December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

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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Internet blamed for pipe bombs
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I found instructions out of the US for such a while back, which fact should help in any debates on limiting access to such information in the US. Also note the attempted link to the War On (some) Drugs. -Allen >Pipe bombs: Easy weapons you can whip up at home > _(c) Copyright 1996 Nando.net _ > Sacramento Bee > SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- It's no wonder curious teenagers, drug dealers > looking to intimidate and thousands of others for unknown reasons are > building pipe bombs, experts say: The ingredients are at the hardware > store and the instructions on the Internet. > Across the country, latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, > Tobacco and Firearms show a 20 percent jump in pipe bomb incidents > between 1990 and 1994. [...] > "We've been incredibly busy," said sheriff's bomb technician Judd > Holiday. "As crime in other categories is dropping, this is going up." [...] > Crude, cheap and surprisingly powerful, pipe bombs are proliferating > in part because directions are easy to find on computer networks, > experts say. One electronic recipe for a pipe hand grenade ends with > the exhortation "Ready to go!" > "It's all over the Internet," said Peter Urrea, resident agent in > charge of the Sacramento office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, > Tobacco and Firearms. > Pipe bombs are also an increasingly popular tool of intimidation for > makers and dealers of the illegal drug methamphetamine, said Holiday.

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Re: Lynx...
by Remo Pini 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Sun Jul 28 12:28:37 1996 well, you could turn off all those things in netscape anyway... - --------< fate favors the prepared mind >-------- Remo Pini rp(a)rpini.com PGP: http://www.rpini.com/remopini/rpcrypto.html - ------< words are what reality is made of >------ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMftA1RFhy5sz+bTpAQG6SwgAlvNbuuCfTSuQZQ/+JNuAMuaWb03arq9f JWDH7VsoX23KNMkUSZlXiRxq3vDIR8clVfXx+j6Gwpy+vGZhC7YhTIcIutZEYh2z tpjjC1ySw92gxs7Rxm8h0IGnZIT6N8Tak070/Qc8hgWIEvHqQZHkv5UjydoSTCW7 rRcVM/mvF4x1MQrgX6NK+DRf7+1uOQFLQkbBv63sIRZeRKj/5v8u126lDShT+LOO 73S6LH7wZ6AiLEB09O2ay4v3IFJbdcLgmQGItrHn8j7v5pUf/E3MMb5TI61jj7a7 vqlin7elVIX1HXLMuvhWAfkhhISuj5YDhsChoNWDWgP1R0XnjtxfRA== =lUu/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Security debate after Olympics bombing
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, at least some people have the right idea. -Allen >Experts point out differences in Atlanta, TWA incidents > _(c) Copyright Nando.net_ > The Associated Press > WASHINGTON -- With nerves already on edge after the suspicious downing > of TWA Flight 800, the bombing at the Olympic Games in Atlanta on > Saturday renewed concerns about U.S. safeguards against terrorism. > But analyses by security experts drew important distinctions between > the incidents, and politicians cautioned against measures that would > limit liberties. > Investigators have not officially determined what caused the Flight > 800 tragedy, but if the jetliner was brought down by terrorists it was > a relatively sophisticated operation. > By comparison, the device in Atlanta was easy to make and detonated in > an easily accessible place. "I don't believe that a pipe bomb would > have taken down that TWA plane," said a Treasury agent, who requested anonymity. > Another federal investigator noted differences between the Atlanta > attack and Middle Eastern terrorists who often use high-powered truck > bombs. And domestic militia groups tend to focus on government > buildings, not crowds. > James Alan Fox, the dean of Northeastern University's criminal justice > school and a student of criminal behavior, said there are basically > two motivations for bombers: revenge and attention. > "The desire to make a statement can be that of a well-organized > terrorist group that uses the victims as pawns to advance their cause, > or it could be someone who is just interested in feeling important," > he said. > Given the recent rise of violent anti-government groups, Fox > speculated that a militia sympathizer might use such an event to grab > the spotlight. > "Through an amateurish bombing like this, he can feel like he's part > of the movement," Fox said. "He can elevate his sense of importance." [...] > And building one is almost as simple. "If you don't know how to do it, > there are any number of books available ... that will teach you > explicitly, step-by-step, how to manufacture the device," Vitch said. [...] > House Speaker Newt Gingrich stressed that security was already high at > the Olympics, and cautioned against adopting a "police state" > mentality. > "If a terrorist is nutty enough, there's always an opportunity for > tragedy," he said, appearing after Nunn on CNN. "A free people can't > back down."

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Re: "privatizing" phones?
by Remo Pini 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Sun Jul 28 12:24:57 1996 > Even if they did change the frequency the call was on, > it would be a simple matter to decode how the frequency > change was negotiated, and "follow" the call (also easily > accomplished with cellular calls). Failing that, there is > a very limited range of frequencies allocated for cordless > fones, and simply re-scanning for the conversation is a > trivial inconvenience. //cerridwyn// > Most of those systems do also change the order of the transmitted data, and that's not limited to a few possibilities. If it's digital, they usually encrypt it (only weak, but hey, you normally have to find the key real time!) - --------< fate favors the prepared mind >-------- Remo Pini rp(a)rpini.com PGP: http://www.rpini.com/remopini/rpcrypto.html - ------< words are what reality is made of >------ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMfs/vhFhy5sz+bTpAQEcnwf9G+HAE57+cOydDLAoaetvywK5jFq8IdIW POXECrmy53+lTe4n/Z763ytNTUJRYBXcUQrTyg4BiVgDoqt5vm+ZxlPKec64FxME a/UM0wpBBANUmgZVWiojtm+lMuxUxfjXbYyV1hRkBfe+gZ0RF00kOhTsWRqEaUTX UTpbPalsh+fVtCrhU4lkxk70epu8b6F6SiFw9+awP3mRImlu5SdRBduS6G1yTvSX UetAkO60anp6wTIy5s5e+FuWFNmWVqZIGt72fKdqtQshx9xvikzpKGSOExidFTkA Z8gWmk1mfU1PiD/8Yfe6VWJdHlFWbqGDGQmRcfwqi5awmDPeNs7arw== =4IN4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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