December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Anguilla...etc.
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:21 AM 8/14/96, Greg Kucharo wrote: > While Tim may be right that nobility is lost when backing down to the >authorities, the fact is that this game has little to do with noble >purposes. Check that, obvious noble purposes. While most on this list >would agree that free flow of information is noble we have all seen that >this is otherwise with people in power. As I stated in my last post, the >Swiss have maintained thier "haven" for many years by playing both sides. >In accomodating everyone they avoid harassment. > This way the Swiss maintain a good system and live to fight another day. Let me be clear that I am not talking about "noble motives." In the sense of somone sacrificing himself for the good of the herd, blah blah. Rather, there is an "archetype," if you will, of what a "remailer" is, what a "data haven" is, what a "tax shelter" is, etc. While we cannot reasonably expect a remailer to exactly match the archetype, we can point out obvious deficiencies. For "data havens," we have very few examples, compared to operational remailers. We have the fictional form in Bruce Sterling's "Islands in the Net," some of whose plot twists have some parallels to the current Anguilla situation. Another is the form described in Ross Anderson's "Eternity Service." What might we expect of a true data haven? I've tried to describe several of the attributes in my earlier posts, mainly by asking questions about specific examples (bomb-building instructions, "Kill the monarchy" screeds, etc.). Interestingly, with several of these examples, Vince has said that he is not interested in having this kind of material on his site. His invitation for Multi-Level Marketers to avoid U.S. and other laws by locating on his service has now been withdrawn, from his latest comments. (To the person who sent me mail explaining that MLM schemes are not illegal in the U.S., indeed, some are legal and some are not. I said as much. And for those which are legal in the U.S. or France or wherever, they would hardly have any need to use Vince's service, would they? I surmised from his invitation that he was encouraging MLM/pyramid scheme operators to avoid their parochial fraud laws and use the services in Anguilla.) I plan to do more looking at just who is left, who is using Offshore Information and what kinds of services they are offering. Not to harass Vince, of course, but to better look at the envelope of what is considered OK and what is not. If i find that all the "juicy" stuff is gone and all that is left is booking sailing cruises around the Carribbean, I'll hardly call it a "data haven." Which is not to say it's not still a useful and profitable business for Vince, just that it has no Cypherpunk relevance. --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: More on "Fraud" and Anguilla
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:29 PM 8/13/96 -0400, Vincent Cate wrote: > Again, what I said was my lawyer called and said it was illegal to sell > fake passports in Anguilla. The fraud was taxbomber saying he never sold > fake passports in his post to the net of "feel sorry for me my ISP made me > relocate even though I never sold fake passports". He never sold fake passports. If his passports had been marked "United States of America" or some such they would indeed be fake. They were not fake. Who says that only generally recognized governments of major nations are entitled to issue passports? > > a) what he was offering actually violated Anguillan law (was there a > > determination that selling camouflage passports violates a specific > > statute?) > My lawyer, probably the top lawyer in the country, said it is illegal in > Anguilla. I don't have a copy of that law. You should. The fact that you do not indicates alarming willingness to bend over, which is inconsistent with the way you represent your service in your ad. Amend the ad, or employ more spine. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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2600 (the magazine)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, The current issue of 2600 is out. I bought mine at Barnes & Nobles. It has a couple of articles on cryptography as well as a port scanner program for Linux. Jim Choate

