December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Court challenge to AOL junk-mail blocks
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[you can't bounce spam back to it's source] > Why not? Because spammers _invariably_ forge the return addresses to keep > exactly that from happening. What I do is look into the headers, and start bouncing it back to the domain administrator, if I can't find any better mail address. Pegasus makes it easy to automate this. I *do* send one politely worded request first - it takes a second spamming before I'll set up the rule. Peter Trei trei(a)process.com

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Allo allo
by Smaug 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just figured i'd drop a hello in the box. Hopefully at least a few of you have encountered me at some point... For the rest, I am Si_Druid (si is for Silicon...) and i've been around too long :) I consider myself a cyBerpunk by a definition that myself and a group of other CbP's came up w/ that seemed to fit best. Whether it is best or not is a matter of much discrepancy by the hard core "CbP is a fictional genre" groupies, but its rather irrelevant to the rest of the populace. So why am i here? Well, our ideas on CbP include just about all forms of survival in this society, and cryptology is probably one of the leading forms. I figured I'd better throw my hat in the ring before it got out of hand and i wound up eating it instead. I'm not terribly experienced w/ crypts, pgp still annoys me, but 'back in the day' i used to write some low level crypts that were relatively impossible to break... they were also impossible to decrypt, which meant that the only way to use them was to work forward.... mostly i did password encryption schemes, this one working the best: string #a nice set of ascii codes currkeyletter #letter from string in use password #a password from 5 to whatever characters encrypted #the password encrypted char #the current character of the password we're playing w/ stringchar #the char # in the string for char=0 to lengthof(password) #getting our stringchar stringchar=char while stringchar >= lengthof(string) { stringchar=stringchar-lengthof(string) } currkeyletter=string[stringchar] #writing the encrypted password if char = 0 #first letter encrypted[char]=resolve(password[char],0,password[char+1],string[stringchar] else if char = lengthof(password) #last letter encrypted[char]=resolve(password[char],encrypted[char-1],0,string[stringchar]) else encrypted[char]=resolve(password[char],encrypted[char-1],password[char+1], string[stringchar]) end of for resolve(pw,en,pw2,st){ result=pw+en+pw2+st while result>=250 { result=result-250 } return(result) } ----- doesnt really matter what language you write it in, the difficulty is essentialy that the only way to solve it is to test all possible passwords and strings... which is... (lets say a complexity of pw=7, str=6) 52^7 * 250^6 ~=10^26 I think that was somewhere near the number of electrons in the universe :) Anyway, just providing y'all with something to toy with.... Si. Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive Case in point - www.*.*

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FW: Terrorists
by jbugden＠smtplink.alis.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

tcmay(a)got.net (Timothy C. May) wrote: >Crypto anarchy means the undermining of governments, and hence handouts to people by government. People will only move physically for physical jobs, and not for handouts. People will flow to where the jobs are, and jobs will flow to where the people are. Isn't this what we really want? --Tim May Absolutely. I get tired of living in a small city of only 3 million. And when enough people have moved to urban areas cars will naturally become less useful because we won't have the room or the time to use them for intracity travel. Bicycle riding will then become the norm. And the weekend will be rotating with 1/7th of the population off on any given day so as to minimize the traffic loads and make better use of available resources. And power will concentrate in large organizations that will replace most of the functioning of the government. A crescendo of self organized criticality. I don't know if reference to Crazy Eddie or a growing sand pile makes a better oblique closing comment. James Got them Red China Blues...

