a problem >with spammers. I've been wondering if hashcash makes sense for remailers, >or [only] for mail2news gateways. > >I guess I am looking for any means of controlling spammers using remailers >and mail2news gateways. Hashcash won't help mail2news, except by discouraging dumb spammers, because news spam only needs a few messages. PGP-only input will cut down on most spammers, though you'll still get a few, especially if they're spamming mailing lists (which makes the encryption both worth the effort and useful for safety.) If you modify your remailer to only _output_ PGP-encrypted messages, you get hashcash-equivalence, and cut abuse substantially. The cost is limiting recipients to pgp users (plus known exceptions), but it's tough to spam people when you need to look up their PGP key and encrypt to it (at least you'll only get spams for high-tech stuff), and it's tougher for random abusers to abuse people since most targets don't have PGP keys, and a mailbox full of PGP junk is less annoying to most people than a mailbox full of human-readable hate mail. In particular, it's harder to send death threats to politicians if they don't have published PGP keys. Is this a feature that makes sense? PGP-out-only remailers aren't as useful for anonymous tip lines (unless the tip line has a PGP address.) They're not as useful for inviting new people into your conspiracy, though they're fine for conspiring with people whose keys you already know (and they can be unlisted keys only used for the conspiracy.) If the Bank of Caribbean Cash Importers is interested in taking anonymous clients who contact them through remailers, they've probably got a PGP key handy to send to anyway. They're not transparently useful for mail2news, but the remailer could make exceptions for known mail2news sites, or could ignore the problem, which is fine for posting to alt.anonymous.messages, though not for posting to alt.whistleblowers. How would you implement it? Obviously you'd need to allow some unencrypted lines at the beginning, at least if they have remailer syntax( ::, ##, mail headers, etc.). Do you cut all lines after the "-----END PGP"? My first impression was yes, but after reading the Freedom Remailer source, it looks like this might kill messages using encrypted reply blocks, so maybe not. Detecting the PGP itself can be crude ("----- BEGIN PGP ENCRYPTED"...) or can be a bit fancier (make sure the lines are all the right length and limited to the correct character set), or much fancier (de-armor and look for PGP blocks). Even the fancy approaches can be spoofed, since you can't go very deep into the headers without the right keys, so a couple lines of real PGP material could be included, leaving possibilities like :: Request-Remailing-To: Your Mama ## Subject: My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Comment: PGP allows arbitrary comments, so Decrypt This! hQCMAynIuJ1VakpnAQP+MWng0I6TnDf/U83KCttjYZQSnPQjS59rw+M+iSmTGLIs btqW5hn1HXheSb8GNifAWz2rqgdH3GqjZ5rRBDF5tZfQfV5kNNYE1XpT/CMgAsDh 3IkaeOumDKXON+8acl5X7NToSjml+mkxkF7kE9u5oxCEXErDjS3k2wOtv0krNfSk HeyChelseaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaBWAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA MyGuitarWantsToKillYourMamaBWAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA MyGuitarWantsToKillYourMamaBWAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA MyGuitarWantsToKillYourMamaBWAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA -----END PGP MESSAGE----- and your little dog, too! But at least it's a start. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart(a)pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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BOOK: Forthcoming - J Gray, _Hayek on Liberty 3rd edition_
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 13:34:30 EST Reply-To: Hayek Related Research <HAYEK-L(a)MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: Hayek Related Research <HAYEK-L(a)MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Gregransom <Gregransom(a)AOL.COM> Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: BOOK: Forthcoming - J Gray, _Hayek on Liberty 3rd edition_ To: HAYEK-L(a)MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU >> Hayek Web << Routledge -- Hayek's publisher in England and on the Continent of Europe, on the Web at: http://www.routledge.com/ >From the Routledge Web site: "_Hayek on Liberty Third Edition_ John Gray, Jesus College, University of Oxford Published by Routledge Pb ISBN/ISSN: 0-415-17315-9 >From the previous edition: ... "In Hayek on Liberty John Gray treats Hayek primarily as a philosopher. His book is analytical, not hagiographical, and almost certainly the best book on the subject.' - Samuel Brittan, Financial Times 'The most generally accessible book on Hayek so far.' - Anthony Quinton, Times Higher Education Supplement ... Hayek's achievements in social and political philosophy are increasingly receiving full recognition. _Hayek on Liberty 3rd Edition_ is a concise yet exhaustive and provoking study of this classic liberal philosopher which examines the structure and impact of his system of ideas and locates his position within Western philosophy. Not available since the 1980s this up-dated 3rd edition contains a postscript which assesses how far the historical developments of the last ten years can be deployed in a critique of Hayek's thought. This book will contribute to a much needed wider debate on the future of conservatism. 192 pages Dimensions: 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches; 216 x 138 mm Status: Coming Soon" Hayek on the Web is a regular feature of the Hayek-L list. --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>

