December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Nature of Rights
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:09 AM 5/14/96, Allen Ethridge wrote: >And on another thread, if rights are simply restrictions on the >government and not attributes (inate, even) of the individual, then they >are meaningless. I presume you're speaking about my point.... This is generally not the place to have long debates about the nature of government and of civil rights, but it bears mentioning that the Constitution of the United States _is_ primarily about the delineation of the role of government, not of private entities, corporations, clubs, social groups, etc. Thus, "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion" refers to freedom from coercion by government about religion, and to separation of church and state. It has nothing to do with whether you or I feel our "rights" within the First Unified Temple of Baal are being properly respected. And so on for various other enumerated rights, including the right of free speech, the right to keep and bear arms, the right of free association, and so on. As nearly every argument in this area points out, your right to free speech does not mean you get to use my newspaper, nor my public address system, nor my computer service. The so-called innate or intrinsic rights ("life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness") are basically bromides. Philosophical arguing points for a view of government as being limited in scope. Converting a slogan like this to assume this means government will guarantee jobs for all, or will provide two cars in every driveway, or whatever, has been fraught with problems. Not the least of which are that such goals are inimical to the actual, enumerated rights. --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: Civil liberties of employees (Re: FYB_oss)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:29 AM 5/14/96, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: >From: IN%"froomkin(a)law.miami.edu" "Michael Froomkin" 14-MAY-1996 03:24:06.58 >>Yes and no...and kinda no. > > Umm... you would appear to be discussing the current legal situation, >whereas TCMay was discussing what the situation _should_ be. In the limits >you discuss, the civil liberties of the _employer_ are being seriously >trampled upon. Exactly. As I described in another post last night, this is the point. I've mostly given up on trying to change the existing laws and political system...it is too far down the path de Tocqueville described a century and a half ago (roughly, "America's great experiment with democracy will last only until the populace discovers it can pick the pockets of others at the ballot box."). Strong cryptography at least returns "freedom of association" to us, albeit not with True Names, and may return other freedoms to us as well. By bypassing democracy, the true enemy of liberty. --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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More involuntary c'punk subscriptions on the way?
by Mark O. Aldrich 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In the May '96 issue of Computer Security Alert, Padgett Peterson provides an explanation of how mail bombing is done. It's on page 3 under the "E-mail Security" column with the headline "Mad Bombers on the Net." In the article, Padgett explains the three "stages" of mail bombing: First is to send ungodly amounts of mail from you to the target, the next is to post something offensive under a forged ID to one or more of the "less ruly" [his words] USENET groups, such as alt.2600 or alt.tasteless [his citations], and the third is to subscribe people to mailing lists against their will using forged e-mail. Naturally, Padgett (bless his twisted little mind) indicates that the most severe results can be achieved by sending forged subscription requests to "the larger listservers such as cypherpunks", that generate in excess of a hundred messages a day. Since hackers and wannabes probably read INFOSEC publications with more zeal than do INFOSEC practitioners, I'd say we're likely to be in for even more of the "I don't want to be on this list" sorts of traffic. And Padgett, next time you get interviewed on mail bombing by the press, why don't you point them to "The KISS Army Mailing List," or something of that sort? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Liberty is truly dead |Mark Aldrich | | when the slaves are willing |GRCI INFOSEC Engineering | | to forge their own chains. |maldrich(a)grci.com | | STOP THE CDA NOW! |MAldrich(a)dockmaster.ncsc.mil | |_______________________________________________________________________| |The author is PGP Empowered. Public key at: finger maldrich(a)grci.com | | The opinions expressed herein are strictly those of the author | | and my employer gets no credit for them whatsoever. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: (legal) Re: CDA Dispatch #10: Last Day in Court
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:30 PM 5/14/96, Joseph M. Reagle Jr. wrote: > Perhaps someone with a better legal understanding of court cases >could help me out. I understood from a law course I took that appeals could >only be filed with respect to process rather than result. One cannot appeal >a decision, rather one has to appeal the manner in which it was reached (if >witnesses were biased, important evidence was suppressed, etc.) I was rather >surprised by this, but obviously this doesn't prevent people from appealing >willy-nilly because they just fabricate some reason why the process was >corrupted. > > However, in a venue such as this, what basis can one appeal on? On >the ACLU side I can actually see an appeal with respect to the >constitutionality (but I'm not quite sure what) and on the Reno side I don't >see what they could appeal. Was some evidence poorly presented? It isn't >like there are any witnesses to lead. IANALBIGCTV (I am not a lawyer but I get Court TV), but _Constitutional_ issues are always available for appeal (though of course not always accepted for appeal). For instance, if the lowest level of the court system tells a newspaper it may not publish a story, this is automatically appealable to the next level up, even if all sides agree the first trial was a model of proper trial procedure. To a large extent, this is what the Appeals process, including the Supreme Court, is all about. The Supreme Court does more than just clean up sloppy mistakes made by lower courts, it establishes the "basic interpretation" of the Constitution and legislation. In this case, it is the basic constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act itself that is at issue, not the specific application of it to a specific case (and even then, it could be challenged on constitutional issues...in this case, it is going directly through the process to the Supreme Court for review). (Another way this case is not like a simple court case is that the government side gets to appeal a loss; in a conventional criminal trial, a la OJ, the government does not get to appeal a loss. I'm sure the lawyers and law professors out there can say more about the distinction, about when and under what circumstances the prosecution side gets "another bite of the apple," and about what the terms of appeals may be.) --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: Civil liberties of employees (Re: FYB_oss)
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Wildly off-topic...] Michael Froomkin wrote: ... >...And there's a lot more >than skimpy outfits at issue, including a refusal to hire men for what are >allegedly food service jobs (gender may only be a determination of >employment if it is a bona fide occupational qualfiication, e.g. policing >the showers in the gym; gender is not a BFOQ for food service jobs.) Being a "Hooters Girl" is not a typical "allegedly food service" job. [Because it's an election-year] the EEOC dropped the case, but not before Tom Hazlett did an *excellent* piece on it in REASON. _Corporate Rakeovers_, Feb. 1996 p. 66