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Re: Anguilla...etc.
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:25 AM 8/14/96 Moscow Time, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTD wrote: >"Greg Kucharo" <sophi(a)best.com> writes: >> While Tim may be right that nobility is lost when backing down to the >> authorities, the fact is that this game has little to do with noble >> purposes. ... > >Nor was there any activity from the authorities. > >A while back, when Vince first started advertizing his site, I asked him a few >hypothetical questions, and he said roughly this: If client X posts something >to Usenet from Vince's site, and if Y dislikes X's article so much that he >mailbombs X, then Vince would pull X's plug. (I have the exact quote saved.) >I lost interest right then. I'm not surprised that Vince acted dishonorably by >pulling a client's plug with no warning for a very flimsy reason. "Acted dishonorably"? Really, Dimitri, are all Russians this rude? (Seeing the battles on Usenet between the "Sovoks" and the "Gruborbots," I'm beginning to think so.) While I think the Anguilla situation is an interesting one to analyze, I avoid such loaded terms as "dishonorable." --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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[NOISE] Statists get to make choices, too.
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr. Dimitri Vulis KOTM writes: >There is no place on the 'net safe for the Usenet Cabal or the fucking statists >who call themselves "libertarians". Oh, sure there is. The Misguided Cabal Dupes [tm] have decided they prefer the relative order of the current system to the chaos of a disbarred lawyer's vision. News admins have simply taken extra steps to make sure that their services won't be disrupted by a few individuals who style themselves the "Usenet Freedom Knights." I'm sure the Fucking Statists have taken similar steps. Your right to rant doesn't override my right to ignore you. Isn't that really what this country's supposed to be about? The right to be left alone?

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yet ANOTHER "Internet == child porn "story.
by I=(!isnum(self)) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Again on today's CBS all-news stn. An elementary school teacher arrested for exchanging, or whatever, kiddieporn on the Internet. The reporter was duly dramatic and ominous sounding. Damn I wish I knew how many kiddie porners were doing their whatver OFF the 'net. Maybe, my fine friends, we're catching MORE o' them because they are on the net and clueless, rather than in back alleys and hard to find. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Recommended reading: "Manufacture of Consent", Noam Chomsky. Altho I hate much of his politics, that one's right on.

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Re: Sen. Leahy's "impeccable cyberspace credentials"
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 27 Aug 96 at 21:16, jim bell wrote: > See the difference? An open system holds legislators to a much > higher standard, which is why they don't like it and is why we > should insist on it. Fine Jim, but how? Any idea of a system that could lead to that? JFA who's ROTFL! DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee; Limoges porcelain, silverware and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants: physicists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891

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Re: FYI: GOP's Stolen Laptop...
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:41 PM 8/27/96 -0500, Andrew Loewenstern <andrew_loewenstern(a)il.us.swissbank.com> wrote: >> They should have used PGP on those files..... > >...but I thought fine, upstanding, and law-abiding citizens didn't have >anything to hide... These are _Republicans_, Andrew! :-) # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> Reassign Authority!