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index.html
by root 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Welcome to the Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer. This mailing list is sponsored by The Armadillo Group and other indipendant operators. The purpose of this mailing list is to explore the frontier of cryptography, civil liberty, economics, and related issues. This is a very high traffic mailing list. Several members of the mailing list are involved in various types of events through the year. Participation by members of the list does not construe any support or affilliation with the mailing list. Contact the author of all works obtained through the remailer network. They retain original rights. Please let others know about this mailing list, the more the merrier! To subscribe to the CDR you should contact the individual operators as conditions at each remailer site may be quite different. To subscribe through SSZ you should send a note to list(a)ssz.com or send an email to majordomo(a)ssz.com with 'subscribe cypherpunks email_address' in the body. If you have questions or problems contact list(a)ssz.com There may be local groups of members who have regular (or not) meetings in order to discuss the various issues and projects appropriate to their individual membership. These groups generaly announce their meetings via the CDR. Please feel free to make appropriate announcements of activity in your area. Austin Cypherpunks

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rant on the morality of confidentiality
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I posted this to PM's mailing list, but he apparently zapped it without comment. so here it goes to a less authoritarian forum. context: posters to his list were remarking on the recent declassification of information in Britain that suggested they had discovered the key aspects of RSA before it was discovered in the open literature by Diffie & Hellman etc. ------- Forwarded Message To: cryptography(a)c2.net Subject: a rant on the morality of confidentiality scientists who agree to government secrecy to develop their inventions are agreeing to a lot more than mere secrecy. they are committing to a paradigm that is at odds with science itself, which only advances through the open literature. furthermore, they are giving away their power, so to speak, to governments that do not have the same motives they do. essentially they are working for a war machine, or a suppression machine. how can they be sure their inventions will not be used for dark purposes? imho, by not working within a system that poses that risk. that no such system seems to exist is irrelevant. a truly responsible scientist would help create one and wouldn't work without one. I think the scientists who worked on the atom bomb and today within the NSA are working under a key false assumption. "if we don't develop it, the enemy will, and he will use it against us". but perhaps if scientists around the world united against the government warmongers that have been manipulating them for many generations, particularly within the 20th century with grotesque results, perhaps a different story would emerge. yet even Einstein himself urged our government to "develop a weapon of mass destruction before the Joneses do". how smart is that? perhaps scientifically clever, but morally, socially, and spiritually vacuous. it is a feeble mind in my opinion who takes refuge in the saying that "technology is neutral". perhaps so, but not the humans who use and *develop* it, and the latter are particularly responsible for the former. how smart were those nuclear weapons scientists, anyway, such as Feynmann? imho they agreed to the terms of their own manipulation, and failed to question their basic motives and intents and of those who paid them. I believe those that work within the NSA and other secret agencies are betraying the principles of science under the guise of protecting humanity. I believe they have the power to change this system, but they have reneged on their responsibility as human beings. Wayner covers the simplistic issues in his piece for the NYT, but they key issues at stake are far deeper and have never even been recognized by some of the so-called greatest minds of our century. so I view with distaste, to say the lest, the scientists who later try to break the secrecy and come out in the open merely so that they can have credit for something that was classified they claim to deserve. they deserve credit only for supporting and participating in a vast and sinister system of scientific manipulation for dark and inhumanitarian purposes. Chomsky is one of the few scientists of our time who has the brilliance to recognize the ulterior side of the government we support. surprise! he is largely ignored or even blacklisted by his morally- and socially- handicapped colleages who believe it is not their place to question the status quo, but only to fit into it or advance through