December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Rubber Hose Algorithm
by gimonca＠skypoint.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There's a lot of armchair theorizing on this list about government oppression and such. For comparison purposes, here is a real-life example: ========================================= From: hrwatchnyc(a)igc.org Sent: 15 Agustus 1996 7:00 Subject: Indonesia--Arrest of Lecturer for Internet Communication Human Rights Watch sent the following letter, protesting the arrest of a university lecturer for communicating on the Internet, to the Indonesian government today. August 14, 1996 His Excellency M. Arifin Siregar Ambassador to the United States Embassy of Indonesia 2020 Mass. Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 Your Excellency: I am writing on behalf of Human Rights Watch/Asia to protest the arrest of Drs. Prihadi Beny Waluyo, a lecturer at Duta Wacana Christian University. Drs. Waluyo was arrested at his home by soldiers of the district military command. He was reportedly accused of distributing e-mail messages and also of sending messages relating to the July 27 riots to a destination in Holland. His arrest came after an unidentified person gave an officer photocopies of e-mail messages that were traced to Drs. Waluyo. The person claimed the printouts came from a store in Kebumen, a district of Yogyakarta. Following his arrest, Drs. Waluyo was interrogated by the military about his connections with the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD), which the government has accused of masterminding the riots, but he denied any involvement with the PRD. He acknowledged that he had sent messages over the Internet. Following his questioning, he was reportedly ordered to go to his home and was told to report to the district military command on a regular basis. He is said to be under strict surveillance. Human Rights Watch opposes actions by the Indonesian government to restrict electronic communication. As stated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. We believe that such forums provide a truly unique opportunity for people from around the globe to share their views with an international audience. By allowing unrestricted communication, important issues can receive the benefit of serious discussion by the broadest cross-section of society. If the Internet is to achieve its potential to become a global information infrastructure, it is important, at the present moment, to agree to allow its unrestricted development. We urge that Drs. Waluyi and every other citizen be allowed to receive and transmit electronic mail without fear of harassment, intimidation, or arrest. Sincerely, Sidney Jones Executive Director Human Rights Watch/Asia cc: His Excellency Nugroho Wisnumurti, Ambassador to the United Nations Gopher Address://gopher.humanrights.org:5000 Listserv address: To subscribe to the list, send an e-mail message to majordomo(a)igc.apc.org with "subscribe hrw-news" in the body of the message (leave the subject line blank). Human Rights Watch 485 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10017-6104 TEL: 212/972-8400 FAX: 212/972-0905 E-mail: hrwnyc(a)hrw.org 1522 K Street, N.W. Washington D.C. 20005 TEL: 202/371-6592 FAX: 202/371-0124 E-mail: hrwdc(a)hrw.org ========================================= ObCrypto: On the brighter side, some individuals on soc.culture.indonesia have become remailer users. Others have been forging Usenet headers with varying degrees of success.

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Re: Protecting floating datahavens?
by Vincent Cate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: William Knowles <erehwon(a)c2.org> > Now I don't claim to be a naval defence expert, But from what > I do read of the dogeared copies of Jane's Defence Weekly, > Would be to install three or four Phalanx Close-In Weapons For those interested in todays piracty I recomment "Outlaws of the Ocean" by G.O.W. Mueller and Freda Adler. The main types of ocean outlaws: 1) Smuggling (freon, dugs "square groupers" - bales of pot, ...) 2) Immigration (illegal immigration can be very profitable) 3) Insurance Fraud (tanker sinks, but unknow to the insurance company the oil had already been offloaded...) 4) Violent crime - what I think of as piracy Piracy is not a victimless crime. Since there are victims, there is someone to shoot at the pirates. Makes it a tough business and not as profitable as, some others. Most piracy occures in "known dangerous areas". Other piracy is drug dealers taking very fast boat so they have an unregistered boat. There were some stories about freighters being attacked in one area, but once they started all carrying guns, the attacks ended. After reading this my impression was that the odds of car-jacking or mugging inside the USA were higher than the odds of a cruising boat getting attacked by pirates. Pirates are going to pick what looks to them like easy targets. A Phalanx or two on the side of a large boat would not look like an easy target. :-) In fact, just one semi-automatic mounted on the side would probably prevent all attacks by pirates. -- Vince ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Vincent Cate vince(a)offshore.com.ai http://www.offshore.com.ai/vince/ Offshore Information Services http://www.offshore.com.ai/

