December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

****Tacoma, Washington Starts Taxing Internet Access 07/30/96
by Joseph M. Reagle Jr. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1996 JUL 30 (NB) -- By Bill Pietrucha. >Tacoma, Washington, has just gained the distinction of being the >only municipality in the United States to tax Internet Access >providers (IAPs) like telephone service providers. > >The city of Tacoma has extended its six percent gross receipts tax on >telecommunications services to include Internet services, Information >Technology Association of America (ITAA) spokesperson Bob Cohen >told Newsbytes. > >"IAPs use telephone lines to provide consumers with the `on-ramp' >access to the Internet," Cohen told Newsbytes. "Since consumers and >providers already pay taxes on basic telephone service," Cohen said, >"the new Tacoma tax would amount to double taxation, applying to >both the telephone service and the content transmitted over the >telephone line." > >Cohen said ITAA has called on Tacoma Mayor Brian Ebersole to rescind >the new tax, saying that "excessive regulation and taxation will >change the fundamental nature of this new medium (the Internet)." > >In urging the mayor to stop the city's attempt to impose a tax on >the IAPs, ITAA President Harris N. Miler said that "Tacoma will be >hurting both the Internet and its own economic future." > >Miller told Newsbytes that the tax will mean "a loss of profits >to Tacoma-based IAPs, as well as a paperwork nightmare which may >drive companies out of business. IAPs doing business in Tacoma will >be at a competitive disadvantage to their competitors in other >municipalities." > >Miller noted that the tax regime could cause Tacoma-based IAPs to >move to other jurisdictions, "taking the jobs they provide, and the >taxes they currently pay, with them. They (IAPs) may also decide not >to provide service to Tacoma residents rather than deal with the >administrative nightmare of complying with the new tax regulations," >Miller said. > >If other cities attempted to follow Tacoma's lead in taxing IAPs, >Miler said, it could cause the "Balkanization of the Internet, a >hodgepodge of confusing, conflicting, and difficult to administer >Internet tax rules and regulations. > >Miller also hinted that the tax could inadvertently be in violation >of international tax treaties. > >"To begin taxing at the local level before it is clear what the >impact will be on industry and the public in general is bad public >policy," Miller said. > >(19960730/Press Contact: Bob Cohen, Information Technology >Association of America, 703-284-5333, Internet e-mail bcohen(a)itaa.org) > > > _______________________ Regards, There are no facts, only interpretations. -Friedrich Nietzsche Joseph Reagle http://rpcp.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:WaPo on Crypto-Genie Terrorism
by Vinnie Moscaritolo 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

here is something my girlfriend sent me the other day, after reading the Klinton-Antifreedom/terror news Setting: Germany in the late 30's. Quote from "Stones from the River", by Ursula Hegi. I think this rings true for our country today. The tragic reality is that the majority of people have simply forgotten the urge to question what they read in the news. "The people of Burgdorf went to parades and speeches--some because they genuinely believed in their leaders; others, because not to go would call attention to themselves. Most practiced the silence they were familiar with, a silence nurtured by fear and complicity that would grow beyond anything they could imagine, mushrooming into the decades after the war which, some began to fear, was about to happen. To justify this silence, they tried to find the good in their government or fled into the mazes of their own lives, turning away from the community. They knew how not to ask questions; they had been prepared for it by government and church. Over the years, they had forgotten that early urge to question." Vinnie Moscaritolo http://www.vmeng.com/vinnie/ Fingerprint: 4FA3298150E404F2782501876EA2146A ------------------ "And someone said Hey man did ya see that? His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud.. I wonder if he knew what he was getting into... Or was he just lost in the flood?"

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Re:FPGAs and Heat (Re: Paranoid Musings)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:14 AM 7/31/96 -0800, Jim McCoy wrote: >The interconnection problem has also been solved in this chip series. [A >long-standing problem with FPGAs is that there were generally a limited >amount of "wires" running between the logic elements and thus a lot of cells >were wasted because there were no interconnections left, I/O to the outside >world was also a problem.] The chip has a really cool interconnection method >which allows a much more efficient use of the chip real estate and which >makes the entire chip directly addresable (like regular RAM) through an >on-chip interface module. Given the relatively compact design in Ian and >Dave's paper and the new chips one might even fit two or four cracking >engines on a single FPGA. However, I think it very unlikely that an organization like the NSA would bother with an FPGA to do a cracking engine. FPGA's have substantial limitations, as you alluded to above, due to the need to make them "general purpose." A non-field programmable Gate Array, a hard-wired chip, would tend to optimize the interconnections on chip including minimizing the delays, but not incur the full-custom costs such as the penalty for low volume. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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If you have Fortezza experience
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please excuse the interruption. If you have experience building software that uses the Fortezza card, Murray Mazer at OSF would like to chat -- he's trying to scope out what would be involved in adding it to some WWW work for an ARPA project. (Yes, we already have the various Lock-step, etc., documents from the NSA.) Please respond to Murray directly. By way of penance for sending email to a list that I am not on, I offer a short page on exporting crypto software, http://www.osf.org/crypto-export.html, that some might find useful. /r$

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Geo-Politics
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Two articles today in WSJ and FiTi show an unpected link between geo-technology and geo-politics: One reviews the explosives sniffing technology invented by geologist Anthony Barringer for global mineral exploration -- like copper, luxury metals and oil -- but which came to have more practical utility in the antiterrorist market (the company's stock is rocketing). Even so, its best use may prove to be in discovering petroleum and other wealth of the earth. As this tech becomes more widespread, Shell has good reason to encrypt its geological logs and steganographize its governmental bribes. And, a column reviews the tie between nationalist conflicts (markets for cheap explosives) and the invention of modern states (markets for expensive munitions). How the citizenry of modern nations are united by "the need for context-free communication" that was once limited to the members of the "high culture" of pre-modern communities. And how the nationalist citizenry are adopting the cheap versions of expensive munitions of the states' high culture to get their overdue share of the earth's pie. It explores the geopolitical differences among: Ethnic community Ethnic category Nation Nation-state Nationalism ----- http://jya.com/geopol.txt GEO_pol

