December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: TIM_ers
by Wayne H. Allen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 14:49 96.07.26 GMT, John Young wrote: > 7-21-96. Sunday WaPo: > > "Liquid Explosives, Miniature Timers May Foil Airline > Security Measures." > > > At the heart of such devices is a timer built by > rewiring a commonly available Casio digital watch, which > is connected to a stabilized form of liquid > nitroglycerin stored in a bottle ostensibly filled with > contact lens solution. The stabilizer for the > nitroglycerin looks like unsuspicious cotton. Even newer > screening devices that can see through clothes would > have difficulty ferreting out such a substance, > according to airplane security experts. "See through cloths", wasn't there an ad in the back of comic books for a pair of sunglasses that did the same thing. And did these same sources mention how a bottle of lens solution with wired up Casio watch attached to it would not be considered conspicuous? If you want to bring down a plane just go to the courier services at the office blocks with a parcel for across the country, us a gps reciever with preset co-ordinates and when the plane gets there, ooopppss. If you want high tech thats the way to go. Wayne H.Allen whallen(a)capitalnet.com Pgp key at www.capitalnet.com/~whallen

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Re: Twenty Bank Robbers -- Solution?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:13 PM 7/25/96 -0500, Igor Chudov wrote: >> Twenty cypherpunks robbed a bank. They took 20 million bucks. Here's >> how they plan to split the money: they stay in line, and the first guy >> suggests how to split the money. Then they vote on his suggestion. If >> 50% or more vote for his proposal, his suggestion is adopted. >> >> Otherwise they kill the first robber and now it is the turn of guy #2 >> to make another splitting proposal. Same voting rules apply. >> >> The question is, what will be the outcome? How will they split the >> money, how many robbers will be dead, and so on? > >I forgot to say what the GOALS are. The goals of every individual >cypherpunk are (in from highest to lowest priority): > >1. Stay alive >2. Get as much money as possible >3. Keep as many cypherpunks alive as possible, all other things being equal. Getting closer: #1 says to the rest: "We're going to have a sequential vote, #1 to #20. The first 10 who vote "yes" to this proposal get to share in the loot, equally." #1 must vote in favor, obviously. The second can "guarantee" himself a part of the pot, if it's given out in this first round, by voting "yes." The #2 is only motivated to vote "no" if he thinks he can get a better deal on subsequent iterations, and it's conceivable there won't BE more iterations if at least 9 people after him vote "yes" and he's voted no. Also, if this first proposal is rejected, the #2 wouldn't be in an appreciably better position than #1 was. So #2 will vote yes, as well. This procedure will repeat. As more people vote "yes," the danger in defecting (voting "no") will increase, because it will be effectively certain that someone else will collect that reward. As long as there are more people left to vote than would be necessary to increase the vote total to 10, nobody can afford to vote "no." So the proposal will pass, and the first 10 intelligent people will win. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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U.S. Territories?
by Eric Davis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Are U.S. territories (Guam, Virg-Isl, etc) included in U.S. export restrictions for items such as strong crypto, etc.. Thanks Eric Davis ----------------------------------------------------- Eric Davis ericd(a)cyberfarm.com Co-Founder MediaCast: http://www.mediacast.com/ Personal contact: ericd(a)cyberfarm.com [KD6HTO (RF)] ----------------------------------------------------- - "If women of the world had not been excluded from - world affairs things today might have been - different." Said Alice Paul, Founder of the World - Women's Party for Equal Rights in 1938.

