December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Game Theory and its Relevance to Cypherpunks
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:21 AM 7/21/96 -0700, Llywarch Hen wrote: > What Timothy May espouses is not the appearance of craziness but actual > insanity itself. The best way to convince others you are crazy is to actually be crazy. More practically, if you organize your nuclear forces so that any serious war is likely to escalate uncontrollably into the battle of armageddon, regardless of your intentions and desires, which is how the American government organized its nuclear forces in Europe, then you can pretty much guarantee you will not have to face a serious war. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: [Noise] Re: <rant> Re: Devil's Bargain
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:51 PM 7/24/96 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: >I'm surprised I haven't heard Kallstrom >calling for radically increased wiretapping yet or Freeh calling for >bans on encryption like he did after OKCity. As if it would have done any good. One of the news reports pointed out that if it was a bomb, it had probibly been placed on the plane in Greece. (But then, since when did logic and rationality have *ANYTHING* to do with the Freeh and Kalstrom wiretap jihad. I am waiting for one of them to get arrested as a peeping tom. Something deepseeted about these people's fetish about watching others...) --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

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[Noise] [Smut] [Off-topic] Re: A Global Village, or the future of porn on the net
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:04 AM 7/25/96 +0600, Arun Mehta wrote: >At 10:00 24/07/96 +0000, Alex F wrote: >> >>why is it that Bill(ary) signed an unconstitutional law? I >>am referring to the CDA and the telephony bill. > >... arguments that I wholeheartedly support deleted.. > >>Anyway, getting off-topic again. I'll be quiet now :) > >Let me see if I can bring this back on track. We have some interesting >developments that could converge: > >1) Legally, the Internet is more or less in the clear as far as indecency >is concerned. The moralists will rally again and put through a bill that >doesn't so blatantly violate the constitution, but for the time being >we're OK. Unless they start using prosecutions similar to what they pulled back during the Meese years with video distributors. I am waiting for them to start using RICO laws on sites carrying Usenet groups deemed "obscene". RICO has already been used in some juristictions for shutting down video stores (and maybe even bookstores). It is not over yet... The control freaks will not be happy until everything you view and see has previously been approved by some board or ministry. (Or they at least have some way of hurting you if you step out of line.) Whether that control freak behaviour is driven by religion, morality, "your own good", greed, power or lust does not matter. the results are pretty much that same. >2) Porn is very, very popular. As a consultant, I often use Netscape from >the offices of my clients, and invariably take a peek at the bookmarks. >Guess what is pointed to more than anything else. By making a hullaballoo >about porn on the net, its enemies may have shot themselves in the foot: >it will attract people rather than repel. But there is a social stigma surrounding porn. Most people who look at porn are not willing to admit it in front of friends and family. many of the more vocal opponnents to porn are the ones most attracted to it. Look at jimmy Swagart. He crusaded against it for years. Never stopped "Lonesome Cowboy Jim" (5 point if you can name that album and artist) from wanking off to it... >3) Porn on the net by and large isn't all that great, so if there is a risk, >it is that people might be bored. What you mostly have are stills of nudes >on the web and Usenet postings of indifferent quality. Depends where you go. Most of the Usenet stuff is crap, but that is true of any medium. (It is called a medium becuase it is rarely well done. (Stolen line... Forget the original author.)) There are exceptions. Usenet will give you smut that may (or is) illegal in your area. Some of this sort of stuff can be mail ordered, but there is more risk. (Like postal service stings/entrapment and the like.) There is much better quality available on the pay sites, but since you usually have to pay to view any of it, you never know what is