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signoff cypherpunks
by Arnauld Dravet 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

signoff cypherpunks

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Re: The Transparency Of Cyber-Nitrate
by an572010＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rush Graves <llurch(a)stanford.edu> writes: >> yawen(a)enter.net (Yale F. Edeiken) writes: >> >> Alexander Baron <A_Baron(a)abaron.demon.co.uk> writes: >> >> In article <4ui6qj$bk5(a)news.enter.net> yawen(a)enter.net "Yale F. Edeiken" >> >writes: >> > >> >> > texts on Hitler. You demonstrate another typical denier failing as >> >> > well. One of your >> >> > friends (according to your story) goofed. Insttead of blaming him, you >> >> > called someone who correctly pointed you to a valid source of >> >> > information a nasty name. >> >> > Where is your apology, Lyin' Al? >> > >> >> You really are one unpleasant person, aren't you Yale? You must meet an >> >> awful lot of "anti-Semites". >> > >> > Actually I meet very few outside of alt.revisionism. >> >> "Me too." I hardly believed these dinosaurs still existed a year ago. I >> think it's healthy to keep in mind just how unrepresentative the >> Nazihuggers are. >> >> The ZGram list and the rec.music.white-power vote are pretty good Liar. You know very well the rec.music.white-power vote was falsified. >> indicators that of the millions of people on the Internet, only a few >> hundred are seriously into this garbage. Liar. You know very well that Stormfront-L is not representative of net racismo. It appears unusually intelligent vs. usenet racists is because of Don Black's moderation. There aren't constant interruptions by Andrew Mathis, Mike Beebe, ara, scoop, sexy Jeanne Kapowski, etc., threatening to rape, mutilate, poison and murder racists, thanks to Mr. Black. You also know very well that numbers of mailing list subscribers do not translate to active interest in a newsgroup. How popular would comp.cypherpunks be if it was created and propagated? FAR more popular than anyone would expect from a mere 1,000 or so current subscribers. In fact, this is your's and tcmay, Sameer, shamrock, etc., duty to write a RFD and CFV for an UNMODERATED comp.cypherpunks newsgroup. On second thought, you SHOULDN'T participate because you censor by moderation yourself as a power trip. You know, in hindsight, I think I hurt the r.m.w-p effort more than helped, I only posted to usenet about it and avoided mail. I shouldn't have respected cypherpunks enough to refuse to follow your practice of trolling against racists on the mailing list, I should have confined my campaign to cypherpunks. Another example, does the 40 or so subscribers to coder-punks indicate there is very little interest in coding for crypto-@nonymity?!?????? >> I spent about an hour today reading Ingrid/Zundel's 93-page treatise on >> "Background and Detailed Chronology of Ernst Zundel Persecution," which >> Ingrid was so kind as to send me (OK, she didn't exactly know it was >> me...). Near the end of the subsection called "The First Trial -- >> 'Spreading False News," I found a very encouraging couple of paragraphs, >> which I'll quote here. Liar. Either post your entire copy to alt.revisionism or prove yourself a lying capitali$t bastard who's jealous about Zuendel because you are a J$wish preppie homo$exual righti$(t) ri(c)h pig. >> A year after Zuendel's trial a 200 page book entitled "Hate on >> Trial: The Zuendel Affair, the Media and Public Opinion in Canada" was >> published.... >> >> "Hate on Trial" sought to measure through scientific polling data >> the effect of the massive coverage of the Zuendel trial on public >> opinion in Canada concerning Jews, the Holocaust and Germans. "The >> central motivation for our research project," wrote the authors, "was >> to find out what truly happened in the mind of the Canadian public. Did >> support for the Nazi perspective grow as a result of the trial and as a >> result of the media coverage of the trial? Did more Canadians become >> prejudiced against Jews as a result of the affair? How were attitudes >> towards Germans affected? What specifc roles did television and the >> press have in shaping Canadian attitudes? Were the media as harmful as >> many people, including journalists, feared?" (p. 31) >> >> The researchers found that news coverage of the trial: >> >> "...did more harm to the image of Germans than of Jews... Two thirds >> of Canadians did not change their opinions as a result of the >> extensive coverage of Mr. Zuendel's sensational seven week trial, but >> of those who did, the vast majority became less sympathetic to Germans >> and more sympathetic to Jews, the authors conclude... [W]hile >> television had a strong emotional impact, the effect was entirely >> opposite to what many people feared. 'People who were heavy, heavy >> television viewers said they became more sympathetic to Jews,' >> Professor Conrad Winn of Carleton University said." (Globe & Mail, >> March 22, 1986) >> >> False "German v. Jew" conflict aside (in fact most Germans repudiate Mr. >> Zuendel's propaganda), I find it very encouraging that Zuendel largely >> failed to troll up support. The public isn't as stupid as some people >> think. Prove it, liar. I can prove the opposite with just these examples: racist terrorism, Oklahoma City, Vipers, J$ws, Microsoft, Holocaust, capitali$m, flying saucers, penny stocks, etc. >> The full citation of the referenced work is: >> >> Weimann, Gabriel and Conrad Winn. Hate on Trial: the Zundel affair: the >> media and public opinion in Canada. New York: Mosaic Press, 1986. >> >> I'll probably go pick it up at the Law Library to see how faithful >> Ingrid/Zundel's review of the book is. I don't see why they'd lie about >> this particular bit of information. Why do you pretend to be Ingrid in your latest post? Are you jealous of the pretty woman you'll never have because of your difficulties with those sort of things? --****ATTENTION****--****ATTENTION****--****ATTENTION****--***ATTENTION*** Your e-mail reply to this message WILL be *automatically* ANONYMIZED. Please, report inappropriate use to abuse(a)anon.penet.fi For information (incl. non-anon reply) write to help(a)anon.penet.fi If you have any problems, address them to admin(a)anon.penet.fi

