December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: cypherpunks vs hackers
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:36 PM 7/27/96, Jerome Tan wrote: >How can we differentiate cypherpunks to hackers? What are their attitudes, >psychological thinking, main objective? I would differentiate cypherpunks to hackers this way: dC/dH Not sure what the result is, but the slope is the key. --Tim 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 Beautiful Women
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:48 PM 7/27/96 -0500, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: >Timothy C. May wrote: >> While there is some chance that one will get to #20 and find that none of >> #8-20 were better than #1-7, this strategy is the best compromise between >> "committing too early" and "waiting too long." > >This "some chance" is 1/e (for a very large number of women), obviously. > >There is 1/e chance that the best woman will be in the first 1/e >fraction of women. > >Also, I would appreciate if someone specified what exactly the goal >function is. > > - Igor. "Come again?" [quickly ducking...] Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Public vs. Private Munitions
by Erle Greer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:25 AM 7/28/96 -0700, you wrote: >At 7:24 PM 7/27/96, Erle Greer wrote: > >> Theoretically, the government should only be have the resources to >>control commercially-available, public encryption systems. Who is to stop > >While I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a "commercially-available, >public encryption system," I think your point is incorrect. I didn't mean that I think that the govt should be allowed to control. I meant that govt would only be able to regulate commercial and/or public systems. They, of course, would have no say in the specs of my personally-written cryptosystem. >(My confusion is that a commercially-available system is not necessarily a >"public" system, if by public one means public domain. If one means >"published specifications," still not the case. Confusing.) Sorry about the confusion. Although I may have used the two terms loosely, I was trying to contrast commercial and public against something written in secret and not offered for govt approval. >Howver, the government cannot step in and "control" a >commercially-available product, by even the most liberal interpretations of >the commerce clause. "Tim's Pretty Flaky Snakeoil System," for example. I >can announce it, sell it, and the government is powerless to "control" it. >(Even if it were "public.") > >If by "public" you mean an NBS or NIST standard, like DES, then I suppose >the government can in some sense "control" it. (Even this is iffy, IMO, as >I know of no rules saying DES implementations must be approved by NIST or >anyone else.) > >>anyone from designing their own cryptosystem for personal use? If the >>government intercepted a transmission from this private cryptosystem, and >>could not decrypt it, would they assume that it must be considered >>munitions? Similarly, anyone could send uniformly-formatted random garble >>that could also be considered munitions, or at least waste the governments >>processing time. > >Most of the cryptosystems are not under the "control" of the government, >even by the standards of your first definition. Period. RSA is not a >government-controlled system, though it is both "commercially-available" >AND "public" (in that the spec and algorithm are clearly published). > >And the talk about "personal use" is misleading, IMO. It suggests that >government can and should regulate use for "business purposes" but not >personal uses. I disagree with this distinction. Absolutely not! Let me clarify that I feel that the govt should have no part in crypto regulation, be it commercial, public, private, business, etc. >> Why are we so worried about government regulation? Can't we just >>devise our own cryptosystems and just don't sell them or make them publicly >>available? > >You mean the way public key systems in general and RSA in particular were >invented and devised by non-government folks? After some responses and some thought, I have seen the error in my thinking. Having a secret, proprietary cryptosystem would loose the public-key benefit. It would be fine, I believe, for point-to-point communications though.

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Re: WaPo on Crypto-Genie Terrorism
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 27 Jul 96 at 19:21, John Young wrote: > The Washington Post, July 27, 1996, p. A22. > Speaking in Code on the Internet ... [Editorial] Some bothersome things about this editorial... [..] > security of their data. They also see it as a market in > which the United States maintains a comfortable lead, one > that is threatened if domestic encryption makers can't sell > their products elsewhere. The makers argue that foreign > encryption software will rush in to fill the gap, doing > nothing about the uncrackability problem -- indeed, making > it worse. The administration in turn is pursuing a wider IMO, the US does not have a comfortable lead. It's already falling behind considering some of the stronger crypto programs available (at least as freeware) are made outside the US. Many of the stronger algorithms were invented outside of the US (IDEA for instance). [..] > with wiretapping. Mr. Freeh, testifying at Thursday's hearing in > favor of an optional key escrow plan, noted that the point is not > to prevent all copies of uncrackable code from going abroad -- that's > clearly impossible -- but to prevent such high-level code > from becoming the international standard, with architecture > and transmission channels all unreadable to world > authorities. To software companies and Internet users who So why should criminals bother with using standards if they are readable by authorities? > have been clamoring for the right to encrypt as securely as > possible, Mr. Freeh and others argue, "the genie is not yet > out of the bottle" on "robust," meaning uncrackable, > encryption. Are they going to magically erase all copies of strong software that is already currently available? (Side note: the Pacifica news report on Friday notes that while Freeh gave his testimony, over 100 copies of PGP were downloaded from MIT's site.) [..] > Encryption, if widely used, could conceivably ease some > privacy problems concerning who gets to see personal and > financial data on individuals -- though such data usually > are vulnerable to being dug out of storage rather than > intercepted in transmission. But neither is it clear that And evidence cannot be encrypted. You cannot encrypt an airplane full of cocaine or an unusually expensive car baught by money from drugs, espionage, etc. Nor can you encrypt bomb-making materials, nor conversations in a room (from your mouth to a telephone receiver). Nor will encryption do anything about informants inside the communications loop. etc. etc.... > the encryption enthusiasts' desire for free development > should take precedence over the tracking of terrorism. At It's not clear that terrorism can be tracked, even if it's unencrypted. The OK and WTC bombings were apparently not encrypted, and there's some allegations that the authorities had advanced warnings of the latter. > the very least, Congress should be exceedingly cautious > about getting out ahead of administration concerns on > controls that, once lifted, are hardly reversible. The controls haven't done much to prevent free software from being exported. They only control commercial sales of software (and hardware). Particularly absent in the WaPo-ed is that many do not trust the authorities (in the US and elsewhere)--particularly the FBI, which has a long history of extra-legal surveillance. Rob --- No-frills sig. Befriend my mail filter by sending a message with the subject "send help" Key-ID: 5D3F2E99 1996/04/22 wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com (root@magneto) AB1F4831 1993/05/10 Deranged Mutant <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a message with the subject "send pgp-key" for a copy of my key.

