December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

need nym-differentiation, perpetual motion, and FTL travel please
by bryce＠digicash.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi. I was thinking as I stood in the lunch line talking with Arnaud that what I like about <a href= "http://www-ugrad.cs.colorado.edu/~wilcoxb/faq/DefnOfPseudonymity"> pseudonymity </a> is the part about being free from the threat of violence. I _don't_ like the part about being able to have multiple identities nearly as much. It would really please me if I could figure out a way to reliably determine that Alicenym is not the same human as Bobnym without compromising the anonymity of the human(s) behind Alicenym and Bobnym. (Since if their anonymity was thus compromisable, they would be susceptible to the threat of violence.) Unfortunately I can't think of a good way to have both pseudonymity and nym-differentiation. I think that it is possible, however. Can anyone suggest a mechanism? Regards, Bryce -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2i Comment: Auto-signed under Unix with 'BAP' Easy-PGP v1.1b2 iQB1AwUBMZTal0jbHy8sKZitAQFn0gL+M5h/G1WlI6DMF2ZqQhllx+YDu23HGVdp VJbSd0VuBvqKLtDeJ+css9uZ90nUDcsqT8Dws1xxdU+ejSe2Zh3HYLip3+L3LmWV YDf446Pfswgkgs20HRyPzBs2B8c8JpNm =xJYR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: [Yadda Yadda Heil Dave] Re: Rich is leaving for thetapunks
by Rich Burroughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:04 PM 5/10/96 -0700, you wrote: >If I didn't know him better, I'd have thought that Dave had entirely >missed my sarcasm. Thanks for the laugh, Skippy! LOL. Dave, don't believe what you read on theta.com... ;) >-rich > FUCKING SCIENTOLOGIST* > > * - FUCKING SCIENTOLOGIST is a registered trademark of the Religious > Technology Center You know it. All of you copyright terrorists who keep infringing on RTC's trademarks by using the word Freed*m will pay, too, I can assure you... Rich ______________________________________________________________________ Rich Burroughs richieb(a)teleport.com http://www.teleport.com/~richieb See my Blue Ribbon Page at http://www.teleport.com/~richieb/blueribbon New EF zine "cause for alarm" - http://www.teleport.com/~richieb/cause

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Re: Why I Pay Too Much in Taxes
by Mixmaster 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Alan Horowitz wrote: >Wage earners - people who are the subjects of W-2 forms - are the class of >individuals who can't benefit from offshore maneuvers. Just go to your boss and tell him that you have an offer from a consulting company. You'd be happy to continue working for him until he finds a replacement (which could take decades) for 90% of your old pre-tax salary. You should get a big smile in return. >I believe the entry costs for a reliable offshore structure from a >reliable vendor - ie, one who keeps up with court cases and the Code of >Federal Regulations on a daily basis - is $50-100k. Ok for guys who own >a Dart Inmdustries, but not the unwashed masses. And I believe that you don't need that. Going to a major offshore vendor makes you vulnerable to traffic analysis (most of them can't spell Mixmaster). You can get a better setup for $2999 than you get if you spend $50k. Or do it yourself for $1k. Start by reading everything from Scope (www.britnet.co.uk/scope) The books you find there cover everything you need to know in perfect detail. Thanks to Philip Zimmermann and Lance Cottrell the balance of power between the state and the little guy has changed completely. It's good to see that both of them are going into mass market business. Perhaps they can get some of the billions of dollars they deserve. X -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMZWVpFtwWVJrMFYlAQFZ/wgAkqLlArXuoPS9PwM/Zd1fmEg5ttB7xeid Cmbt+R8Jt53NFITCy1DpbNOTzSdPW4wjSV4HKg6R5TvkcvbxFPA+PzBhzVsgGKdV GFdYNoIMlbAH5xw6A4+8zsPOeqRDo6WOMccteSctUd8sydCgr/5qw5TfU9aqq5Rq tawYii4tJ8Za+SiI8PZj6JtljeHplZduTVYmwtOcanFl4/Gi9Zpu/GKXYga+P4ob rswnh3NDRBHgNDUkn+79lztDGKYoTLhif+Ayem4aFoOjjiIM4QLg61teSw0zxTeH zJ2c623rI/2XaaqFmiXguHIKSNDLKq5obqJ0PhmnTI577Xz8TvzbrQ== =jC/p -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Mandatory Voluntary Self-Ratings
by Joseph M. Reagle Jr. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:58 PM 5/9/96 -0700, you wrote: >For every proposed "ratings" system that involves value judgments about who >should see something, I can think of examples where a quite opposite view >is held. Yes, but it is possible to have "descriptive" systems. Of course, to make them easy, things are aggregated into groups, and these groupings have a value judgement. But it is possible to have rating systems that don't tell you diddley about who sees it. _______________________ Regards, Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words. -Spinoza 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: Publicity on PICS
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Whoops... I misread the press release from the ACLU. The judges haven't made such a decision yet, unfortunately. Sorry. -Allen

