December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Interesting article in Upside ...
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Article on the political side of crypto with respect to this year's election: http://www.upside.com/print/oct96/election.html Ern

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A daily warning regarding Timothy C. May
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timothy C. May is a lying sack of shit.

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Re: The Near-Necessity of Health Insurance
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"tcmay(a)got.net" 18-SEP-1996 02:54:27.36 >Personally, I have not been a patient in a hospital in my entire adult >life. Nor have I seen a doctor, except for a mandatory college physical in >1970 and an insurance company physical in 1977. I just haven't broken any >bones, had any serious illnesses, or felt the need to visit a doctor, an >emergency room, or a walk-in clinic of any sort. I suppose I've been lucky. >Also, I dislike hospitals and avoid doctors unless there seems to be a >compelling need. So far, there has not been. While this is certainly your business, I would suggest at least one physical a year, including blood work, as a good preventative measure... I believe it _has_ been shown to extend lives; I can do a Medline lookup if desired. >In other words, the person who insures himself (through savings and >investments) and who offers to pay for treatment out of his own funds, may >be at a serious disadvantage. He pays the inflated rates for services, and >may face delays in being admitted to a hospital. [...] >(Obviously the folks who use their insurance routinely, as one of my >engineers once used to do (he'd take his kids to the hospital every time >they sneezed), are being subsidized by those of us who avoid hospitals at >all costs.) Actually, the major subsidy appears to be that employer-paid health insurance isn't a taxable benefit. The status regarding self-insured persons such as you is constantly changing, but they're looking at subsidizing that also. Essentially, taxes paid by those with low or no employer-paid health insurance are subsidizing those with high-cost employer-paid health insurance. -Allen

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Re: SSN database scam?
by Jim Byrd 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:22 PM 9/18/96 +0200, Gary Howland <gary(a)systemics.com> forwarded: >Forwarded from www-security mailing list. [snip] >Can anybody comment on the item forwarded below my sig file? It claims >there's a database w/ people's credit card no's etc on it and you have to >give your name and social security number to get off of it. This strikes >me as being a scam to get your ssn, but this went around at work and >people are actually calling and giving it out. I know ssn's aren't really >as secure as they're supposed to be, but still... I happen to work for Lexis-Nexis, but I don't speak for the company. Yes, P-Trak is real, it was recently made available to our customers. It is NOT a scam to get SSNs. Lexis-Nexis is a large and reputable company, best-known for its huge legal database system, Lexis. The Nexis side has news reports from a large variety of sources. P-Trak originally made SSNs available, but Lexis-Nexis removed this feature in response to protests.

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cypherpunk listserve usefulness
by Chip Mefford 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As much as it shames me, I have recently discovered that by filtering messages from only 2 participants and setting body filters on 3 keywords have remarkably improved the usefulness of this listserve. As much as I do enjoy some of the filtered subject matter, I really feel it is very off subject and makes this listserver useless for the intended task. I guess that makes me a censor and it has me reexamining some things.

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a simple cypher scheme
by sjohnson＠packetengines.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

all, i've been on cypherpunks for about a year a half now, and have wacthed many interesting threads pass by but i've never posited anything. what has brought me out into the open is this : i work for an engineering firm doing asic design, i use pgp ( as do all rational persons ), a co-worker here has come up with a 'cypher' scheme that he would like to use to send code to our clients. the scheme is this : he would take the file of code and pad all lines to the length of the longest line, he would then preform column swaps, and then row swaps, to 'mix up' the file. the person receiving the file would then preform the opposite functions to recover the file. it seems so simple that it can't be good. i've convenced him to use pgp, but i would like some input if possible on why his cypher scheme is not a good one. thanx -stuart Packet Engines - The Industry leader in Gigabit ethernet / o o o o o o o . . . o o ______ _________ ________ ________ __=====__T___ o |DDD[ _______ | | | | | | | |_|| .][__n_n_| | | 802.3 | | ATM | | MPEG | | FDDI | | SCSI | >(________|___|__|_______|_|_______|_|______|_|______|_.|________|_| _/oo OOOOO oo` 'o^o o^o 'o^o o^o`'o^o o^o`'o^o o^o`'o^o o^o` -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ | "all sufficiently advanced || Stuart Johnson | technologies are indistinguishable || Lead Asic Engineer | from magic," || Packet Engines Inc. | --Arthur C. Clarke || sjohnson(a)packetengines.com

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Macintosh Mixmaster port... Who's doing it?
by Myers W. Carpenter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any idea who might be attempting a Macintosh Mixmaster port? I and some other people were eyeing the idea. If you know who might be doing this port I would appreciate hearing from them. Thanks. myers