it. all those scientists who have ever complained about the lack of funding for your branch, or who have fought with each other over the scraps handed to you like dogs-- do you have any concept of how much tax money is put into military research? how much is funnelled into the NSA? this is money that is funded by the public for public welfare-- is it really being used for that? NSA and other secret agencies have become vast parasites feeding on public dollars that have no accountability, and largely because scientists, who should lead the pack, instead lack the intelligence to recognize it or the courage to challenge it. these are my thoughts as I read how the NSA's Inman pops up to say that the credit for RSA is the NSA's, or a British agency does the same. secrecy is directly contradictory to the principles upon which this country is founded. and imho it is becoming a large source of its ongoing demise. quite simply, the scientists are fiddling while Democracy burns. ------- End of Forwarded Message

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Baltimore City Paper editorial on Jim Bell
by Joab Jackson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A Bridge Too Far? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- No doubt about it, Jim Bell disliked the government. As far as this Vancouver, Wash., resident was concerned, there isn't any problem with Congress that $60 worth of bullets couldn't solve. And he let his opinion be known in newsgroups, mailing lists, and, perhaps most notoriously, through an essay he wrote and promoted on the Internet called "Assassination Politics". But did Bell-who, federal authorities discovered, had an arsenal of deadly chemicals and firearms and the home addresses of more than 100 government workers-have a plan to murder public employees? "What was interesting is that the whole case was based on whether he'd be harmful in the future. He hadn't actually hurt anyone, but he was talking about some scary stuff," John Branton, a reporter who covered the Bell case for the southern Washington newspaper The Columbian (The Jim Bell Story), told me by phone. On Dec. 12, Bell, 39, was sentenced to 11 months in prison and three years of supervised probation after pleading guilty to using false Social Security numbers and setting a stink bomb off at a local Internal Revenue Service office. But authorities acknowledge those charges weren't what his arrest was really about. "We chose not to wait until he followed through on what we believe were plans to assassinate government employees," Jeffrey Gordon, an IRS inspector, told the Portland, Ore., daily The Oregonian. Gordon likened Bell to convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski. The federal government's court filing against Bell stated the belief that the defendant had a plan to "overthrow the U.S. government." Proof of his motivation, the government asserted, was found in Bell's Internet writings: "Bell has spelled out parts of his overall plan in his 'Assassination Politics' essay." Bell wasn't lacking for firepower. On April 1, 20 armed federal agents raided Bell's home, where he lived with his parents. According to U.S. News & World Report ("Terrorism's Next Wave") the feds found three semiautomatic assault rifles; a handgun; a copy of the book The Terrorist's Handbook; the home addresses of more than 100 government workers; and a garage full of potentially deadly chemicals. Authorities had long known that Bell was a spokesperson for a local libertarian militia and was involved in a so-called "common-law court" that planned "trials" of IRS employees. Given what the feds found at the house, in retrospect the raid seems prudent-as Leroy Loiselle of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told U.S. News, "You don't need nitric acid to keep aphids off your flowers." It's easy to forget the troubling fact that the government's initial reason for raiding Bell's residence was "Assassination Politics," which they found in Bell's car when the IRS seized it back in February. (Bell owed some $30,000 in back taxes.) Will others who make public their wrath for government and owe some taxes to Uncle Sam be paid similar visits? What's perhaps more troubling still is the way the feds held up Bell's essay as evidence of his violent intent. Reading "Assassination Politics" makes clear that it is no more a workable blueprint for overthrowing the government than Frank Herbert's Dune is a realistic plan for urban renewal. For about two years prior to Bell's arrest, "Assassination Politics" floated around the Internet. Bell, for instance, sent this essay out on the cypherpunks mailing list, where scenarios for the future, based on new technology and libertarian principles, are frequently discussed. None of the cypherpunks took his "plan" seriously then. The core of "Assassination Politics" is a plan to establish an anonymous electronic market wherein people could "wager" money on when public individuals, be they world leaders or corrupt tax collectors, will die. A person (say, for instance, an assassin) who correctly "predicts" the day of a death could anonymously collect the "winnings." Far from being a direct call to arms, Bell's essay is largely hypothetical, at least until encryption, traceless digital cash, and mass homicidal hatred of world leaders becomes widespread. Ugly