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Re: Conjuring up the latest utopia for a minoritarian sect of illuminati
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:41 PM 9/10/96, Enzo Michelangeli wrote: >> As to what I presume is an insult to the folks on this list ("I'm >> personally not interested in conjuring up the latest utopia for a >> minoritarian sect of illuminati"), you know where the exit is. > >Triple cheers for free speech. Calling for expulsion of those who don't >share your opinion seems to me the clearest sign of will to remain an >enlightened minority. Then, why do you take it as an insult? I didn't call for your "expulsion." No one has been expelled in four years of the list's existence. However, when people complain about not being interested in the list topics, and refers to some of the main list topics as "conjuring up the latest utopia for a minoritarian sect of illuminati," then, yes, I would say this is insulting, or, at least, dismissive. As with a restaurant, if people complain loudly about the food, they ought to leave and not come back. This is not the restaurant expelling them, this is just them acting on their opinions. --Tim May, Member of the Minoritarian Illuminati We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I 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, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Guns Don't Kill People, IP Does
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:37 AM 9/10/96 -0400, Mike Fletcher wrote: >> Sorry for my bad English, perhaps I got misunderstood. >> Would you run a WWW site where the (say there where some) >> terrorist who shot down (a wild assumtion too) the TWA plane >> claiming it was right and all people should fight 'evil >> America'. Because of your web site there are other bomb >> attacks in the US (or somewhere else, the country is not that >> important) (although it's of course impossible to proove that >> this bombings are 'inspired' by your web site). >> Would you support the freedom of speech in this way ? > > Call me crazy, but maybe if "terrorists" had a web page to >use to get out their particular message they wouldn't need to go out >and blow things up to get noticed (well, except for the ones in it >just for the sake of blowing things up). That's the RIGHT answer! Historically, governments have wanted to deny dissident-type people the freedom to spread word of their opposition to the rest of the population. This just made the problem worse, ensuring that they'd have to use violence to get the word out. The problem fed on itself until these people became "terrorists." The best way to stop this cycle is to allow these people to talk to us, and the web page is the modern form of talking. Be _very_ suspicious of anybody who wants to continue to isolate people he calls "terrorists." Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Ban CU Secrecy, Keep TLA's!
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FiTi, 10 September 1996. Call to abolish banking secrecy By William Lewis in Cambridge The UK government should take a lead and abolish banking secrecy in its dependent territory offshore centres, a former legal adviser to MI5 and MI6, the British intelligence agencies, said yesterday. Mr David Bickford, the first British intelligence lawyer to speak publicly in the UK, said at a conference in Cambridge, 50 miles north-east of London, that there "appears to be no justification at all for offshore bank secrecy other than to protect the criminal". He said "offshore bank secrecy can and must be abolished" and "the UK should be the first to abolish this secrecy given their control of their dependent territory offshore centres". Mr Bickford, who now runs an international legal consultancy, said "endemic corruption" is caused by offshore secrecy, and it is "difficult to see why it is tolerated by any other than those with an unlawful disposition". He said allowing countries to maintain offshore banking secrecy is "a classic example of the corruptive influence of organised crime". Mr Bickford added that the "justification is put forward at all is an example of the overwhelming subversive corruptive influence of organised crime which has managed to magic a seemingly acceptable position out of the sheer weight of its financial proceeds from narcotics, fraud, extortion and other criminal enterprise". Mr Raymond Kendall, secretary general of Interpol told the 14th International Symposium on Economic Crime that governments should commit more resources and step up co-operation to tackle the growing problem of international corruption. [End]

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EFF & Penet
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FYI: EFF is in contact with Julf, and helping him on an informal basis to examine his legal and media options for setting the record straight in re: the Observer attack on his and anon.penet.fi's character. (Most details are attorney-client priviledged, thus the brevity of this note.) -- <HTML><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/~mech/"> Stanton McCandlish </A><HR><A HREF="mailto:mech@eff.org"> mech(a)eff.org </A><P><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/"> Electronic Frontier Foundation </A><P> Online Activist </HTML>

