December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: US Taxes on X-Pats (getting off topic)
by Stephen Cobb 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:32 PM 8/19/96 -0400, you wrote: >It sounds unfair, for sure. However, the whole thing is a fraud based >upon a myth. FICA witholding is NOT credited to an individual's account, >or even to Social Security benefits in general. By statutory law, all >such receipts go into the Treasury's general fund. > >So, they are NOT "social security contributions". Period. > Very true...what I am saying is that, as far as my reading goes, LEGAL aliens are going to be required to pay social security "taxes" while not having any "entitlement" in return. They pay income taxes and get certain things, like law and order, in return. They will be paying soc sec money to the government without getting anything in return. This sounds not only unfair but wrong, part of an isolationist, "we killed the natives so this land is our land and the rest of you f@*k-off" revival that includes the recent posting about requiring proof of citizenship before issuing drivers licenses. Stephen

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ok ok ok i know
by Ryan M. Leach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

sorry to bother the list with this but i lost the message describing the "unsubscribing" methods for this list (it's way to big for me) can some one mail me instr. on unsubscribing? TIA

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Re: Taxes on Internet access prediction
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:07 AM 8/20/96, Mike McNally wrote: >States and municipalities are taxing internet access. Who wants to >make a prediction about if/when the IRS will start to count net access >as a taxable fringe benefit of employment? > >(At a small company where I once worked, a tax accountant visiting >one day noticed that we had a weight bench set up in a back corner of >the big "back room". He advised us to be careful, because the IRS >could count that as a taxable employee benefit.) I think the test of whether something is a "perq" (or is it "perk"?), and thus possibly taxable to the employee, is whether it is outside the normal bounds of work. Thus, one's office cubicle, computer, office supplies, etc., are not taxable fringe benefits. Membership in a country club is, though. Net access, if primarily used for work-related things, would not be. Just as company phone calls are not treated as a fringe benefit for the employees making the phone calls. Or business trips. And so on. At least one community has tried to treat _parking places_ (and I don't mean special, tree-shaded, reserved, V.I.P. parking places) as taxable benefits. This is to try to get more people to car-pool, or telecommute, or somesuch. Howls of protest pretty much drove this idea back into the hole from whence it came. Many of my Intel friends have Net accounts, obviously, and yet the number of posts on the Usenet or elsewhere from "*.intel.com" are relatively low. I asked a couple of friends of mine about this, and they confirmed that Intel management has discouraged public postings and comments from *.intel.com domain accounts. Understandable, for reasons I have discussed many times. Many employees of companies find it easier to purchase their own account from Netcom, Earthlink, Best, etc., and so have a Net name unaffiliated with their employer. --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:phoneco vs X-phone
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim bell writes: >What do you mean, "doesn't really fit the facts"?!? What part of >it was incorrect? Fiber-optic _is_ commonly used in inter-office >trunks, right? It doesn't wear out, right? Higher usage doesn't >entail greater costs, right? The capacity, while not strictly >infinite, is high enough so expanded usage doesn't strain most >links, right? Finally, modern phone switches have sufficient >connect capacity so that they can handle usage which would have >been considered "unusual" by yesteryear's standards. All >of this points to an obvious conclusion: Telephone companies do >not, in general, have increased costs as a consequence of >increased telephone usage. Fiber does not wear out per se, but it does need replacing, partly from the inevitable contractor accidents (landscapers) and occasional entropic events. Mux cards and repeaters do go bad on a regular basis, there is a correlation between usage and increased maintenance, and of course increased usage means increased electricity usage. One point that seems to be missed here is the very high cost of compliance with government regulations. If the internet phone people have to comply with the same regulations it will drive up their costs dramatically, and if the regulations are lifted for all, the RBOC's think they can out compete them. Thank you for your interesting post. Brian "Zazen? Well it beats sitting around on your ass all day doing nothing."

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Re: Billy boy's satellites [Was - Floating DataHaven]
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:26 PM 8/20/96, Brian Davis wrote: >On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote: >> There's some obvious crypto/GAK/New World Order issues: many countries may >> not care for a communications system which allows citizen-units or enemy >> agents to make phone calls from the middle of the Kalahari desert or from >> within the jungles of Burma. >> > >Or the streets of New York or Washington. Not too long ago, in my former >life as a federal prosecutor, I attended a Computer Crimes conference at >Quantico (the FBI part, not the Marine part). One of the speakers >discussed LEO satellites and satellite cellular phones. The "difficulty" >in wiretapping those phones was of grave concern to most of those present.... I am sure this is a very real concern and a very real motivation for some of the work being done on international key escrow (GAK--Global Access to Keys?). The various governments may be trying to get the several LEO satellite projects to incorporate GAK circuitry now, before it's too late. Once the satellites are up, and the handheld units sold in Fry's and CompUSA, it's too late. I'd hate to see the U.S. on the same side of the issue of free and open communications (which means encrypted, if people so choose) as Burma, Libya, Singapore, and France. --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: Securing Internet mail at the MTA level
by Stephen Cobb 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:29 AM 8/20/96 -0400, you wrote: > >Hi, > >Recently, I've been looking into securing email at the MTA level, and >would like to get your thoughts on implementation possibilities and >related issues. > >The problems that I'm trying to solve are: > 1. Host authentication > 2. Data privacy > Hmmm, have you thought about how this might fit/mesh/work with the security mechanisms in IPv6? Just a thought...Stephen