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Re: Public vs. Private Munitions
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:36 AM 7/28/96, Erle Greer wrote: >At 11:25 AM 7/28/96 -0700, you wrote: >>At 7:24 PM 7/27/96, Erle Greer wrote: >> >>> Theoretically, the government should only be have the resources to >>>control commercially-available, public encryption systems. Who is to stop >> >>While I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a "commercially-available, >>public encryption system," I think your point is incorrect. > >I didn't mean that I think that the govt should be allowed to control. I >meant that govt would only be able to regulate commercial and/or public >systems. They, of course, would have no say in the specs of my >personally-written cryptosystem. Your clarification does not improve things. The notion that the "govt would only be able to regulate commercial and/or public systems" is wrong. (There may be a very few situations involving product safety, fraud, etc....many of us disagree with even these interventions, of course.) Think of it this way: "govt would only be able to regulate commercial and/or public word processors." The government has no authority to "regulate" word processors, commercial or otherwise. >>(My confusion is that a commercially-available system is not necessarily a >>"public" system, if by public one means public domain. If one means >>"published specifications," still not the case. Confusing.) > >Sorry about the confusion. Although I may have used the two terms loosely, >I was trying to contrast commercial and public against something written in >secret and not offered for govt approval. The United States government does not receive software submissions "for govt approval." I really think you need to look into what the role of the U.S. government actually is, with regard to programs. (It is always important to remember that there are no laws whatsover about the types of software individuals or businesses may use, save for some specific laws about such things as racial discrimination, sexual harassment, taxes, etc. But no laws about crypto, word processors, etc. And the government has no "Sofware Approval Office.") I guess we will have to agree that we are unable to find a common basis for communication. --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 Beautiful Women
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:54 AM 7/28/96, Mike Duvos wrote: >ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes: > > > Also, I would appreciate if someone specified what exactly > > the goal function is. > >Me too. > >This is an interesting problem, vaguely reminescent of the pie >judging contests commonly used as examples of non-parametric >statistics. Given two pies, (or two women), a judge can >subjectively order them by tastiness, (or beauty), but there is >no concept of an continuous metric in which the ratings of >particular items are embedded. You're both reading far too much into this problem. David S. specified "beauty," the personal judgment of the chooser. No deep philosophical meaning. Perhaps an equivalent formulation will make this clearer: One is passing through a town with 20 gas stations, with gas at various prices. The stipulation is that one cannot turn around. Once a gas station has been passed, there's no turning back. So, what is the best strategy for finding the lowest gas price (or shortest lines, or cleanest appearance, or brightest sign, or whatever one wants to analyze). Or even by the most beautiful girl standing in front, to return us to the original statement. So, you see, the problem is well-defined, with an elegant solution. --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: Public vs. Private Munitions
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:24 PM 7/27/96 -0500, Erle Greer <vagab0nd(a)sd.cybernex.net> wrote: > Theoretically, the government should only be have > the resources to control commercially-available, public > encryption systems. [...] > Why are we so worried about government regulation? > Can't we just devise our own cryptosystems and just don't > sell them or make them publicly available? Theoretically, the First Amendment says you can say or write anything you want. In practice, the Supremes have said it means far less than that; during some of their worst years they approved convicting people for speaking against the draft because it interfered with the US ability to conduct a war it hadn't yet gotten into, and they've generally held that commercial speech doesn't rate the same protection as political speech. Feh! Theoretically, on the other hand, the US Government has the power to regulate interstate commerce. (A bad idea, in my opinion, though taking that power away from the states was clearly good.) In practice, the Supremes have let the Congress get away with all sorts of abuses, like banning a farmer from growing grain on his own land and feeding it to his own hogs, and banning citizens from growing or manufacturing their own drugs because it's difficult to tell whether a given bunch of drugs was really grown in the state it's in or bought from out of state. Various government officials have taken the position that giving a university class on encryption is restricted by ITAR; Dan Bernstein's lawsuit against them is off to a very good start. This isn't even distributing products - this is discussing math. It's potentially illegal for me to even write the evil equations in this mail message, since it's going to foreigners. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # Dispel Authority!