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Re: self-ratings vs. market ratings
by Joseph M. Reagle Jr. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:04 PM 5/10/96 EDT, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: >From: IN%"blancw(a)MICROSOFT.com" "Blanc Weber" 10-MAY-1996 16:21:20.63 > >>The more automated that filtering becomes, so that the viewer (be it an >>adult or a child) requires less and less personal involvement in >>evaluating what is appropriate (or even interesting) for themselves, the >>more weak & piddly (ignorant & psychologically dependent) those people >>could become, falling into the habit of having others - or an automatic >>robocop - I was talking about this with one of the other students giving the presentation on RSACi yesterday at Sloan. I was argueing how vice tends to be associated with radicalism and how it seems to break people out of their exclusive communities... (nevermind, it was a weird complex discussion.) Regardless, I ran a roundtable on a topic similar to this. The problem of information sharing agents evolving into exclusive communities over time. _______________________________________________ Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 20:25:20 -0500 To: roundtable(a)rpcp.mit.edu From: "Joseph M. Reagle Jr." <reagle(a)rpcp.mit.edu> Subject: Roundtable 2/21: M. Van Alstyne - COMMUNICATION NETWORKS AND THE RISE OF AN INFORMATION ELITE COMMUNICATION NETWORKS AND THE RISE OF AN INFORMATION ELITE Do Computers Help the Rich Get Richer? Marshall Van Alstyne (MIT Sloan School) CAMBRIDGE ROUNDTABLE Wed, Feb. 21, at 1:00 E40-212 Several researchers have suggested that information resources are not created equal and that information processing capacity is not distributed uniformly. In 1995, for example, only 17% of the adult population in the US and Canada, roughly 35 million people had any form of access to electronic services. But what if access were universal? If each enterprise and individual were granted a digital portal onto a National Information Infrastructure, would equal access to channels mean equal access to information? One unfortunate answer is no. Circumstances exist under which a telecommunications policy of universal access could lead to an increase in the gap between the information "haves" and the "have-nots." Policy needs to provide incentives for information sharing and not just access to channels, otherwise results might be reversed from those originally intended. We present a formal theory of information sharing in groups which shows why the information rich might get richer still, why there might be balkanization of groups on the internet, why different objectives within a group will motivate sharing or shut it down, and why it's not just what you know but whom you know. One of the advantages of the model is that there are several explicit parameters that can be altered to illustrate different effects of different policies. For anyone who is interested, the first draft of the paper is available from URL: http://web.mit.edu/marshall/www/home.html _______________________ Regards, Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words. -Spinoza 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: Penet-style web remailer?
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com" "Bill Stewart" 11-MAY-1996 06:53:43.98 >Well, if you look at the remailer part of the web page, it's just >one of many web pages that are a form interface to a remailer CGI program. >Basically a friendly way to use a standard 1-way Cypherpunks remailer. Yes... but he does appear to keep track of the log file; he had up the name of someone who allegedly misused it a few days ago. He states: "If this remailer is used for something illegal, it can be traced. Also, if people use it to insult me, I will probably want to look in the logs and find out who it is!" >There is an amusing stealthed message at the bottom of the page, >designed to attract high relevancy ratings from spiders..... Have people never heard of the "keyword" meta header? -Allen