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Re: Securing Internet mail at the MTA level
by Erik E. Fair 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

SSH, while a quite useful tool, is not the right long-term solution for transport layer security - IP security is. It's also clear to me that for E-mail, you don't want transport level security for the system; you want "object" security, that is, digital signature and encryption of the mail message. That way, no matter how many MTAs the message passes through (and pretty much regardless of how trustworthy they are) you have end-to-end authentication, integrity and privacy. Erik Fair <fair(a)clock.org>

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Re: Taxes on Internet access prediction
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:54 PM 8/20/96, Mike McNally wrote: >Sure, but clearly that's not exclusively the case. (Amazingly enough >to some might be the fact that my for-work e-mail volume far exceeds >my not-for-work volume.) Hopefully I haven't brought too much shame >to my employer. > >In any case, with the IRS it's often less a matter of common sense >than what they happen to decide is The Law. Witness the changes in >laws about what constitutes a "home office". Currently, if you're >(let's say) a freelance plumber who maintains a legitimate office ... Caveat: I'm not a defender of income taxes, of course. Nor am I a defender of the IRS. However, on the "home office" situation, most of the examples I encounter, in talking to friends, are clearly scams to save a thousand bucks (or less) on their tax returns. Most of my friends who try to deduct a room in their house because they've put their computer there are clearly not using "20%" or "25%" or whatever of their house as a business. For those who really do actually use a room in their home for building things, for meeting with clients, for operating a home business of some sort, then I think the IRS will have no problems allowing it. (If the subject even comes up, in an audit. There are some reports that attempting to declare a home office increases ones chances of being audited....) As the saying goes, consult a competent expert. A few books detail the expected amount of work that must be done in a "home office," and whether one is likely to qualify. As one data point, I have derived nearly all of my income over the past 10 years from investments. And yet the "work" needed to be done on my computer is such a tiny fraction of my overall use of it that I don't even try to write off my various computers as "investment expenses." Your mileage may vary. And I certainly have not tried to write off a room in my house as a home office. (As it happens, I need few of the "office" resources, so I have my PowerMac and 17" monitor sitting beside my recliner in the family room of my house, where I can lie back, log in, and bliss out in cyberspace.) --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: [RANT] Death of Usenet: Film at 11
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:21 PM 8/19/96 -0700, Roger Healy OBC wrote: >ON >> >> At 1:34 PM 8/19/96 -0700, Mike Duvos wrote: >> >Permit me to go off in an orthogonal direction here and say that >> >I think that we should do away with the concept of a pre-ordained >> >newsgroups in Usenet entirely, in favor of an IRC-like dynamic >> >creation of message pools. >> >> Moderated newsgroups gain reputation from their moderation policies and >> probably should not be included in this scheme. > >Moderated newsgroups have very few posts because hardly anyone reads >them. I second the above propsed IRC-like scheme if it only would apply >to moderated groups, because of IRC's bad reputation of moderation. Don't confuse quantity with quality. When I want a FAQ for some area I don't normally follow, I go to news.answers. I know I won't be buried in social good times the way someone who wants to know about cryptography is buried when they go to cyperpunks. I have no such assurance if I were to go to the news group which created the FAQ. The reason there are so many different models on the net is they each serve a purpose. Don't make the mistake of trying to jam everything into one mold. Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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Re: phoneco vs x-phones
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are my own, I do not speak for Ameritech or it's alliance partners. I wrote: >>One point that seems to be missed here is the very high cost of >>compliance with government regulations. If the internet phone >>people have to comply with the same regulations it will drive up >>their costs dramatically, and if the regulations are lifted for >>all, the RBOC's think they can out compete them. Jim Bell replies: >If that is the main difference in costs, then we should abandon >those regs. Another big cost is billing, which could be eliminated >if usage were unmetered. In any case, I tend to agree: Make >these changes, eliminate the LD/local subsidy, and the LD >companies would have no problem (at least domestically) competing >against Internet phone. (International may be a different story, >because foreign telcos tend to be owned by countries.) Yes compliance costs are a sore subject. Billing costs are actually very cheap,(the mainframes are on the floor above me) the difference between sending a metered bill or a flat rate bill is tiny. Really tiny (NDA). The local/long distance subsidy was eliminated at breakup, but long distance companies do have to pay to use local networks, but as competition heats up these rates are dropping and new players (competitors) join the table, Or they can build their own. ;) One of the fun turns of events might be that the threat of x-phones might lead the RBOC's to actually turn into an ISP's! We could pull this off at amazing speed. (if you can't beat them, join them!) We are after all one of the four major nodes of the Internet...... Heh heh heh....... Brian "Zazen? Well it beats sitting around on your ass all day doing nothing."

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