December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: CLI_pr3
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:17 PM 5/23/96, John Young wrote: > 5-23-96. WaJo: > > "Chasing Criminals at Cyberspeed." .... > Says Stanley Morris, director of FinCEN, "The only way > we can adequately assist our federal law enforcement > counterparts in following the trail of the multinational > money launderer is through our linkages with > multilateral arrangements such as ... [Clipper 3]." Of course, this appears to be implying that _domestic_ data will be subject to Clipper 3 restrictions, else this statement is meaningless. So, will my stored-value cards that I "charge up" in California and carry in my wallet to Zurich be GAKked? If not, Morris's statement is meaningless. If so, domestic data is intended to be GAKked. (But we knew this, didn't we?) --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."

1 0

National Journal article sez net-activism is just political hicks
by declan＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 11:04:50 -0700 >From: jwarren(a)well.com (Jim Warren) >Subject: National Journal article sez net-activism is just political hicks >Sender: owner-fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu >Precedence: bulk >X-URL: http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/ > >Tommorrow, Washington's politically-powerful National Journal reportedly >will publish a know-nothing piece of "journalism" saying that net-aided >politics is essentially nothing but a batch of ineffective, know-nothing >nerds and back-water political hacks. > >Check it out on Friday or thereafter -- at www.politicsusa.com -- and >forward your *informed* comments to the NJ's Editor and Letters Editor. > >--jim > >On the other hand, maybe we ought to just continue escalating our political >effectiveness using the net, and let it come as a total shock to the >Beltway insiders who trust this piece of misinformed blather ... when we >provide more and more swing votes in contested elections -- as already >occured with DeFoley8 against ex-Speaker Tom Foley, VTW for now-Senator Ron >Wyden, me for now-available Calif legislative data, the gun BBS against >ex-Calif Senate Prez Pro Tem David Roberti, etc. :-) >

1 0

Re: draft NIST key escrow paper
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 16:38 -0400 5/21/96, Pat Farrell wrote: >http://www.isse.gmu.edu/~pfarrell/nist/kmi.html after sentence 1 of their introduction, people might want to re-read http://www.clark.net/pub/cme/html/civ-own-crypto.html "Government can no longer monopolize state of the art cryptography." It's about time they admitted that governments historically had no monopoly on state-of-the-art cryptography. > >Enjoy >Pat > >Pat Farrell grad student http://www.isse.gmu.edu/students/pfarrell >Infor. Systems and Software Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA >PGP key available via finger or request #include standard.disclaimer - Carl +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Carl M. Ellison cme(a)acm.org http://www.clark.net/pub/cme | |PGP: E0414C79B5AF36750217BC1A57386478 & 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2| | "Officer, officer, arrest that man! He's whistling a dirty song." | +-------------------------------------------- Jean Ellison (aka Mother) -+

1 0

Re: An alternative to remailer shutdowns
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:02 PM 5/22/96 -0700, Martin Minow wrote: >Black Unicorn <unicorn(a)schloss.li> comments on the responsiblity >of prudent persons (in, I presume, the context of threating e-mail >sent through an anonymous remailier). > >I'm still perplexed: what can a "prudent" remailer operator do if a >threatening e-mail was sent through a remailer under one or more of >the following conditions: > >-- The remailer operator is legally enjoined from reading messages > transversing his system. (For example, the remailer is subject to > data privacy laws.) > >-- The message was encrypted using the intended recipient's public key. > (This means that, without access to the private key, the operator > has no mechanism to examine the e-mail.) That's just it, the government wants (or, will want) "the prudent operator" to SHUT DOWN his system entirely. We, on the other hand, should take the position that operating a remailer is a right, and further that such remailers get a broad immunity for materials send through their system. Providing for the opposite was one of the reasons the Leahy bill on encryption was so bad. It criminalized use of encryption to "thwart a law-enforcement investigation" and there was no way for a (encrypted) remailer operator to know that any given message flowing through his system might eventually trigger such an investigation. In fact, the prospect of the government actually setting up such an operator by having his remailer act as the last link in the chain of an otherwise-untraceable message, whose transmission could arguably be a violation of law. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

1 0

Re: An alternative to remailer shutdowns
by Rev. Mark Grant, ULC 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 22 May 1996, Bill Stewart wrote: > A secondary concern is handling multi-casts - should the remailer > create one copy for each recipient (secure, easy, space-wasteful), > or should it try to get fancy and keep the message for N recipients or D days? Easy on Unix - just create N links to the same file, delete each link as the recipient requests it, and delete all remaining links after D days. Mark