available until you have forked out a bit of cash. (I am surprised I have not seen more sites using e-cash for this purpose... Porn drove the VCR industry for many years. I expect the same for the web and e-cash.) >4) the web is changing from static to dynamic through Java and the like. >VRML in fact adds a 3-D element. Most pay-for-porn sites are going for interactive video instead of java and/or vrml. (Yes, you can pay $$$ to duplicate the experience of a stroke booth via the net. All you lack is the resolution, the interaction, and the requisite sleeze of the experience. Dancers the size of postage stamps! Wow!) >Stir, add some spicy curry, and see if you get: > >Java classes for males and females corresponding to VRML >objects. The class methods might include kissing, hugging, >spanking, restraining... Might be interesting... This is more evident in CD-ROMs though. >A female object might be initialized with Hillary Clinton's face, Evangelista's >body... I think that was the cover of Spy magazine... >Anyone could now write a script which you could view enacted on >your screen, or interact with one another as in MUDs. Why, >someone might write a translator >that takes a story off alt.sex.whatever and produces >an appropriate script. People would only need to download the software and >appropriate objects once, then receive emscripts which could be >run in total privacy. "Be a Great porn Actor at Home!" Reenact bad plots, cheezy dialog, and bad writing in the privacy of your living room! >People should we willing to pay small amounts for use of the >classes and objects, >as well as for the scripts. Of course, it would only work in our >prudish societies if >the transactions were totally anonymous. If Digicash payment >systems were built-in, >that might be a reason for people to start adopting eCash. Well, if it is something that will cause arousal in male humans (or computer geeks), I am sure you can sell it. >Of course, this opens up a whole can of worms. For instance, >given the violence of >many pornographic stories on Usenet, it won't be long before >famous personalities >routinely get violated in cyberspace. Talk about copyright: do >you have the right >to prevent someone from doing this to you? Porn stories and/or hacked pictures of celebrities already occurs. Has since I have been on usenet... (Many years now.) One of my favorites involves the Brady Bunch... In fact there are celebrities who have hired people to track down phoney pictures and get them pulled from web sites. (I always expected something like this to show up on Star Trek:TNG. Having Beverly Crusher catching Weasly with the holodeck porn programs involving all sorts of convelutions of the bridge crew. He would probibly blame it on Riker...) >I unfortunately lack the bandwidth to find out the extent to >which porn on the net >is already moving in this direction. However, if you have >pointers, I'll go *find* >the bandwidth! Where on the net do people discuss such matters? Bandwidth is the only thing preventing the smut from getting farther than it already has. The easiest way to kill a web server is put porn on it and advertise. All of the schemes coming out for "cool gee-whiz web extensions" take more bandwidth than most people have... Just wait and see what happens when cable modems become available. Check out the alt.sex heirarchy. Something there I am sure... --- |"Computers are Voodoo -- You just have to know where to stick the pins."| |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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Re: DES-Busting Screen Savers?
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:01 AM 7/25/96 +0000, The Deviant wrote: >> To support scaling, make it easy for people to run subset servers; >> grab a chunk of keyspace from the main server and dole it out >> to people who ask you for it. If you want to get fancy, >> hack a DNS server to allow people to register their machines >> as NNN.descrack.org, 0<=NNN<1000, so that people can find >> subsets without having to ask the main server. >> > >Or hack it to use a 56 bit IP netmask-ish thing, and keep track of keys >that way (i'm not endorsing this idea, just pointing it out) I can see some problems doing this sort of allocation for those of us on dial up providers. When the IP address changes from log in to log in recording the IP address is not much help. You could always hand them a digital signature with the key space signed by the server... --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

