December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Schelling Points, Rights, and Game Theory--Part II
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:09 AM 7/26/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >... I hate the term "nerd," as I hate the >names "dweeb," "geek," "jerk," etc. Believe me, anyone who thinks being >called a "nerd" is complimentary, or anyone who labels himself as a "geek," >is probably one who would call himself a "nigger," or a "queer.") I must disagree with Tim on this issue. Back in the dark ages, before the revolution, the Yankee was an insult used by British sympathisers to describe the hick American revolutionaries. The Americans adopted it as a matter of pride and threw it back in their detractors face. Homosexuals are doing the same thing with the them "queer". When I went to Dan Farmer and Wietse Venema's class in Internet Security, Dan taught the class wearing a tank-top which said "QUEER" across the front. People with pride in themselves and what they do can make their detractors eat their insults. We should make it clear that "nerd," "dweeb," "geek," "jerk," etc. are where the money is. We should turn them into terms of pride in what we are and what we do. Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Cave ab homine unius lebri | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | [Beware the man of one | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | book] - Anonymous Latin | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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CandleWeb V1.1 - Web client, "secure E interpreter"
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I doubt this is going to become a mass-market phenomenon, but some people seemed to be interested in E. - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 12:06:01 +0200 From: Gunnar R|nning <gunnar(a)candleweb.no> To: win-request(a)metrics.com Subject: CandleWeb V1.1 - Web client with interactive animation support CandleWeb AS is pleased to announce version 1.1 of the CandleWeb client. The client is freely available for Windows 95 and X11. Precompiled versions exist for Windows 95, Linux, Sunos 4 and Irix. CandleWeb is a powerful and easy way to create interactive animations and applications for use on the Web. The CandleWeb client is an interpreter for the language E(pronounced like "awe" in english). CandleWeb features include : - - Vector graphics objects to reduce bandwidth requirements and simplify animation development. - - Bitmap graphics(GIF and JPEG). - - Sound (MIDI and WAV). - - User-interaction objects. - - Web-protocols support. http(GET/POST), ftp, and file URLs are supported. Access to file URLs is by default prohibited due to security considerations. - - Portability and architecture independence. - - Security, interpreted programs is executed in a safe environment. The client has builtin damage-repair and double-buffering to achieve high performance graphics. Animations are easier to create in E than in traditional languages, due to the declarative nature of the E graphicssystem. AweThor is an authoring tool for CandleWeb that simplifies the task of creating animations and graphics in E. AweThor is available as shareware for $100(US). Download the client from : <URL:ftp://thor.candleweb.no/pub/dist/> Find more information on : <URL:http://www.candleweb.no/> New features in this release of CandleWeb : - - Composite objects. The language now has support for user-defined composite objects. - - Support for dynamic loading of libraries and automatic revision control to store library copies locally. - - A new parser written in PCCTS has allowed us to clean up the language, and bring it somewhat closer to the C programming language in syntax. - - Global variables. - - Local function declarations. - - Regular expressions, through the new function regmatch. - - Support for MIDI and WAV on Win95 and Unix platforms using the Unix Sound Standard(USS). Linux has support for USS. Can play single or continuous sounds asynchronously. - - Better color support for X11 : 1. 24-bits support. 2. On PseudoColor it does not install a private colormap by default anymore. 3. Use the -perfect option to install a private colormap. 4. When -perfect is specified it uses a dithering technique to achieve 2048 virtual colors. - - HTTP post is now supported through the function post(). - - Other new builtin functions : optimizeObjects, contentType, substr, getWindowSize, read, write, and link. - - New functionality in the translation attribute : Motion(for motion of the mousecursor), ResizeWindow, Transparent (to send matching events onwards to the next inputarea). This release also include number of bug-fixes , and some speed optimizations to the interpreter. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQBVAwUBMfkkwZNcNyVVy0jxAQGhHQIAwYjS30G7yTqKFrk9L3EP5hX3K2+y2LAK gYOwTVqtN5v+94kBhKqfNogwNM2j/ku5crAWr10jpskuTUFKpF0sLw== =SrQb -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Twenty Bank Robbers -- Game theory:)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:04 AM 7/26/96 -0400, Clay Olbon II wrote: >jim bell <jimbell(a)pacifier.com> wrote: >>My previous answer was incomplete, of course. I continue to believe that >>the problem is unsolveable as stated, if for no other reason than the >>"weight" of the negative represented by dying is not stated. It's a VERY >>complex problem, unless there's some trick I'm not seeing. > >Jim is right. The problem with any optimization problem is when >unquantifiable negatives are included. The "classic" example of this is an >inventory problem. The optimal solution is minimal (or no) inventory, >however there are unquantifiable negatives that arise when a customer >cannot get his product when he wants it. I don't think the problem is that >complex if the negative is that you get no money rather than "you die". As >an aside, many game theory problems (possible including the simplified >version of this one) are solvable using linear programming (and no, that is >not writing C one line at a time ;-). It has been far too long since my >last game theory course to consider trying to set this problem up however >(I've found that I don't use either game theory or LP a whole lot in the >"real world" of engineering). Here is my best (currently!) guess at an APPROXIMATION of the solution. In order to avoid the indeterminacy of the weight of a death versus money, I assume that a solution can be found on the first proposal. (presumably, the first chooser is _motivated_ to find one, right?!?) This means that the 1st chooser must select a distribution that will make at least 50% happy. The first wild guess is that he's offer equal shares of the money to himself (#1) and the next nine (#2-#10). But the problem with that is that the higher-numbered people might feel inclined to defect, possibly figuring that by getting rid of the people before them, they could increase the size of their likely reward. Probably the solution is to offer those higher enough money so that they have no reason to defect. The amount that should be offered to each could be related to the maximum amount that person might reasonably be able to expect, if all of the people ahead of him in line had been eliminated. #1 and #2 can, at best, expect 1/10th of the reward each, #3 and #4 can expect 1/9th, #5 and #6 can expect 1/8th, #7 and #8 can expect 1/7, and finally #9 and #10 can expect 1/6. Of course, all this adds up to more than 1 (actually, 1627/1260), so the result must be normalized to bring the total amount offered down to "1". BTW, as extra "inducement" the people at the beginning of the line (2, 3, 4, etc) can agree and publicly announce that if anyone between 2 and 10 defects from this arrangement, he will be passed over in subsequent iterations of this process, selecting people starting from #11 and above in their place. Thus, the people between #1 and #10 are strongly motivated to go along with this arrangement from the beginning, particularly those near #10. Of course, this raises yet another possibility. Suppose #1 made an proposal like this: "The money is to be split equally among everybody who votes for this proposal." The high numbers (11-20) are motivated to vote for this, for fear that in the absense of such an agreement the low numbers would agree to split the pot without them. Likewise, the low numbers would be inclined to get an agreement rather than risk having their proposals rejected and them killed. Anyone who defects risks losing out on everything. (However, in order for proposals like this to be properly evaluated, it is necessary to establish certain issues, such as whether there's a secret ballot or not, etc. Also, even if the results of the ballot are not secret, are the votes revealed all at one time, or are the participants polled individually, and in what order. Can a participant adjust his vote according to the votes of another?) Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Distributed DES crack
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:28 PM 7/26/96 +0200, Remo Pini wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com >Date: Fri Jul 26 13:25:22 1996 >> At 10:30 7/23/96, Matt Blaze wrote: >> >> >My estimate is that an FPGA-based machine that can do a single DES key >> >every four months (eight months to exhaust the whole keyspace) could >> >be built with off-the-shelf stuff for comfortably under $50k (plus >> >labor, plus software development costs). A prototype board should >> cost >> >under $1000 and will help prove the concept and get a more accurate >> cost >> >estimate. I expect to build such a prototype machine myself, and, if >> it >> >works as I expect, maybe the whole thing. >> >> I am willing to financially contribute to the project. >> >> >If this were to be a card (via RS232 or PC-bus), thousands of people would >be able to copy it, once the development process is finished. -> You'd have >hardware that all those people could use for a distributed crack, the >building cost would be distributed also (<$100), only development would >have to be at one place (sponsored of course). Now, that would be a scary >thought for DES-fans! I've proposed that if it were done in this way, the circuit should be built external to a PC-clone or other computer, so that it can be easily tiled on a large pcb, in an "n by m" array. The reason is that if an individual cracker module were as simple and cheap as it should be, a person could easily want to run dozens if not hundreds of them. Communication would probably be done with a single serial data bus, with each module individually addressed. Due to the nature of the DES crack, communication would be rare, so it's likely that an ordinary '386 or '486-based computer could handle all the communication for a large number of such modules. I don't know if the figure of $10 thrown around for an FPGA is accurate, but if it is then a cost of $30 for each subsystem is probably doable, including pc board, assembly, and a few other components. A cost of $3000 for a 10-by-10 array seems reasonable to me, particularly since the throughput of each of those FPGA's ought to be at least 10x that of a general-purpose PC in this application. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: AP on Crypto Hearing