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c|net reports UK partial usenet ban
by Mike McNally 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

UK Metropolitan Police Service bans smutty newsgroups. See it all at <http://www.cnet.com>. ______c_________________________________________________________________ Mike M Nally * Tiv^H^H^H IBM * Austin TX * For the time being, m5(a)tivoli.com * m101(a)io.com * <URL:http://www.io.com/~m101> * three heads and eight arms.

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re: National Socio-Economic Security Need for Encryption Technology
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:49 PM 8/14/96 +0600, Arun Mehta wrote: > I was trying to explain how incomes and prices happened to be > lower in India, That was not an explanation, that was mystic word salad. It would be an explanation if wealth mysteriously rained from the sky, rather than was produced by men. James A Donald wrote: > > The fact is a company like Informix has a campus in India, and > > it has campuses in the US that are largely staffed by Indian teams, > > and it will pay big bucks to get its people out of India, even > > though it has to pay them more than ten times as much in the US. Arun Mehta wrote: > I imagine (not knowing why Informix does what it does) that the > reason might have something to do with: > > 1) Bringing the programmer closer to the customer, to understand > the problem better, or to commission the software, debug it under > working conditions, whatever In fact what gets sent to the Indian campus is largely legacy work, which is in large part precisely the work that requires the closest contact with the customer, contact with actual working conditions, and the like. This seems to be a general practice, not just an Informix practice, for in an article on "India's silicon valley" I read that the work done in India was largely done on existing legacy apps, often in obsolete languages and operating systems. This is of course the work that places the least amount of the companies intellectual assets in India, and thus the work that gives the Indian government the least power over Informix and its activities. Informix could abandon the Indian campus and all the intellectual assets on which it was working, and all the physical assets located there, at any moment and not suffer any serious loss or inconvenience. It is overwhelmingly clear that the question is simply who has the power? Those who wish to hire peoples services in order to produce wealth, or those who can command peoples services because they have guns? That is what makes most people in some places poor and most people in some places affluent. > Could you please be more precise? In what way does the "power of > the Indian government" intrude? You use the term "proven" rather > loosely... there could be other explanations for the company > wanting to move its employees around. Presumably the same kind of reasons as caused foreign companies to flee India the first time around. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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Re: National Socio-Economic Security Need for Encryption Technology
by Bart Croughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have thought a bit more about the question I asked a couple of days ago: how can you proof that investment of American capital abroad wouldn't lower the standard of living in the US? So far, I didn't receive a convincing answer to this question. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I may have a proof. It's a so-called 'reductio ad absurdum'. It goes like this: "If it would be bad for the standard of living of American citizens when American capital is invested in foreign countries, then it would also be bad for the standard of living of citizens of any American state when capital in this state would be invested in another state. After all, when the negative effect of investing American capital abroad on the standard of living of American citizens outweighs the positive effect, there seems to be no good reason why this would be any different on the level of states within the US. Why would it be bad for American citizens when American capital leaves the country, and at the same time be good for citizens in Arkansas when capital leaves Arkansas? But if this reasoning is correct, then it would also be bad for the standard of living of citizens of any American city when the capital in this city would be invested in another city. Etcetera. This conclusion is clearly absurd, so the original statement that it would be bad for the standard of living of American citizens when American capital is invested in a foreign country, must also be wrong. Bart Croughs