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Re: PRZ /PGP
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:57 PM 5/13/96 -0700, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: [Stupid trolling on reagan and the cold war deleted] > > it may also be that Zimmermann has a set of beliefs that he > champions in front of the public, but that his private ideology > is more radical. Zimmermann is in favor of liberty. Some of his ideas about how people can and should deal with each other to avoid violating each others rights are badly mistaken, but one of his ideas about liberty is spot on. [lots more trolling deleted] > 4. PRZ has a bad track record as far as meeting deadlines. No software project has ever come in on schedule or within budget. Yours will not be the first. [Even more moronic trolling deleted] --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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Defeating fingerprints
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > With regards to filling in your own card, what about using a disappearing > ink?? Then your prints would disappear! You could even do your name, > right infront of them, and it would disappear, leaving these anynonomous > prints behind!! While the ink does become transparent/translucent I am shure the FBI chem lab won't have a problem finding traces of the chemical. This would make for jim dandy evidence in court. > Or you could make an inkpad that is damp with sodium hydroxide (lye) > instead of ink. That way, you could lightly roll your fingers in it, > like it was ink, and then wait a minute, and wipe it off. That way, the > only skin being eaten away, would be the ridges of the fingerprints. Do > this enought times, and the rigdes will end up the same height as the > valleys, and will then essentially be flat. Burglars and safecrackers sand the ridges off. Jim Choate

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crosspost re remailers
by hkhenson＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sorry to send this in blind. Over a year ago I switched from watching the "mutitions" R&D works to being an observer/participant on a small "test war." Once in a while, I send in a report. If you have comments which you want me to see, email them. Thanks, Keith Henson ******* Subject: Re: <<< Repost the NOTS everywhere! >>> Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.censorship References: <4ml2cv$c52(a)utopia.hacktic.nl> <4mrsf0$esn(a)news.bridge.net> <4ms9na$l24(a)Networking.Stanford.EDU> <4msu79$jdi(a)news.bridge.net> <henriDr5rpD.CqD(a)netcom.com> <4nae9i$bf7(a)news2.texas.net> Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Distribution: inet Hoyos (hoyos(a)millenium.texas.net) wrote: : henry (henri(a)netcom.com) wrote: : : >What I find disturbing is certain people who were visibly outraged by : : >Steven Fishman's "outings" are supportive of the remailer abuse, _as_well_ : : remailer ABUSE? how is it remailer ABUSE to use them for their : : intended purposes. : Remailers exist to destroy copyrights? I always thought they were around : to ensure a certain amount of anonymity, not to permit people to destroy : copyrights and get away with it. Hoyos, you *can't* destroy copyright, period. Trade secrets are another matter, and I suppose you can make a case that the ability of a certain powerful cult to extract money or labor from the gulible has been reduced. I know some of the people who wrote the first cypherpunk remailers. They have been watching the uses to which the remailers have been put. The long drawn out battle between the CoS and the Net has been of as much interest to them as the performance of large guns at the front was to Krup. I can't speak for all of them--actually, I can't speak for *any* of them, but the ones who have said anything about the recent uses of the remailers do not seem unhappy. There may be some discussion related to this on the cypherpunks mailing list. But if you sign up, be prepaired for a flood. Keith Henson Crossposted to cypherpunks

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RSAREF for Mac?
by Jay Haines 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Subject: Time: 1:24 PM OFFICE MEMO RSAREF for Mac? Date: 5/14/96 It seems that I have seen this question asked before, but as I had no need for the answer at that time, I trashed it. So, without further ado: Can anyone point in the direction of RSAREF for the Macintosh? expectantly, (no, i'm not pregnant,) Jay

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

17 Dec '03

At 3:22 PM 5/14/96, Matthew Williams wrote: >> Date sent: Mon, 13 May 1996 23:19:12 -0400 (EDT) >> From: Black Unicorn <unicorn(a)schloss.li> > ><...> > >> >> I compare it to the ease with which one submits a fake social security >> number rather than simply refuse to submit one at all. A fake one wont >> raise any eyebrows, refusal will. > >Although knowingly providing a fake social security number when one >has any expectation of gain is, I believe, a felony. > >42 USC. sec. 408. Indeed. Plus, should one "just make a number up," odds are good that it "won't compute," that is, that it will either collide with an existing number (and identity, and reported income) or that it will fail the checksum/allocation tests. (That is, not all xxx-yy-zzzz numbers are valid SS numbers. See Chris Hibbert's "Structure of Social Security Numbers" FAQ, at http://snyside.sunnyside.com/cpsr/privacy/ssn/oldSSN/ssn.structure.html for details.) The IRS imposes penalties for faking SS numbers. (Not to mention the punishment meted out by the Sturmgruppenfuhrers of the SS!) A simple transposition of two digits may not get you zapped, but a large-scale transposition or outright falsification will. If and when they catch up with you. I'm all for avoiding taxes, but this is not a cost-effective way to do it. --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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