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:28 PM 7/26/96 +0000, John Young wrote: > 7-25-96. The Associated Press: > > Computer Codes May Aid Crime > >... > > But a top official at the National Security Agency -- whose > job is to break secret codes -- said the encryption "genie > is not out of the bottle." NSA Deputy Director William > Crowell said encryption won't be widely used until it is > marketed and sold, with support to help people use it. True, crypto won't be widely used until it is marketed and sold. Only the 4 horsemen will have it. Terrorists with their government supporters will have the support and training. So will high level drug dealers and money launderers (mostly the same people). Child pornographers will learn quickly. Militias already have the infrastructure to teach military techniques and some of them know about comsec. Soon all of them will. Face it, the 5 horsemen won't have a problem. The 4 horsemen are a red herring. The issue is domestic surveillance. The bottom line of the issue is: Do we get end-to-end secure telephones before or after the telecom industry/taxpayers have to make the investment to provide law enforcement with access to 1% of all the calls in the country? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Cave ab homine unius lebri | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | [Beware the man of one | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | book] - Anonymous Latin | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Re: TIM_ers
by Wayne H. Allen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 14:49 96.07.26 GMT, John Young wrote: > 7-21-96. Sunday WaPo: > > "Liquid Explosives, Miniature Timers May Foil Airline > Security Measures." > > > At the heart of such devices is a timer built by > rewiring a commonly available Casio digital watch, which > is connected to a stabilized form of liquid > nitroglycerin stored in a bottle ostensibly filled with > contact lens solution. The stabilizer for the > nitroglycerin looks like unsuspicious cotton. Even newer > screening devices that can see through clothes would > have difficulty ferreting out such a substance, > according to airplane security experts. "See through cloths", wasn't there an ad in the back of comic books for a pair of sunglasses that did the same thing. And did these same sources mention how a bottle of lens solution with wired up Casio watch attached to it would not be considered conspicuous? If you want to bring down a plane just go to the courier services at the office blocks with a parcel for across the country, us a gps reciever with preset co-ordinates and when the plane gets there, ooopppss. If you want high tech thats the way to go. Wayne H.Allen whallen(a)capitalnet.com Pgp key at www.capitalnet.com/~whallen

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Re: Twenty Bank Robbers -- Solution?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:13 PM 7/25/96 -0500, Igor Chudov wrote: >> 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? > >I forgot to say what the GOALS are. The goals of every individual >cypherpunk are (in from highest to lowest priority): > >1. Stay alive >2. Get as much money as possible >3. Keep as many cypherpunks alive as possible, all other things being equal. Getting closer: #1 says to the rest: "We're going to have a sequential vote, #1 to #20. The first 10 who vote "yes" to this proposal get to share in the loot, equally." #1 must vote in favor, obviously. The second can "guarantee" himself a part of the pot, if it's given out in this first round, by voting "yes." The #2 is only motivated to vote "no" if he thinks he can get a better deal on subsequent iterations, and it's conceivable there won't BE more iterations if at least 9 people after him vote "yes" and he's voted no. Also, if this first proposal is rejected, the #2 wouldn't be in an appreciably better position than #1 was. So #2 will vote yes, as well. This procedure will repeat. As more people vote "yes," the danger in defecting (voting "no") will increase, because it will be effectively certain that someone else will collect that reward. As long as there are more people left to vote than would be necessary to increase the vote total to 10, nobody can afford to vote "no." So the proposal will pass, and the first 10 intelligent people will win. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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U.S. Territories?
by Eric Davis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Are U.S. territories (Guam, Virg-Isl, etc) included in U.S. export restrictions for items such as strong crypto, etc.. Thanks Eric Davis ----------------------------------------------------- Eric Davis ericd(a)cyberfarm.com Co-Founder MediaCast: http://www.mediacast.com/ Personal contact: ericd(a)cyberfarm.com [KD6HTO (RF)] ----------------------------------------------------- - "If women of the world had not been excluded from - world affairs things today might have been - different." Said Alice Paul, Founder of the World - Women's Party for Equal Rights in 1938.