1 0

Re: (Fwd) Re: TCM: mafia as a paradigm for cyberspace
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On 23 May 96 at 13:16, Bovine Remailer wrote: > jf_avon(a)citenet.net wrote: > >Take note: If you want me to read you, cc me since I unsubscriVed > >:) from Cypherpunks... > > > > there _IS_ a God... > woof Of course! But it just unsubscriVed from CP. Talk about cowardice... not even posting in your own name a remark of that style... You should consider switching to the fuckin.chicken.com remailer. Sigh... So many things to do, so little time... JFA While the Brave dies only once, the Coward dies a thousand times. (old arab proverb) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2i iQEVAwUBMaRycMiycyXFit0NAQFPlQf/R/ynMySw2SkoWZKjCsdl5CqpuF4VwaTq P/1+o+/kDnf+M66NJ/dznmm8VDj3mNtU0uhU9nIBWegsWel7UKQf9e3WAp9tRs5q 9pmkCvoLVJmSGHrMeXbLrcd+fynKOsgEV2ma4SIrrmVoafwtbkcK7DrYh/PuVSUd ItMCbN8BzD332hQ1ETEHn0tG+hBFheLDFo5oaCqL1Zg4pd2CYRW8x2xKy4DoyEkH 7Fl1MhG0WaIu2MAB68IEKO5rCS8Y2V9L2zkCxNYqCMucK6ZwzL7vlXd7wVFEG+gI OTpiZvhWLv7Tl/j3Fgk7rgunzJcNEY9YMDjqd2ufMKYNk/3BveST1g== =molC -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee; Limoges porcelain, silverware and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants: physicists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 I reserve the right to post publicly any private e-mail sent to me. Unsollicited commercial e-mail will be proofread at US165 $/h Any sender of such material will be considered as to have ac- cepted the above mentionned terms.

1 0

Re: (Fwd) Re: TCM: mafia as a paradigm for cyberspace
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:37 PM 5/22/96 -0700, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: >>>the above sentence I find absolutely abhorrent: it justifies killing, >>>not merely because of the effect (the sort of "ends-justifies-the-means" >>>argument used by most here), but that in addition it is >>>supposedly "ethical". ethical?!?!? >> >>Then you've obviously dramatically mis-read my ideas. I don't claim that >>_EVERYBODY_ who will fall victim will "deserve" it by your or my opinions, > >oh, so in other words, a lot of "innocent" people will be murdered >under AP. ah, another great "feature", not a "bug", right?? Tell ya what: name a weapon that CANNOT be used to harm an innocent person. Go ahead, I'm waiting. >>For example, if you believe in NIOFP, then anyone who violates it has >>initiated force, and the victim of such force (or, perhaps, anyone else?) >>can legitimately use a system like AP to fight back. > >what is "legitimate"? in our government, "legitimate" refers to our >judicial system. "Legal" is the word you're looking for, not legitimate. > it is what determines what is "legitimate" based >on laws. in your AP anarchy scheme, the word "legitimate" has no meaning. >"legitimate" is in the eye of the beholder. this ridiculous and >impractical definition was discarded centuries ago because of the >free-for-all bloody violence it inevitably leads to. What?!? You mean that after 100 million war deaths in this century alone, you're suggesting that we DON'T have "free-for-all bloody violence"? Or are you simply used to the kind of violence that exists today? That's a common trap people fall into: They simply accept whatever current system we have, as if it is somehow required or okay or... >be very >clear about what you are advocating: in AP, there are no laws. Right! There are no "laws" per se. But there are people, and their interests, and what they believe to be their rights. > people >do not rely on the judicial system to solve their problems. RIGHT! But as importantly, they aren't the _victims_ of that "judicial system" either. Rodney King, for instance. Donald Scott. Randy Weaver. The Branch Davidians, etc. All these people were fundamentally victims of an organization political/legal heirarchy filled with people who had (defacto) greater rights/authority than ordinary citizens, and abused the public with it. > they >take the "law" into their own hands and take out contracts on anyone >who offends them. would they feel justified in killing people who >disagree with them on cyberspace mailing lists? perhaps, who is to tell? I've explained that I believe that the post-AP world will be far less violent than today, partly because there will be no people in positions of authority who can abuse the rest of us with impunity, or force us to go to war against our will. It will also allow GOOD people to punish BAD people without depending on the "system" to do it. It will also tend to prevent the enforcement of "victimless crime" laws that currently result in 60-70% of the prison and jail population. You need to show that yes, you see the advantages, but also show that you have a plausible belief that my system will be worse than the status quo. Citing a specific potential problem without quantifying it is pointless. >>You seem to be assuming that if there are TWO "wrongs" here. But I've tried >>to make it abundantly clear that justification for the self-defense comes >>from the initial "wrong." > >but who decides what is wrong? Each individual, for himself. True, he may occasionally make mistakes, but I contend that the vast majority of these decisions will be entirely justified. The truly bad people, the REAL criminals, will not last long. > the arbitrary opinion of some single >human idiot out anywhere in the world? don't you see the tyranny >of this? it is far worse than the tyranny of a government if I were >to be killed by someone who believes that I violated his rights >by breathing air particles or whatever. via AP, you wish to give him >the mechanism to murder me without trace. If the danger you describe was of higher probability than the alternative, the status quo, you might have a point. But it isn't. Further, the prospect of AP getting rid of (or reforming, because they'll have no choice) most of the real criminals (plus de-populating government and preventing its abusiveness) results in a dramatic reduction in the violations of rights that will occur. >> Where, then, is the SECOND "wrong"? What, >>exactly, makes it wrong? If a person can't get justice any other way (not >>to be confused with merely a chance at justice) then why deny that person >>his rights? > >deny rights, legitimacy, justice, blah, blah, blah. the terms you use have no >meaning in the system you are advocating. there are no "rights" in an anarchy, >because a government is the entity created to safeguard/protect them. Just because we currently think of "the government" as "the entity created to safeguard rights" doesn't mean that this is really so, and it doesn't mean that it actually achieves a net protection of our rights. What government actually does is to monopolize (as best it can) the use of force, and then force the public to pay for a protection service. And monopolies result in classicly bad service, as we all know. >all actions are legitimate in an anarchy, because there is no civilized >system that rejects any ones in particular. If the probability of an improper action is dramatically reduced, without being eliminated, that is an improvement, right? Tell me, as a citizen don't we deserve changing to a system that reduces violations of rights? >>>It should be obvious to anyone around here that if AP "works," it will work >>regardless of whether it meets with your approval or any other subset of >>humankind. That makes it worthy of discussion even if you don't like it. > >it will "work" exactly as anonymous murdering now works. AP already exists, >that's what you don't understand. No, it doesn't, certainly not quantitatively, and in practice not qualitatively, either. Take a 5-foot wave, and notice that it doesn't overflow a 50-foot seawall. Twenty of them, separately, likewise don't get past it. But combine them in one large wave, and the 100-foot wave does get by. The fundamental advantage of AP is that the desires of thousands of people can be combined in order to accomplish what no individual would be able to induce on his own. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