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LEO, was Floating....
by David Lesher 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The biggest obstacle to LEO/ 'anywhere phones' is in fact the local PTT's. Not only do they fear loss of control [how do you 'cut the wires' as you raid a rebel village?] but as important, they fear loss of monopoly income on IDDD. -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz(a)nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

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Re: National Socio-Economic Security Need for Encryption Technology
by Bart Croughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sandy Sandfort wrote: >On Tue, 13 Aug 1996, Bart Croughs wrote: >> You claim that I must show that foreign capital investment >> will not flow back to US workers. But in my original post, I >>said: > >> "Of course there are advantages also for the US (shareholders >> will get higher returns, trade will increase), but how can you >> proof that these advantages will offset the disadvantage of the >> lowered amount of capital in the US? " > >> You haven't answered this question yet. I don't claim that the >> U.S. is worse off when US capital moves abroad. I only ask: how >> can you proof that the US isn't worse off when US capital moves >> abroad? >The movement of capital from the US was an *assumption* in Bart's >argument. He has done nothing to show that it would in fact >happen. When he proves that, they it would be reasonable to >expect me to offer proof that foreign capital will flow to the US. So you are saying that no American capital is invested overseas? That would be a remarkable claim. But maybe you mean that I assume that there is a *net* movement of capital from the US to other countries. That is, you think that I assume that more US capital is invested in foreign countries, than there is capital invested from foreign countries in the US. But I don't assume this. I just assume that *some* American capital is invested overseas. That's enough for my question to be relevant. And even if there is absolutely no American capital invested abroad, there is still the question for other countries: if investors in country A decide to invest their capital abroad, how can you proof that this wouldn't have a negative impact on the standard of living of the workers in country A? >While I'm sure per capita capital investment is a *factor* in >determining how high wages are, it certainly is not the only >factor. It appears that Bart has fixated on this one to the >exclusion of other (probably more important) factors. For my argument to work, it really doesn't matter *how* important the amount of capital invested is in determining wages. My argument works the moment that you agree that, other things being equal, the higher the amount of capital invested in a country, the higher the wages will be in that country. Bart Croughs

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Re: National Socio-Economic Security Need for Encryption Technology
by Bart Croughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sandy Sandfort wrote: >On a personal note: Bart the people on this list are highly intelligent <snip> Don't waste your reputation capital being a jerk. S a n d y< I agree that there are intelligent people on this list, but those who constantly have to take refuge in name-calling are obviously not among them. So I have an even better idea to protect my reputation capital: I won't answer your posts any longer. People could start thinking I have nothing better to do with my time. Bart Croughs

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