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Nerds, Dykes, Niggers, Dweebs, Fags, Bimbos, and Geeks
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:40 PM 7/26/96, Bill Frantz wrote: >At 9:09 AM 7/26/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >>... I hate the term "nerd," as I hate the >>names "dweeb," "geek," "jerk," etc. Believe me, anyone who thinks being >>called a "nerd" is complimentary, or anyone who labels himself as a "geek," >>is probably one who would call himself a "nigger," or a "queer.") > >I must disagree with Tim on this issue. Back in the dark ages, before the >revolution, the Yankee was an insult used by British sympathisers to >describe the hick American revolutionaries. The Americans adopted it as a >matter of pride and threw it back in their detractors face. I think Bill and I must've been in an exchange on this before, as I recall similar words from someone, perhaps Bill. Look, anyone is perfectly free to wear t-shirts espousing "Wimp Pride" and saying "We're gimps, we're wimps, we're dweebs, and we're PROUD!" I just cringe when I meet young programmers at Cypherpunks who mumble "I'm just a computer geek." Fine, I write them off as geeks. >Homosexuals are doing the same thing with the them "queer". When I went to >Dan Farmer and Wietse Venema's class in Internet Security, Dan taught the >class wearing a tank-top which said "QUEER" across the front. I have no problem with dykes, fags, fairies, queens, and other assorted queers and perverts "reclaiming" these terms...I'll just ignore such folks. (And I do find it passing strange that several of these "queers" expressed outrage to me that I used the word "queer" in the name of a thread; I guess it's the same way niggers insist that only _they_ are allowed to use this "reclaimed" word.) >People with pride in themselves and what they do can make their detractors >eat their insults. We should make it clear that "nerd," "dweeb," "geek," >"jerk," etc. are where the money is. We should turn them into terms of >pride in what we are and what we do. Maybe it's a generational thing (though Bill is as old as me, I think), but terms of insult are just that. The biggest users seem to be clueless journalists, like blonde bimbette Sue Hutchinson of the "S.J. Mercury News," who writes repeatedly of "nerdfests," and "geek conventions." (Hey, maybe womyn need to reclaim the terms "bimbo" and "airhead"?) As I see it, the best way to handle such terms of insult is to refuse to respond to it, not some bullshitty scheme of "reclaiming" the term. (A journalist once called me to get a "nerd's" perspective on a crypto issue--I told her I'm not a nerd and hung up on her.) As for what people ought to call themselves, e.g., when journalists ask what they are. just what is wrong with "engineer," "programmer," "scientist," and "cryptographer"? --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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Re: Twenty Bank Robbers -- Game theory:)
by John Brothers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:19 AM 7/26/96 -0400, you wrote: >On the other hand, a proposal by the first guy to split the >proceeds equally among the first ten should be satisfactory to the first >ten. On that basis nobody dies and ten receive two million each, if we >assume that each is a simple profit maximizer. > >I think that that result is stable, but am not going to try to prove >that it is. (If the result is not stable, it should be relatively easy >to establish that fact.) Slightly more stable is: punk #1 proposes that punks 2 - 10 get all the money, and he gets none, if he prefers poverty to death. Now, why does this work? Punk #1 has set a precedent that improves the share of each of the following 9 cypherpunks by 11% over the 'first 10 split evenly' proposal, to 2.22 million. In order to justify killing punk #1, according to the rules, punk #2 will have to come up with a proposal that improves his share to more than 2.22 million (because the cypherpunks don't want to kill each other unless there is more money to be made) But he can't - there are still 18 other punks left, and he'll still need 9 additional votes on his side to stay alive - and he'll die if he gives less money to the 'lucky 9' than #1's proposal, since everyone can see that as more people die, the total profit available to the remainder will increase. In other words, if he votes no, he will be forced to offer 2.22 million to punks 3 - 11, to stay alive, and take no money himself. He loses by voting no, so he is a guaranteed yes. Punk #3 will consider voting no. Since there will only be 18 left when he gets the proposal, he can also propose 2.22 million to punks 3 - 11. But a) he can't do better than 2.22 million, and that means that he has to vote yes, since he doesn't want to kill the other punks, everything else being equal. Punk 4 is in the exact same situation - with 17 left, he still needs 9 to win, and voting 2.22 million to punks 4 - 12 won't gain him anything over voting yes. So he will vote yes because he doesn't want to kill. Punk 5 is the first one with a chance at a windfall. If he bumps off 1 - 4 he can propose 2.5 million for himself and 6-12. But he is vulnerable to the same strategy from punk #7. 7 will have no reason to keep #5 alive, since that will reduce his profit margin. #5 will be forced to vote yes to stay alive. #6 is in the same situation as number 5, since he can't increase the profit margin. He has to vote yes #7 is vulnerable to #9. 8 has no advantage, they both vote yes. #9 is vulnerable to 11, and 10 has no advantage. They both vote yes, and that is it. ---- --- John Brothers Do you have a right not to be offended?

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