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Re: Why I Pay Too Much in Taxes
by Ecafe Mixmaster Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Black Unicorn wrote: >Looks like someone paying offshore for Mr. May to me. Again, 30% >withholding requirement unless you intend to hide it. You just don't get it, do you. The offshore payment is for licensing (or computer operations, consulting advice, buying worthless software, investment in penny stocks, use your imagination...) It has NOTHING to do with Mr.May. Those payments are something that the (drunk) CEO decided on and he is completely responsible for it. Why he ordered all those expensive services before he left on permanent vacation is anybody's guess. >The only way to avoid this is to conceal Mr. May's involvement. Right! >Also note that payments to an account for which Mr. May is the >beneficiary can trigger realization in several circumstances. The beneficiary is a trustee that doesn't ask too many questions. There are plenty of those available. >You also fail to mention the reporting requirements for U.S. citizens >holding offshore assets of significant size. "Laws are for people who can't think for themselves." >Either it is a tax avoidance plan, or it is a tax evasion plan. >Which is it? A little of both, to confuse the enemy. >Practically speaking I think you have merely altered the plan to >adjust for my comments and are stuck between both fact scenarios now. Nothing altered. I just didn't explain it in too much detail before. There are still details left out (like how to find a cooperative CEO, offshore bank and trustee). This is an extremely cheep setup. For most high bracket wage earners it could break even in the first month or two. Once the structure is in place it doesn't cost any more. To stop paying taxes completely you would need to lower your taxable profile slowly. If you already have enough money in the bank for your living style, you could take out a significantly smaller salary. If the tax man asks what happened to your high income, you explain that you lost your old job and had to accept a less attractive offer. That can happen to anybody. >I would think you'd advertize it here if you had anything worth selling The problem with selling services like this is that any buyer with half a brain worries that it is a sting operation. Therefore the customers are mostly friends and acquaintances. >Off the shelf companies and trusts have their uses but anyone proposing >to sell a standard tax avoidance/evasion setup off the shelf should >trigger major alarm bells. I agree completely. This is not an advertisement, just a chat on the theory of tax planning in the modern day of worldwide strong encryption. Today it is easier to communicate with an offshore trustee than it has ever been before. Just keep your pass phrase away from the tax man and you'll be fine. X

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Re: Mandatory Voluntary Self-Ratings
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"vznuri(a)netcom.com" "Vladimir Z. Nuri" 11-MAY-1996 03:38:35.85 >the idea with the rating system is that the rating signs the signature >of the page, which is itself digitally hashed or something. in other >words, the rating is on the "state" of a page at some time. the system >would at least be able to detect a change in the state of a page, >and inform the user that a rating may no longer be valid due to obsolescence. >but you are correct that page changes are probably more problematic >for market ratings than self-ratings. One wonders what their hashing method would be. If it's not very cryptographically secure, one could (via selection of image file names, comments, etcetera) cause it to be the same hash for a very different set of images. (A Fun With Animals page from riding lesson photos to bestiality, for instance.) >2. will self-ratings be deliberately misused by people protesting the >system? will it be a problem? And how are you defining "misuse"? If the system is not good, then rating something differently than how the system says it should be is using it properly, not improperly. -Allen

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Re: Publicity on PICS
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"reagle(a)mit.edu" "Joseph M. Reagle Jr." 10-MAY-1996 02:18:58.44 >From: IN%"EALLENSMITH(a)mbcl.rutgers.edu" "E. ALLEN SMITH" > It is _very_ confusing to follow though. >>CompuServe, Microsoft, Prodigy and Netscape Communications will soon give >>their customers software enabling them to block access to material they >>judge objectionable on the Internet's Worldwide Web. > Consider that Compuserve had a deal with SurfWatch, which was >incorporated in it "Internet" in a box, with a lot of Spry goodies. Now >Surfwatch has been purchased by Spyglass (a competitor or Spry). Also, >Compuserve offers RSACi services through CyberPatrols RSACi compliance (got >some weird derivitive and cross-liscencing works going on here!) and urges >its users and 3rd party people to use RSACi... I don't suppose that someone at Netscape can give us more information on this than is currently out there? All we've seen so far are the press reports, which are often inaccurate. -Allen

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