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Nerds, Dykes, Niggers, Dweebs, Fags, Bimbos, and Geeks
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:40 PM 7/26/96, Bill Frantz wrote: >At 9:09 AM 7/26/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >>... I hate the term "nerd," as I hate the >>names "dweeb," "geek," "jerk," etc. Believe me, anyone who thinks being >>called a "nerd" is complimentary, or anyone who labels himself as a "geek," >>is probably one who would call himself a "nigger," or a "queer.") > >I must disagree with Tim on this issue. Back in the dark ages, before the >revolution, the Yankee was an insult used by British sympathisers to >describe the hick American revolutionaries. The Americans adopted it as a >matter of pride and threw it back in their detractors face. I think Bill and I must've been in an exchange on this before, as I recall similar words from someone, perhaps Bill. Look, anyone is perfectly free to wear t-shirts espousing "Wimp Pride" and saying "We're gimps, we're wimps, we're dweebs, and we're PROUD!" I just cringe when I meet young programmers at Cypherpunks who mumble "I'm just a computer geek." Fine, I write them off as geeks. >Homosexuals are doing the same thing with the them "queer". When I went to >Dan Farmer and Wietse Venema's class in Internet Security, Dan taught the >class wearing a tank-top which said "QUEER" across the front. I have no problem with dykes, fags, fairies, queens, and other assorted queers and perverts "reclaiming" these terms...I'll just ignore such folks. (And I do find it passing strange that several of these "queers" expressed outrage to me that I used the word "queer" in the name of a thread; I guess it's the same way niggers insist that only _they_ are allowed to use this "reclaimed" word.) >People with pride in themselves and what they do can make their detractors >eat their insults. We should make it clear that "nerd," "dweeb," "geek," >"jerk," etc. are where the money is. We should turn them into terms of >pride in what we are and what we do. Maybe it's a generational thing (though Bill is as old as me, I think), but terms of insult are just that. The biggest users seem to be clueless journalists, like blonde bimbette Sue Hutchinson of the "S.J. Mercury News," who writes repeatedly of "nerdfests," and "geek conventions." (Hey, maybe womyn need to reclaim the terms "bimbo" and "airhead"?) As I see it, the best way to handle such terms of insult is to refuse to respond to it, not some bullshitty scheme of "reclaiming" the term. (A journalist once called me to get a "nerd's" perspective on a crypto issue--I told her I'm not a nerd and hung up on her.) As for what people ought to call themselves, e.g., when journalists ask what they are. just what is wrong with "engineer," "programmer," "scientist," and "cryptographer"? --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 Bank Robbers -- Game theory:)
by John Brothers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:19 AM 7/26/96 -0400, you wrote: >On the other hand, a proposal by the first guy to split the >proceeds equally among the first ten should be satisfactory to the first >ten. On that basis nobody dies and ten receive two million each, if we >assume that each is a simple profit maximizer. > >I think that that result is stable, but am not going to try to prove >that it is. (If the result is not stable, it should be relatively easy >to establish that fact.) Slightly more stable is: punk #1 proposes that punks 2 - 10 get all the money, and he gets none, if he prefers poverty to death. Now, why does this work? Punk #1 has set a precedent that improves the share of each of the following 9 cypherpunks by 11% over the 'first 10 split evenly' proposal, to 2.22 million. In order to justify killing punk #1, according to the rules, punk #2 will have to come up with a proposal that improves his share to more than 2.22 million (because the cypherpunks don't want to kill each other unless there is more money to be made) But he can't - there are still 18 other punks left, and he'll still need 9 additional votes on his side to stay alive - and he'll die if he gives less money to the 'lucky 9' than #1's proposal, since everyone can see that as more people die, the total profit available to the remainder will increase. In other words, if he votes no, he will be forced to offer 2.22 million to punks 3 - 11, to stay alive, and take no money himself. He loses by voting no, so he is a guaranteed yes. Punk #3 will consider voting no. Since there will only be 18 left when he gets the proposal, he can also propose 2.22 million to punks 3 - 11. But a) he can't do better than 2.22 million, and that means that he has to vote yes, since he doesn't want to kill the other punks, everything else being equal. Punk 4 is in the exact same situation - with 17 left, he still needs 9 to win, and voting 2.22 million to punks 4 - 12 won't gain him anything over voting yes. So he will vote yes because he doesn't want to kill. Punk 5 is the first one with a chance at a windfall. If he bumps off 1 - 4 he can propose 2.5 million for himself and 6-12. But he is vulnerable to the same strategy from punk #7. 7 will have no reason to keep #5 alive, since that will reduce his profit margin. #5 will be forced to vote yes to stay alive. #6 is in the same situation as number 5, since he can't increase the profit margin. He has to vote yes #7 is vulnerable to #9. 8 has no advantage, they both vote yes. #9 is vulnerable to 11, and 10 has no advantage. They both vote yes, and that is it. ---- --- John Brothers Do you have a right not to be offended?