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Re: Workers Paradise. /Political rant.
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 15 Sep 1996 17:13:53 -0700, Dale Thorn wrote: >> And that's good. The world population really should go back to around >> 1 billion for achieving a stabile ecology (with singing birds for >> the peace of minds). The former (?) US system of encouraging young >> standalone women to make babies to get benefits was very bad. The >> Chinese system - less benefits the more children you have - is the >> way to go. >Just a comment: "The world population really should go back to around >one billion", etc. And how could we achieve that without severe govt. >oppression, one wonders? Now, I've heard of "education" being used to >help the masses learn to be responsible citizens ad nauseam, but since >education is pretty much just propaganda in the massively-capitalist >system now taking over even the P.R. of China, how the heck is education >going to work? Well, they're much better at telling kids how to use condoms than they are at, say, explaining an integral. (or even an equation for that matter) As a side note, how about some real welfare reform: mandatory birth control (and pay for that; it's *much* cheaper) and benefits go DOWN for additional births. # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell

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Mercenaries
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:40 PM 9/17/96, William Knowles wrote: >On Tue, 17 Sep 1996, Michelle Thompson wrote: > >> Interesting information from a friend of mine- >> >> >An american can not serve for pay for a position in another military >> >that could be filled by local populace. I may have my jurisdiction >> >wrong tho, this could be an international law not a US law. >> >Basically, you can't go be a grunt or an assasin in another country, >> >because they can find their own, As to Michelle's point that Americans cannot serve for pay in other militaries, there are all sorts of waivers and "look the other way"s involved. For example, the retired American officer who became the top military man in Estonia (or one of the Baltic States)--while still retaining his U.S. citizenship. >What about the French Foreign Legion? or the Volunteers for Israel, >which isn't really a fighting force, but Americans can help keep >the Israeli army at a ready state. Israel is one of several states which the U.S. allows dual citizenship with. For political reasons, because of America's extermination of the Jews in WW II (Whoops, we were on the other side...so why do we have such a cozy deal with Israel, but not with, say, France? Beats me. Politics.) Brian Davis, our former Prosecutor, can tell us how likely it is that any person would be charged and brought to trial for being a paid mercenary for some small country in the Third World. The CIA is often behind such mercenaries, so national security issues could make the issue murky. But the real reason such prosecutions are rare is that the government realizes how Orwellian it sounds to say: "You are being prosecuted because you were a mercenary for Oceania in its war with Eastasia. While Oceania was once our ally in our battle with Eastasia, and we endorsed and financed your role as a mercenary, we became allies with our great friend Eastasia and are now in a state of war with the tyrants of Oceania." >Explicit isn't a dirty word, Or is it? AOL has declared "explicit" to be a Banned Word, along with "pissant," "craps," and "cock," and numerous other such ordinary words. (So much for mentioning their pissant policies, a game of craps in Las Vegas, or a male chicken.) --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I 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, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Informal Renegotiation of the Law
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 15 Sep 1996 17:54:49 -0500 (CDT), snow wrote: >> For example, you will not read anywhere that compulsory education laws have >> been repealed -- but they have. When the home schooling movement started in >> the late 1970s, there were occasional harassment and prosecution of parents. >> The home schoolers won some and lost some. As time went on, the authorities >> came to accept home schoolers so that at this point, legal problems are >> rare. Compulsory education has been effectively repealed by the actions of >> refusenicks in both the subject population and the enforcement population. > Their children are still getting educated. Not thoroughly enough in >some cases, but educated in the basics. It has always seemed somewhat amusing that we will have a) a widespread opinion that homeschooling is of lesser value and b) numerous studies, surveys, testimonials, reports, etc, that show what a rotten job public education is doing*. This raises the question of how anyone even remotely concerned with their children's welfare could do worse. . . Yet another unexplained mass insanity. * - I can add to the testimonial side of things here. I'm one of those rare teenagers who went straight to the professional workplace (bypassing college), but it's in spite of the best effort of our educational system, especially the so-called GATE programs (Gifted & Talented Education - more like stultification from my experience in 3 widely separate districts) or honors classes. They're real big on the "touchy-feely" but actual academic performance lags. My physics teacher was actually expected to teach AP level physics to a bunch of students who hadn't even had Algebra 2. (I never took Calculus, but that didn't prevent me from understanding a derivative or integral) I won't even rant about the English classes where a 400 page book (about 1.5 hours for me) is a semester's reading... # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell

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