2 1

Re: ecash representation
by Perry E. Metzger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Peter Trei" writes: > Back in the mid-80's, I worked for several years at Irving Trust, > a (now-gone) major money center bank. One of the financial > messaging systems I worked with stored currency amounts > as 96-bit vectors of a base unit (eg, a penny), and > could have a 'binary point' anywhere in the vector. There were > the usual math functions available to handle this data type. Sounds like the usual fixed point hack used for manipulating and storing money. Most systems I've seen use things like this. Floats have all sorts of defects, like not conveniently indicating to you the point at which they start dropping precision. A float doesn't care that it just started dropping vast amounts of the precision in some calculation where you are unfortunate enough to have done the order of operations wrong. At that point, a hack will have kept its precision or will indicate overflow, but floats blythely keep on going. This leads to very unpleasant problems down the road. Perry

1 0

[NOISE] Re: ecash representation
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >>>>> "Peter Trei" <trei(a)process.com> writes: > > "Did you know that there is a subunit of the Japanese yen?" > > I lived there for three years, and I don't remember that... > > -Robin It hasn't been used much since the value of the Yen dropped after WW2, but 100 sen = 1 yen. I don't think there is any actual sen currancy in circulation. A numistmatist (sp?) might be able to tell you more. Peter

1 0

Re: [SCARE]: "If you only knew what we know..."
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Peter Cassidy, an esteemed subscriber here, is the Wired author Tim notes, who reports on the Bernstein case in the June issue. A well-written piece with several thought-provokings in addition to those cited by Tim. Peter writes of Judge Marilyn Hall Patel on the Bernstein case: "Before the case is resolved, Patel's skepticism of the state's perogatives will be tested to the limit when the government is called upon to defend its policy. Patel is then likely to be given the *in camera* presentation of The Deepest Darkest Secrets of Cryptography -- probably a modified version of the classifed briefing the NSA has used with great success to influence members of Congress. Legend has it that no one who ever got 'the briefing' ever again opposed the agency." Peter, anyone, are these welcome-to-the-inner-circle briefings always by NDA, or worse threat? Wonder if a public-spirited cryptographer is working on a book for a movie about this heart of the deepest darkness?

1 0