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Re: Digital Watermarks for copy protection in recent Billbo (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, The Sampling Theorem in operation is a little more complicated than the model that is being discussed. Forwarded message: > From: mpd(a)netcom.com (Mike Duvos) > Subject: Re: Digital Watermarks for copy protection in recent Billbo > Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 21:38:36 -0700 (PDT) > "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> writes: > > > The Nyquist Theorem states you need exactly twice the > > samples, not over twice. The magic number isn't something > > like 2.2, its exactly 2. > > The Sampling Theorem states that equally spaced instantaneous > samples must be taken at a rate GREATER THAN twice the highest > frequency present in the analog signal being sampled. If this is > done, the samples contain all the information in the signal, and > faithful reconstruction is possible. Actualy the sampling theorem states that if you want to reproduce a signal reliably it must be sampled at a frequency AT LEAST TWICE that of the highest frequency of interest in the FFT of the signal. This means the signal must be deformable into sine waves, not all signals qualify for this particular limitation and in general are not good signals for sampling. An example is a step change from v1 to v2. since there is no change in voltage except for a brief moment the output of the FFT is pretty much flat. What comes out the other end looks like a spike (similar to what happens when you feed a square wave to a transformer and look at the output). If you reconstruct this via the sampling theorem you get a sign wave of extremely low amplitude and frequency. If you think of a FFT as taking a signal and breaking it down into componant frequencies. Then think of a hair comb where the lowest frequencies are the bigger teeth (put them to the L. when looking at it). Because sign waves have zero crossings a single sample per cycle is not enough. By taking at least two samples a cycle you are guaranteed not to miss the presence or absence of a componant frequency. So this guarantees that we get a accurate count of componants and their phase relations to each other (where the arbitrary time reference comes in - really a fixed frequency clock). Back to the comb. Where a given signal has a componant leave the teeth. Where there is no componant break them off. You are left with a ratty looking comb. Now to each of the remaining teeth assign an amplitude for that specific frequency that is consistent with the FFT you calculated. The way this FFT is implimented in practice is called a 'Comb Filter' where it samples the signal (wide bandwidth) over a set of very small bandwidth filters in parallel. Scanning the output of the filters at a fixed rate you get a phase relation as well. Digitize the signals in a particular pattern and you are ready to cut your CD or whatever. It does NOT guarantee faithful representation of the original signal but rather a signal with the same energy spectrum and phase characteristics. One of the basic ideas of Algebra is that any given curve can be explained by a arbitrary set of equations. The Sampling Theorem just gives you a rationale for picking from that set. > Exactly twice the highest frequency won't do, and it should be > obvious that sampling a sine wave at twice its frequency yields > samples of constant magnitude and alternating sign which convey > nothing about its phase and little useful about its amplitude > either. (Drawing a little picture might be helpful here.) Exactly what the theorem is supposed to produce. You take your original signal and run it through a FFT. You look at the bandwidth you desire. The highest frequency of interest is 1/2 or less your sampling frequency. With this information you can build a set of sine waves whose amplitude is given by the FFT along with phase relations. Since you are breaking the signal into sine waves (which happen to be well defined) all you realy need is to know the maximum and minimum amplitudes as well as their phase to some arbitrary but constant time reference. Sum them back together on the other side and what you got? A reasonable useable copy of your original signal. This is why DSP's are optimized for multiplication (multiply the amplitude of that componant by its presence in the FFT) and summing (add them together to get the target signal). Generaly because of noise and similar phenomena it is commen to multiply and add windows of samples (ie averaging). > Although anything over twice the highest frequency will work in a > theoretical sense, a small fudge factor does wonders for digital > signal processing, if only to reduce to a reasonable value the > width of the window into the sample stream needed for various > signal manipulations. Actualy I believe the decision was made by Philips (the inventor of the CD) to settle on the 44kHz sample rate because of some design option it simplified. I unfortunately don't remember anything more specific than that. Anyone got the CD Rom bible? Jim Choate

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Re: Netscape 3.0B US version MD5
by nobody＠c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jeff Weinstein <jsw(a)netscape.com> wrote: > The final version of 3.0 will be available for download well > before Sept 17. That version will not have a timebomb. Even > the timebombed versions will let you connect to our site to > download new versions. Is there a possibility that the US version of Netscape 2.02 for Windows 3.1 will be made available via this mechanism? I run OS/2 in a WinOS/2 session under OS/2 Warp, and the 16 bit version of 2.02 is the latest one that us OS/2 Warp users of Netscape have been able to get working. None of the 3.0 betas will work, for some reason. (If you have a "wish list" there, a native OS/2 version of Netscape would be nice, too! <g>)

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Re: [Noise] Re: <rant> Re: Devil's Bargain
by Cerridwyn Llewyellyn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>protect us from terrorists. I'm surprised I haven't heard Kallstrom >calling for radically increased wiretapping yet or Freeh calling for >bans on encryption like he did after OKCity. He's saving that for later this morning... //cerridwyn//

