December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: remailers/kiddie porn
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>"The Internet is like heaven for the pedophile," said Toby Tyler, >a United States police officer who lectures at the FBI Academy on child abuse. ... >However computer experts agree the existence of just one re-mailing system in a country with more lax laws is enough for the global distribution of child >pornography on the Internet. >Tyler said the most widely used re-mailing system currently operates from Finland, through which about 99 percent of all child pornography with untraceable >address codes passes. Classic governmental statistics abuse. Given that probably far over 99% of all untraceable remailer return addresses are on Penet, it's no surprise that 99% of all material with untraceable destination addresses goes through there... The largest userid number I've seen on Penet was about 500,000, and I doubt there are 5000 addresses on nymservers or reply-block users. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> Defuse Authority!

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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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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: Fw: Re: Free Pronto Secure Offer
by geoff＠commtouch.co.il 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: unicorn(a)schloss.li, cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Thu Aug 15 10:53:53 1996 On 14 Aug unicorn wrote: > "Do all the work I should be doing or have done in the first place > discover the critical flaws in my new-keen-o-ka-jive-o crypto system > and I will give you a free copy of a critically flawed crypto system > (a $99.00 value) ABSOLUTELY FREE. Wait, don't order yet. Included > you also get to> actually whitewash my fence and then mow my lawn. > All at NO COST to you." Unicorn, please try to take a minute to think before hitting that send key. You infer that a product is critically flawed without even trying it ? There are quite a few members of this list who are using Pronto Secure and will testify to the contrary. See http://www.commtouch.com/testers.htm for a list of people who take the trouble to try out a product before venturing an opinion. Agreed that feedback from external testers is a good deal for developers. It is also not a bad deal for evaluators, they get a free copy of a product which in the case of Pronto Secure many find useful (as witnessed by x-mailer headers on c'punk traffic). Testers also get an opportunity to contribute neat feature ideas which helps propagate secure messaging to the masses. Unicorn, you are invited to whitewash my fence :) - --------------------------------------------------------------- Geoff Klein, Pronto Secure Product Manager; www.commtouch.com My PGP public Key 1814AD45 can be obtained by sending a message to geoff(a)commtouch.co.il with "Get PGP Key" as the subject. - ---------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBMhLXlELv5OMYFK1FAQHoCQP/Tg13glNoTAq4OdHJ5tay+x67kpAg3eIn JwMG/spaV/R5z9iec2wE3BQNWbta2lGF2hZUwkyRNUPX/01024024rg4wp3dIrUQ gk5vl9hG7kbTIOzLKgyEKvQs8yBs+9A3KfE3HY47vm78qMVF0QE11PECMWubnfg6 be7yL9/U64M= =923l -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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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: Burden of proof
by Scottauge＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 96-08-15 17:35:20 EDT, you write: > This relates to something I have been wondering about: If one could > get one's company to pay one in electronic cash, what is to stop one > from piling the coins in a Datahaven somewhere (assuming one existed > that would be usable for these purposes) and say to the IRS: Money? > What money? Can you find any of my money? I, uhh... lost it! Yeah, > that's it!! But then how do you spend it? What if instructions are given to the banking system to not deal with such and such bank (or datahaven)? How are you going to get it out and spend them deniros?

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