December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

John Locke on True Names
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

9. But it will be here said that, if _moral knowledge_ be placed in the contemplation of our own _moral ideas_, and those, as other modes, be of our own making, what strange notions will there be of _justice_ and _temperance_? What confusion of virtues and vices, if everyone may make what _ideas_ of them he pleases? No confusion or disorder in the things themselves, nor the reasonings about them; no more than (in mathematics) there would be a disturbance in the demonstration, or a change in the properties of figures and their relations one to another, if a man should make a triangle with four corners, or a _trapezium_ with four right angles: that is in plain _English_, change the names of the figures and call that by one name which mathematicians called ordinarily by another. For let a man make to himself the _idea_ of a figure with three angles whereof one is a right one, and call it, if he please, _equilaterum_ or _trapezium_ or anything else, the properties of and demonstrations about that _idea_ will be the same as if he called it a _rectangular-triangle_. I confess, the change of the name, by the impropriety of speech, will at first disturb him who knows not what _idea_ it stands for; but as soon as the figure is drawn, the consequences and demonstrations are plain and clear. Just the same is it in _moral knowledge_: let a man have the _idea_ of taking from others, without their consent, what their honest industry has possessed them of, and call this _justice_ if he please. He that takes the name here without the _idea_ put to it will be mistaken, by joining another _idea_ of his own to that name; but strip the _idea_ of that name or take it such as it is in the speaker's mind, and the same things will agree to it as if you called it _injustice_. Indeed, wrong names in moral discourses breed usually more disorder, because they are not so easily rectified as in mathematics, where the figure once drawn and seen makes the name useless and of no force. For what need of a sign, when the thing signified is present and in view? But in moral names, that cannot be so easily and shortly done, because of the many decompositions that go to the making up of the complex _ideas_ of those modes. But yet for all this, the _miscalling_ of any of those _ideas_, contrary to the usual signification of the words of that language, hinders not but that we may have certain and demonstrative knowledge of their several agreements and disagreements, if we will carefully, as in mathematics, keep to the same precise _ideas_ and trace them in their several relations one to another, without being led away by their names. If we but separate the _idea_ under consideration from the sign that stands for it, our knowledge goes equally on in the discovery of real truth and certainty, whatever sounds we make use of. ~ An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Chapter IV: Of the Reality of Knowledge

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Re: Kiddie porn on the Internet
by Blak Dayz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I believe that you have a valid p.o.v on this subject on that: 1. The Save Our Children, kill the kiddie porn, will have trouble being enforced due to the large amounts of encryption and safe IRC fserves. If they really wanted to enforce the Kill The Porn, then they should target the adults by child pyschologist visits with the children during school hours. 2. The suspicion of the private organization "extortion" has valid backing in that several coincidences have occured such as the one with Dennys. If a person would research the matter further they would come upon several cases. *** The recievers of the porn should not be punished for the photographers action, the same as if I would complain that someone burglarized my home becuase i left the door open. It was their ignorance that caused their loss. Blak Dayz of the DAS

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Re: talker (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 13:23:06 -0700 (PDT) > From: "Z.B." <zachb(a)netcom.com> > Subject: Re: talker > > I just checked www.juno.com to see what kind of system they have, and it > appears that it is a free email service. No charges at all. No wonder > we get so many idiots from there - free mail and they probably don't > bother to verify the people they give service to, either. Well we know at least one cpunk who is anti-anonymity.... Jim Choate >

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RE: Encourage Singapore To Come Out Of the Stone Age
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: James A. Donald, in reply to Enzo Michelangeli: > Trying to build a free society by screaming loud > what the "natural" rights are supposed to be, has no better chances of > success than [...] Succeeded the last two times it was tried. ........................................................................................ But it was not merely "screaming" about what the "natural" rights ought to be - it was presenting a more definite and clear picture of them to the mind of the beholders (who hardly had any such ideas in their mind), as well as backing up the description of these rights with the intent to secure them through physical force, if necessary (as one might expect). Screaming aloud about having "natural" rights and then sitting back and waiting for them to be recognized stands little or no chance of success with those who are obviously unsympathetic and are in a position of power over others. Knowing what one is talking about, being able to convey it with the conviction of certainty, and being prepared to act to secure what it is "rightful" to have, is more likely to achieve the noble cause. It's also more impressive (than whining). .. Blanc