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Re: Twenty Bank Robbers -- Game theory:)
by Erle Greer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:55 PM 7/25/96 -0500, you wrote: >At 09:09 AM 7/25/96 -0500, you wrote: >>Here's a puzzle for our game theorists. >> >>Twenty cypherpunks robbed a bank. They took 20 million bucks. Here's >>how they plan to split the money: they stay in line, and the first guy >>suggests how to split the money. Then they vote on his suggestion. If >>50% or more vote for his proposal, his suggestion is adopted. >> >>Otherwise they kill the first robber and now it is the turn of guy #2 >>to make another splitting proposal. Same voting rules apply. >> >>The question is, what will be the outcome? How will they split the >>money, how many robbers will be dead, and so on? >> >>igor >> > >Here's my guess: >Eache robber is going to want the largest share of the money possible. >Therefore The first guy dies automatically because that increases the share >size. This continues on until there are only two robbers left. Robber #19 >suggests that he receives the full 20 million and since his vote is 50%, he >receives it all. 18 robbers dead. I wasn't very clear why #1 died. Any suggestion of his is shot down and then he is killed. And so on... and so on... until the final two are left. vagab0nd(a)sd.cybernex.net http://ww2.sd.cybernex.net/~vagab0nd/index.html Visit web page for public key.

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Re: Am I protected by ignorance?
by James C. Sewell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:29 AM 7/26/96 +0200, Remo Pini wrote: > >Since there is no way for me to know where the server stands, do I violate >the ITAR, and if so, am I realistically prosecutable? The Feds consider crypto as munitions so I guess you could ask that same question as: I sold a bunch of Stinger missiles to a man with an American sounding name, "Smith." How was I to know he was __________[bad guys]? I bet they would prosecute you for the missiles so I'd suspect they would on the crypto too. Me? A lawyer? HAHAHAHAHAHhahahahhaaa Yeah, right! Jim Sewell - jims(a)tansoft.com Tantalus Incorporated - Key West, FL

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Usenet Conference on Security
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just a few of the highlights: (1) Ron Rivest speaking on SDSI (2) Ian Goldberg et.al's secure environment for running untrusted programs in Solaris. Since it runs Netscape, it may let Perry provide a second layer of containment for Java. (3) Carl Ellison's "Establishing Identity Without Certification Authorities (4) Peter Gutmann's "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory". (Bottom line, use thermite for magnetic media.) (5) Don Davis's "Compliance Defects in Public Key Cryptography" (6) Sameer Parekh's description (advertisement for) Community Connexion (7) Derek Atkins' description of the PGP Library API. Other amusements: While the Department of Justice guy (whose name slips my mind) was saying 4 horsemen over and over (really an oversimplification of his position), Data Fellows Ltd., Paivantaite 8, FIN-02210 ESPOO, Finland (http://www.datafellows.com) was in the vendor area offering strong crypto products with the line in one of their handouts, "This is orders of magnitude more security than DES-based or US products that are under the US ITAR export restrictions." In talking with them I didn't smell any snake oil. A BOF on PKI with Ron Rivest (who had already described SDSI) where Matt Blase describing PoliceMaker, and Carl Ellison described SPKI. All three approaches get away from the central certificate hierarchy God. Each one has something to offer that the other do not. (In a spirit of advertising/disclosure, I have been working with Carl on SPKI.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Cave ab homine unius lebri | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | [Beware the man of one | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | book] - Anonymous Latin | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Securing 5% of the Internet against Wiretapping by Christmas
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've been working on a project in secret for a few months, and now am talking about it with everyone so that we can all help it along. Want all the Internet traffic between you and every other privacy-conscious site on the net to automatically be encrypted using Triple-DES, RSA, and Diffie-Hellman? Without changing your hardware or software, except to stick a Linux PC on your network, or install a new version of Linux on your laptop? Want it all by Christmas? Then check out http://www.cygnus.com/~gnu/swan.html

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Hackers on tv alert (for SF area only)
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

San Francisco TV channel 4 (the NBC affiliate) will broadcast a "news" segment on hackers "they can access your computer and ruin your life" at/around 9:00 PM this evening (Friday, July 26). I'm sure it will be as informative, educational and unbiased, just like the rest of the Olympic coverage. Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com

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