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Putting Pressure on Web Search Engines
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:13 PM 9/10/96, Mike McNally wrote: >Declan McCullagh wrote: >> >> The revised Hatch "child porn" legislation criminalizes even >> *attempting* to download the forbidden data. > >What would it look like, exactly, when they went in to arrest the >AltaVista search engine? They won't likely go after a specific search site on child porn charges, per se, but they may try to impose restrictions on what gets indexed (ironically, given the name "The Index"). Just as spiders will avoid indexing some pages marked for "no index" (I don't recall the exact syntax), so too could they avoid indexing--and hence making available--sites which the government has declared off limits, either in the U.S. or in foreign sites. To the extent search engines are becoming the de facto entry point to the Web for many of us (maybe even most of us), controlling what they are allowed to index and then report on to customers is a powerful means of controlling speech. I have two predictions: 1. Alta Vista, Excite, etc., will offer services based on parental ratings, religious ratings, etc. Like well-known site filtering services such as SurfWatch and LolitaWatch, these services will present various indices to various customers. To make this clearer, imagine "Alta Vista for Kids," with only kid-friendly (TM) sites and pages indexed. 2. Various governments will try to pressure the various search engine operations to limit indexing of various sites and pages. While of course it is difficult for, say, Singapore to tell Alta Vista what to index, the Singaporans can say they'll put Alta Vista on the list of sites which cannot be accessed easily by Singaporans. Thus will pressure be applied. --Tim May -- [This Bible excerpt awaiting review under the U.S. Communications Decency Act of 1996] And then Lot said, "I have some mighty fine young virgin daughters. Why don't you boys just come on in and fuck them right here in my house - I'll just watch!"....Later, up in the mountains, the younger daughter said: "Dad's getting old. I say we should fuck him before he's too old to fuck." So the two daughters got him drunk and screwed him all that night. Sure enough, Dad got them pregnant, and had an incestuous bastard son....Onan really hated the idea of doing his brother's wife and getting her pregnant while his brother got all the credit, so he pulled out before he came....Remember, it's not a good idea to have sex with your sister, your brother, your parents, your pet dog, or the farm animals, unless of course God tells you to. [excerpts from the Old Testament, Modern Vernacular Translation, TCM, 1996]

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Looking for Love
by Squirrel Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I'm Sham69, the best, most feared computer and telecom hacker in America. And I'm looking to loose my cherry! Me: 17, 5'8", brown eyes, scraggly hair, inch-thick glasses, pocket protector. Interests: late night romantic candle-lit pizza and coke dinners, dumpster diving by the AT&T corporate offices, making free phone calls all over the globe, collecting Kevin Mitnik memorabilia, keeping up with the adventures of those hot babes at The Spot, sleeping on the floor of a cheap Vegas motel with thirty other geeks at DefCon. You: Sexually adverturous, unconcerned with personal hygiene, experienced at microwaving cold pizza, limited social skills, interested in the Web, knowledge of DOS batch files a plus. Please send responses to Box 4456, enquirer(a)alpha.c2.org

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Re: One Time Reply Blocks (was Re: strengthening remailer protocols)
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:06 PM 9/9/96 -0700, Lance Cottrell wrote: >At 4:19 PM -0700 9/9/96, Bill Frantz wrote: >>To paraphrase John Von Neumann, any system which uses reply blocks is in a >>state of sin. By this I mean that if there is a chain pointing at you, a >>sufficiently powerful attacker can walk down that chain and find you. >> >>Given that, I will join the state of sin by proposing a mechanism which >>will allow Alice to receive a reply from Bob, but change her mind at any >>time. The basic idea is to have a one-time reply block which either Bob or >>Alice can send to. If Alice thinks that too much time has elapsed, and >>powerful enemies are walking down her reply block chain, she can send >>herself a reply and break the chain. (She might send a reply thru each >>link in the chain to break all the links.) > >The reason the message is not resendable is that the remailers keeps track >of the serial number of that header. If forced, the log of serial numbers >could be deleted, and the operator would process the message. > >Unless you are assuming some key archived by each remailer for the reply >block, then I think it will be possible to repair the chain. I was thinking of storing a reply-key in each remailer. The protocol might go something like this (straw man proposal): (1) Alice picks n random ids (say 160 bits or so) and n random keys. (2) Alice sends the combination <id[i], key[i]> to remailer[i], i=0,n-1. (3) Alice builds a reply block which consists of the remailer return path, each element encyphered with the appropriate key and sends it to Bob. (4) When a remailer processes a reply block element, it removes it from the reply block, looks up the id in its database, decrypts the address of the next hop, removes the database element and forwards the message. If Alice becomes nervous, she sends n "replys" thru each remailer to cause the return path to be destroyed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | "Lone Star" - My personal | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | choice for best movie of | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | 1996 | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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