yes; realistic no. "I've told Jim Bell on any number of occasions that it would never work," Robert East, a friend of Bell's, tells me by e-mail. "If Jim had properly titled this as a fictional piece of literature he'd have been far more accurate." In April, when the Jim Bell story broke, both The Columbian and Time Warner's Netly News portrayed Bell as a victim whose free-speech rights were violated. But as evidence against Bell piled up, the sympathy muted considerably. U.S. News' recent cover story on domestic terrorism, "Terrorism's Next Wave," opened with the Bell case. Perhaps Bell was prosecuted for what he wrote rather than what he might do. (Both friends and family have repeatedly said Bell, though a big talker, isn't much of a doer. "Jim is a harmless academic [n]erd," East insists. "I've known him for years and he's harmless.") Perhaps the IRS was spooked by little more than idle speculation of its demise. But the evidence seems to have dealt the feds the better hand, and lends credence to the idea that, for all the protest of free-speech advocates, words are not always separable from actions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------- The Baltimore City Paper: http://www.citypaper.com City Paper's Cyberpunk column: http://www.citypaper.com/columns/framecyb.htm Archives: http://www.charm.net/~joabj/ joabj(a)charm.net 410.356.6274 -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 5.0 mQBtAzJFsfEAAAEDAOtSe/7TU8y0ZYBFXp8c6hxwzDIdbIsDtTsvKx2X v5S65Mdc3vCEFhMuwxceatO4T5IKgBFWJ2r7s9fFKtsAIS4vKCESi+wY7j 5rEZ6oYbaeWlj1yfwjAjg8SUxCjuji1QAFEbQeSm9hYiBKYWNrc29uIDxqb2 FiakBjaGFybS5uZXQ+ =ttEP -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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best body armor for cypherpunks [serious] (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 19:44:42 -0800 (PST) > From: Mix <mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com> > Subject: best body armor for cypherpunks [serious] > What is, in your opinion, the best (price and performance-wise) > body armor for cypherpunks? Not being in the vicinity of the fan... (I couldn't resist) ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Internet Watch Foundation reports child nudity as illegal!!
by Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From jrg(a)blodwen.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 5 05:57:11 1998 > > Information Security <The(a)NSA.sucks> writes: > > Can anyone not biased like Paul "British Twit of the Month" Allen > > confirm the two jpg's now visible at <http://www.panix.com/~guy> > > are in Demon's alt.binaries.pictures.nudism Usenet group? > > too late to check/ a right pain to check anyway bearing in mind how > much is probably available in that group. > > Give some message-ids and it's very easy to check if they are and grab > the headers of the messages from them (if you're really interested in > how they got here, etc.) My interest has blown over. PICSRules is a political response to government pressure. IWF immediately began watching for KiddiePorn and notifying IWF member organizations (and police) about such posts. Members are given the MD5 of the post to automatically delete it when next seen, in addition to the first deletion. The only thing "watch" organizations are good for is spotting "controversial" material. Demon/IWF's Clive Feather: : Some subscribers to IWF have asked to be notified of certain other : classes of material, since they *do* choose to censor and not carry : more than just material that is illegal to possess. Demon is not one : of these ISPs. So, IWF supports labeling/spotting of controversial material for the purposes of censorship, beyond what is illegal. Thus, the IWF is not going to get anywhere with PICSRules. No way in hell can they label all of the Net. Usenet content is produced at a furious rate: it cannot be rated until it has already expired off of most servers. Rate WWW? Most are business: who cares about advertising/support? Any page with a counter on it won't verify the MD5 taken when it was "rated"... PICSRules is a political prank on the politicians. Kind of like The Jetsons was an educational show about the future. What *is* happening are groups forming to censor material; funded by governments... # http://192.215.107.71/wire/news/june/0630ratings.html # # The Internet Watch Foundation, has already submitted a funding # request to the European Commission. # # "Whatever happens, we will carry on trying to get the funding # we need," Kerr said. "These things cost money, and we have not # got all the money we need", said David Kerr, chief executive # of the British-based Internet Watch Foundation This will probably keep expanding; Germany IWF to zap Nazi logos, Israel IWF to zap revisionist history, Muslim IWF to zap heresy, etc. ---guy The never-ending joke: Dimitry "I suck my male students" Vulis

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Is FEAL developed by NTT safe?
by Nobuki Nakatuji 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Is FEAL developed by NTT safe? Where isn't safe if it is here because it isn't safe? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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Healthy Life
by frant＠mclafmall.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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