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RE: [Noise] was Re: Givin
by pjn＠nworks.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In> I guess I don't really have to worry too much, though. It is illegal In> for children to possess such items publicly, and any parent who In> condones it is simply breaking the law. I don't blame the child, I In> blame the moronic parent who let's it happen. You would be suprised at what kids can get away with without their parents knowing... P.J. pjn(a)nworks.com ... Wndows is jst finefor bacgrond telcomncations. ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20 [NR]

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Twenty Bank Robbers -- Game theory:)
by ichudov＠galaxy.galstar.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's a puzzle for our game theorists. Twenty cypherpunks robbed a bank. They took 20 million bucks. Here's how they plan to split the money: they stay in line, and the first guy suggests how to split the money. Then they vote on his suggestion. If 50% or more vote for his proposal, his suggestion is adopted. Otherwise they kill the first robber and now it is the turn of guy #2 to make another splitting proposal. Same voting rules apply. The question is, what will be the outcome? How will they split the money, how many robbers will be dead, and so on? igor

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[Rant]Re: Shell buys key escrow system from TIS
by liberty＠gate.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Will Rodger,<rodger(a)interramp.com> Washington Bureau Chief of Inter@ctive Week, wrote: <snips> >Administration officials didn't return calls for comment, but it's clear >that the Clinton-Gore team have their first "testbed" for trying out key >recovery, or key escrow, proposals. Hmmm. A new meme, "key recovery" is lots better than "key escrow," but I still wonder if I'm ever gonna see a journalist say, "'GAK,' or Govt. Access to Keys for cryptography." >...The multinational company will self-escrow, that is handle >all encryption keys itself, in cooperation with the British government, >sources close to the deal said. I'm left wondering about a few cooperation-with-the-corporation issues here regarding the Brit.govt, but I suppose time will tell how much of Orwell is coming true in his own homeland. >Walker declined to name the company, but several Washington-based sources >confirmed the buyer is Royal Dutch Shell. Largest corporation in the world, if I'm not mistaken. >The deal represent the first time that a foreign buyer has purchased a US >key escrow product without escrowing keys in the US. ... [I can hear Gore/Gorelick now, "Well, as long as it goes to SOME big government (with a road-to-serfdom track record in economic freedom) it's OK by me!"] >Walker, widely credited with devising the controversial commerical key >escrow system now being promoted by the current administration, claimed >"there really is an important issue here in finding a balance between the >interest of government and those of industry. ... I suppose we will hear after the election of the balance between the interests of government and those of indIVIDUALS. I always see this image of me, sitting on one end of a see-saw, with former congressman Rostenkowski on the other end. JMR PS Anyone who has had the pleasure of meeting my pal Joey Grasty would NEVER question his cypherpunk (or U.S.) patriotism. Regards, Jim Ray -- DNRC Minister of Encryption Advocacy "It is long past time to end the laughable presumption that voters who can easily cope with the choices offered at Burger King are somehow 'confused' by more than two choices at the voting booth." -- me, in the Miami Herald, June 24, 1996, p. 10A. Defeat the Duopoly! Vote "NOTA," not Slick/Dull in November. Harry Browne for President. Jo Jorgensen for Vice-president. http://www.HarryBrowne96.org/ ___________________________________________________________________ PGP id.E9BD6D35 51 5D A2 C3 92 2C 56 BE 53 2D 9C A1 B3 50 C9 C8 <mailto:liberty@gate.net> http://www.shopmiami.com/prs/jimray Coming soon, the "Pennies For Perot" page. Keep billionaires off welfare! ___________________________________________________________________ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Freedom isn't Freeh. iQCVAwUBMfdJNm1lp8bpvW01AQGLOAQAkHzibmIw8OKsbUqFjRXy/MrkVhszA+8l z+RmUoLy52D85ZpTsSivwyPGybeAyTs/V3IGiZx8WX8tBIIdyiFHNWlesjsShiro sTVx+a8qXZ1NSS8KMIScfqh3piXjnDJWeDqbFsZAM+JvHIREzASSrky2Xhb0/fIv ITuwCG7P22A= =2+iV -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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