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Re: Twenty Beautiful Women
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 20:54 7/27/96, Mike Duvos wrote: >ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes: > > > Also, I would appreciate if someone specified what exactly > > the goal function is. > >Me too. For clarification, the problem is often stated in textbooks similar like this: You ask someone to write one number each on ten pieces of paper without you being able to see the numbers. The person may use any number from 1 to 10^99, but may not use a number twice. The person turns over the ten papers. You goal is to determine the paper with the highest number [rules apply as described in the original post] The general solution is to flip over 1/e papers and choose the paper that has a higher number on it than any of the 1/e papers turned over at first. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November. Vote Harry Browne for President.

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Re: Feinstein wants controls on Internet, Books
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Return-Path: cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com >Received: from toad.com (toad.com [140.174.2.1]) by desiree.teleport.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id LAA20243; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:45:31 -0700 (PDT) >Received: (from majordom@localhost) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA24963 for cypherpunks-outgoing; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:18:18 -0700 (PDT) >Received: from slack.lne.com (slack.lne.com [140.174.94.3]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id LAA24943 for <cypherpunks(a)toad.com>; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:18:04 -0700 (PDT) >Received: (from ericm@localhost) by slack.lne.com (8.7.1/1.0) id LAA01221; Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:17:38 -0700 >From: Eric Murray <ericm(a)lne.com> >Message-Id: <199607281817.LAA01221(a)slack.lne.com> >Subject: Re: Feinstein wants controls on Internet, Books >To: tcmay(a)got.net (Timothy C. May) >Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 11:17:38 -0700 (PDT) >Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com >In-Reply-To: <ae20e54404021004a690(a)[205.199.118.202]> from "Timothy C. May" at Jul 29, 96 02:26:17 am >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com >Precedence: bulk >X-UIDL: 80129fa915fe7d4135b53b9b5e157ff7 > >Timothy C. May writes: >> >> >> One of my senators, Senator Dianne Feinstein, is now arguing on CNN for >> controls on information put on the Internet, on censorship of books and >> articles describing how pipe bombs work, and for making it easier to get >> wiretaps against those suspected of committing thought crimes. >> >> One or two more major incidents on top of the recent ones (World Trade >> Center, Oklahoma City, Dharan, TWA 800, and Olympic Village) and I suspect >> Congress will simply vote to repeal the Bill of Rights and just be done >> with this whole experiment in liberty. > >Yes, but it won't be nearly that blatant. In classic Orewllian >Doublespeak, it'll be called the "Terrorist Victims Bill >of Rights and Freedom of Information Act" and will merely >'abridge' the Bill of Rights with the "right" of the government >to investigate, wiretap, arrest and detain without trial >any suspected "terrorists" and "drug kingpins". > >Cancelling the Bill of Rights would be too obvious, and probably >isn't the outright goal of any but a few extremists in government. >Rather, the majority of bureaucrats/elected officials want to >redefine the Rights to only apply to "good citizens", for somewhat >varying definitions of "good". "They" won't suddenly stage a fascist >coup, instead it will (and has been) a long step-by-step process. >I don't think that most policy-makers are even aware >of what they're doing (DiFi certainly isn't) they're >just responding to preceived public pressure and trying >to stay elected. > >The ugliest phrase in American lexicon: "There oughta be a law". > > > >-- >Eric Murray ericm(a)lne.com ericm(a)motorcycle.com http://www.lne.com/ericm >PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03 92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF > > --- 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: WaPo on Crypto-Genie Terrorism
by Vinnie Moscaritolo 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

AT Sat, 27 Jul 1996 16:14:24 Alan Olsen wrote >I beleive that there is alot that can be done to influence the public to be >pro-crypto. With the proper memes, you can reveal the flaws in the >anti-privacy forces arguments. > >Here are a few in no particular order... . <SNIP> >Offer to sponsor a crypto archive and discussion area on a local BBS. Keep >it current. Get others interested. Spread the tools and teach people how >to use them. > actually this is the major reasons that I am doing the Macintosh Crypto conference at apple Sept 5/6.I want to educate mac developers about crypto. (with or without mr may) Maybe, Just maybe one of these guys will go out and write great crypto program (like a Kid-Crypto..Kidpix clone) that will let the average joe use crypto. as things stand now, windoze folks are going to have to settle with Mcro$ofts Access to Keys...MAK or is it Bill's Access to Keys.. BAK in any case I didnt want to get into a my pulldownmenu is longer than your pulldownmenu argument.. I just want to see it get on the radar fo people who code. You see I dont care what your favorite platform is,( if you like editing in VI fine, I personnly like TECO), BUT I am acting localy, doing my part, not just complaining about it... So if you want to help, I am still looking for folks to talk... maybe about why crypto is so important. Crypto-archarchy. or maybe some e$ stuff would be nice... Vinnie Moscaritolo ------------------ "friends come and friends go..but enemies accumulate." http://www.vmeng.com/vinnie/ Fingerprint: 4FA3298150E404F2782501876EA2146A

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