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"An who shall guard the guardians?"
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Latin maxim "And who shall guard the guardians?" has some relevance to the headlong rush into converting the U.S. into even more of a security state than it is now. The investigation in Atlanta is now focussing on a rent-a-cop who may have planted the pipe bomb and then "discovered" it. Check the usual Web news sources for more details. Whether he is the bomber or not is not the point, which is, "who watches the cops?" A string of arsons up and down the north-south highways of California was finally shown to correlate with the travels up and down those highways (at those same times) by a Glendale arson investigator! And cases where cops have planted evidence, drugs, and guns are almost too much a part of our culture to even notice anymore. My point is not that all cops are corrupt. Indeed, I suspect that they are no more corrupt proportionately than is the general population...which is not too reassuring to me, though. ObClipper: "Who shall guard the guardians?" While the various Clipper proposals have putative safeguards to limit access, think of Craig Livingstone, a rent-a-cop the Clintons hire to work on their Enemies List. And think of the dossiers of J. Edgar Hoover. And think of Nixon. And think of what President Pat Buchanan would do with Government Access to Keys. No thanks, I'll lock my own doors. I have no plans to "voluntarily escrow" my door keys with the local cops. "Secure in one's papers and person" rings a bell, doesn't it? --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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****Tacoma, Washington Starts Taxing Internet Access 07/30/96 (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 11:26:59 -0400 > From: "Joseph M. Reagle Jr." <reagle(a)rpcp.mit.edu> > Subject: ****Tacoma, Washington Starts Taxing Internet Access 07/30/96 > > >WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1996 JUL 30 (NB) -- By Bill Pietrucha. > >Tacoma, Washington, has just gained the distinction of being the > >only municipality in the United States to tax Internet Access > >providers (IAPs) like telephone service providers. > > Somebody needs to do their homework. Austin, TX has been taxing ISP's for at least a year now. A recent Internet Provider meeting on this issue resulted in a return to ISP's of a goodly amound of their taxes because of various issues (read that I didn't go to meeting, I don't run an ISP but a SOHO consultancy w/ Internet services). > >The city of Tacoma has extended its six percent gross receipts tax on > >telecommunications services to include Internet services, Information > >Technology Association of America (ITAA) spokesperson Bob Cohen > >told Newsbytes. I have to pay the state 8.25% interest on any funds my customers deliver to me. > >If other cities attempted to follow Tacoma's lead in taxing IAPs, > >Miler said, it could cause the "Balkanization of the Internet, a > >hodgepodge of confusing, conflicting, and difficult to administer > >Internet tax rules and regulations. Agreed. Jim Choate

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Re: DESZIP
by Julian Assange 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Photo IDs (Re: A Libertine Question)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:12 PM 7/31/96, Duncan Frissell wrote: >was allegedly requiring *two* pieces of ID for flights. If they are talking >about two pieces of photo -- government-issued ID, I wonder where the 80% of >Americans without a Passport (x the 90% of Americans who are not government >employees) get the second piece of ID. [Is it a violation of something if >you Heil Hitler od Sieg Heil the airline clerk when they ask to see your ID. >It's not a threat, it's an expression of honor.] Yeah, this "two photo IDs" is strange, given that: a. many ordinary people have only one form of photo I.D., namely, their driver's license (and many don't even have that) b. terrorists and other such persons are _very_ likely to have multiple forms of I.D., though of course not in their "true name." Hence, the policy looks ineffectual and just a sop to public relations. And just what is a "true name" for the purposes of this law, anyway? Birth name? And what is that? What about people who marry, change names, etc.? Given that there is no "standard" for photo I.D.s, will my Official Cypherpunks Card count? I can easily make my own photo I.D.s, or even order "fake I.D.s" from various mail-order outlets advertising in the Usual Places. If I show up at the airline with two photo I.D.s, one showing me to be "Security Officer Mickey Mouse" and the other showing me to be "Mickey Mouse, Internal Security Agency," will I be violating any laws? --Mickey Mouse (I just changed my name--if you don't like it, FAA, fuck off)

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"adjust your attitude with their billy club"
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:28 AM 7/31/96, Alan Horowitz wrote: >I am a strong libertarian. Sell crack cocaine, rent your pussy to horny >middle-aged businessmen, do any non-violent, >non-damaging-to-others-property you want, but damn well maintain public >order and decorum. Or I will scream to my councilman for the cops to >adjust your attitude with their billy club. When the local cops adjust my attitude with a billy club for dressing like a hippie and lounging around in a public place that my taxes have helped pay for, I'll remember that a "strong libertarian" said that he was doing the right thing. .... In my town, the City-State decided to crack down on the homeless by arresting people for "giving away food" in a public park. They charged the soup providers with various failures to have Health Department permits and for not having a permit to operate a restaurant, pay various fees to the City-State, and so on. I went to a City Council meeting when this was happening (1991-2) and spoke up in the public comment part of the meeting. I pointed out that the very same park at which these "food criminals" were doing their dastardly deeds in was a park at which other people and groups were cooking hot dogs and hamburgers, ladling out bowls of chili, serving potato salad, and generally "distributing food." All, of course, without benefit of licenses, health inspections, OSHA inspections, and so on. I suggested arrests of the picnic groups begin immediately, using the same exact charges used to harass the homeless helpers. The Council members, most of them leftist liberals, had no answer. --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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