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An open letter to the Editor of The Observer
by matthew＠itconsult.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[I understand the text of the Observer article is available at http://www.hclb.demon.co.uk/obs.txt] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I. T. Consultancy Limited Our reference L2217 The Editor The Observer 119 Farringdon Road London EC1R 3ER 26 August 1996 AN OPEN LETTER FOR PUBLICATION Sir, I read with some interest the article by David Connett and Jon Henley in yesterday's edition regarding the Internet and child pornography. I was particularly interested as I am a computer consultant advising clients on Internet issues. In my professional opinion, the technical standard of the reporting was sufficiently poor as to be both inaccurate and misleading. The purpose of this letter is to clarify certain technical issues which might cause your readers to reach unfounded or incorrect conclusions. It is important to be aware of the various methods by which information generally (which can include pornography) is distributed around the Internet. Your article focuses on one particular route, namely Newsgroups. It is Newsgroups which are detailed in the Metropolitan Police's letter to Internet Providers and which are concentrated upon by your article. There are several other means of distributing information. I believe however that the Police letter lists fewer than the 150 groups referred to by the authors. Interestingly enough Newsgroups only offer the means of broadcasting information to anyone who wants to retrieve it. The authors do not appear to have a sufficient grasp of what a "remailer" does. For example they seem to draw a direct link between the use of such remailers and people being able to "log on and participate in 'live' and 'interactive' filmed sessions". A lay reader would perhaps draw the inference that the remailer is somehow involved in any such live participation. Unfortunately this could not be further from the truth. Remailers simply allow people to post messages, either as email to other people or to Newsgroups for general reading. Nothing more. Remailers are generally incapable of being "logged on" to. Your article also refers to "remailing companies", from which the lay reader might infer that remailers are operated for commercial profit. Such an inference would again be wholly incorrect. I know of no organisation operating a remailer for profit, indeed none of them even charge for their services. They are generally run by individuals on a voluntary basis who consider them as a service to the Internet community. Your article appears not to mention any of the purposes of such remailers other than in terms of the distribution of pornography. In my view it would be difficult to present a balanced article without doing so. Different remailers take different steps to prevent whatever their operators consider as "abuse". My understanding is that Mr. Helsingius' service restricts messages to 48k bytes (or characters) and prohibits postings to the "binaries" newsgroups designated for images. I also understand that it only allows 30 messages per user per day. At a technical level these restrictions would make it almost impossible to use his service for mass distribution of any binary data, not just pornography. It therefore appears surprising to me that your article should allege that Mr. Helsingius' remailer is responsible for handling "90 per cent of all child pornography" on the Internet. I wonder what substantiating evidence The Observer has to this effect other than the alleged claim by Toby Tyler. Indeed it appears from your article that the words "is supplied through this remailer" may not be a direct quote from Toby Tyler. Your article alleges that "the photographs made available to Demon's subscribers through the Internet are supplied anonymously by remailing companies". The lay reader might infer from this that all photographs therefore come via remailers. Again this would be far from the truth. Finally I hope this letter offers some assistance to your readers in clarifying a number of issues which were perhaps less than clear in your article. Given your newspaper's difficulties with technical issues, I would be grateful if you would kindly refer any editing of this letter to me prior to publication. Yours faithfully, Matthew Richardson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQCVAgUBMiFvEAKwLwcHEv69AQGjIQP+IGR9rhvdYXe7CuCcwPl/tIrIBryikTM2 IVOpygTF2nCPf3WEJ8czRvs1emp9d9d++69XiG1f6QAeP9Jv/h9KzVtV7mjjuqCX LhlhXBYjLIiGCcxljKZ07zHFlCeZWCzuAmIFnZbz2fNNjqyicheIMlxI2tDrGgjp dlaGZuAI2XY= =dkXg -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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[Fwd: Re: Code Review Guidelines (draft)]
by Wendell Lee 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

unsubcribe wendell(a)singnet.com.sg To: hag(a)ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Code Review Guidelines (draft) From: lists(a)lina.inka.de (Bernd Eckenfels) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 03:30:49 +0200 (MET DST) Cc: ichudov(a)algebra.com, adam(a)homeport.org, firewalls(a)greatcircle.com, cypherpunks(a)toad.com, coderpunks(a)toad.com In-Reply-To: <199608272111.RAA23997(a)galapas.ai.mit.edu> from "Daniel Hagerty" at Aug 27, 96 05:11:39 pm Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Hi, > Much better, look at rfc822. (I wouldn't consider *anything* that > has the word "sendmail" in it a good reference). its much better if you dont rely on the content of the string at all. Dont use sh -c or system and you will be save. Simply asume that all characters are valid in user suplied strings and treat them exactly that way... If they need to be exporeted then unfortunately they need to be 'untainted' and this should be done by positive not negative lists as mentioned in the guidelines. Greetings Bernd PS: I have collected the references on http://www.inka.de/sites/lina/freefire-l/ -- (OO) -- Bernd_Eckenfels(a)Wittumstrasse13.76646Bruchsal.de -- ( .. ) ecki(a){lina.inka.de,linux.de} http://home.pages.de/~eckes/ o--o *plush* 2048/A2C51749 eckes@irc +4972573817 *plush* (O____O) If privacy is outlawed only Outlaws have privacy

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