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Imminent Death of the Internet, GIF at 11
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For several months (years?) Bob Metcalf has been predicting that the Internet will self-destruct from overload. His argument appears to follow one of Gordon Bell's maxims: "anyone can predict the future: all you need is semi-log paper and a ruler." As I understand it, Metcalf's argument is that network load (messages, packets) is growing exponentially, while network bandwidth (fiber capacity, switch performance) is growing linearly. At some point, these two curves cross -- and demand will exceed capacity. There are two solutions to this problem: either there will be a fundamental change in the way messages move on the Internet (i.e. they don't all have to pass through Mae East and/or Mae West) or there will be a fundamental change in the way we use the Internet. We certainly are seeing changes in the way we use the network. When I "got on the net" in the late 1970's, I was on two mailing lists (SF-Lovers and Human Net) and could read *all* of Usenet traffic in an hour or two. In the late 1980's, Usenet traffic totalled about 10 MB/Day. Now, I'm on a handful of work-dependent, low bandwidth mailing lists, one high-bandwidth, high noise mailing list, almost never read Usenet and wouldn't dare attempt to support a Usenet newsserver. Today, it takes longer for me to read mail on an office Internet or 28.8 modem at home, than it did in 1980 on a 2400 baud modem. To make a long story short, I suspect that we will be much more selective in what we access on the net; we may hire editors (or form communities that share "interesting stuff", each person serving as one member of an informal editorial board). We will also see organizations (companies or professional societies) funding network-based publications to communicate matters of common interest. (There are a number of these already, Risks Digest being possibly the most important.) So, in one sense, Metcalf is right; the Internet will self-destruct. However, in another sense, he is wrong; the information carried on the Internet will still be distributed, but probably in a different form. Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com

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Re: Cypherpunks subscribers - Singapore and NZ gvts, plus IRS
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May, among others, often reminds that the list is wide open to all comers, from whatever domain. I'm happy to see the diverse range of domains, especially those I snoop for good alt.sex.bestiality pix, er, classified data. The sg, gov and mil sites offer best of show sexual defectives. Beloved IRS is still a bit touchy about snooping its vast sewer of exon-oddities, though, so don't leave a mess when you've finished ogling Tim's.

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Re: Photoshop, Steganograhy, and cypherpunks?
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 8 Sep 1996 16:16:58 -0400 (EDT), Jason Vagner wrote: >> > 1) If I hide some PGP encrypted data in a >> > gif, jpg or wav file will there be any tell tale >> > signs to the naked eye of an expert? If yes, >> > what are they? >> If you stego too many bits in a figure, it may become apparent. >The new version of Photoshop coming out this fall includes the ability to >embed "digital watermarking": >(from http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,3188,00.html: > > Digital watermarking > adds copyright information to > a photograph that doesn't alter the photo's > appearance. The watermark is detectable even > after the photo is edited or printed and rescanned. > >Question: Will stegonagrphying (?) the picture with noise mar the >watermark? Will a digital signature *and* something embedded into the >graphic through steganography seriosly affect a 24-bit image? Most certainly; the idea here is that watermarking should show that an image is unedited. >Furthermore: What about browsers? Could cookies or binary info be embedded >into images on the fly so that a java applet could preserve information or >states between pages, of different sites? Of course. You could do a cookie type implementation with a Java applet easily. - "'Anonymity is bad,' says a source who wishes to remain anonymous." - Nuff' said. * Home: Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp * Autoresponder: send email w/subject of "send resume" or "send PGPKEY" * Work: cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 | (619)689-6579 * Member in good standing of the GNU whirled hors d'oeuvre

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Re: talker
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sat, 07 Sep 1996 20:10:50 -0700, James A. Donald wrote: >> Yup -- you're never going to see a very high SNR out of Juno: > >Yes, the anarchy list has a persistent moron from Juno.com, educated >well above his intelligence. A seriously proflic loon. > >I have told eudora to transfer everything from juno.com into my >loon file, regardless of author. Makes AOL.com look like >caltech. Particularly since AOL tends to get a lot of well-educated people who are just net-illiterate. Of course, they also get a bunch of cranks, particularly since those "Generate an AOL account" programs started going around... - "'Anonymity is bad,' says a source who wishes to remain anonymous." - Nuff' said. * Home: Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp * Autoresponder: send email w/subject of "send resume" or "send PGPKEY" * Work: cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 | (619)689-6579 * Member in good standing of the GNU whirled hors d'oeuvre

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Re: talker
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 08 Sep 1996 11:09:07 -0400, Wayne H. Allen wrote: >> cypherpunks are *not* crackers; this is a crytographic >> and political issues relating to cryptography mailing list. > Well maybe, political issues galore certainly, but very very little >to do with cryptography. I mean what does TWA 800 have to do with this >list. I mean lets be completely honest here, whatever the original >purpose of the list was for its been allowed to shift away from its >intended purpose considerably. True, but something like TWA800 has a lot more relevency to the "political issues" part mentioned above. A Big-Brother database being setup seems on-topic... - "'Anonymity is bad,' says a source who wishes to remain anonymous." - Nuff' said. * Home: Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp * Autoresponder: send email w/subject of "send resume" or "send PGPKEY" * Work: cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 | (619)689-6579 * Member in good standing of the GNU whirled hors d'oeuvre

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[NOISE] Far-reaching tentacles . . . ?
by abostick＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Found in the news: (SACRAMENTO)- The principals of six Sacramento area schools have received 46 used computers that were renovated by inmates at Folsom Prison. Warden Theo White delivered the machines after they were given a reprieve from the scrap heap. The prison obtained the donated personal computers from the non-profit Detwiler Foundation... which began working five years ago to bring new technology into the state's classrooms. [Would you want *YOUR* CHILDREN to use computers that had been HACKED by CONVICTED CRIMINALS????] -- Alan Bostick | Usenet is living proof that if you analyze a mailto:abostick@netcom.com | blackbody spectrum for semantic content you get news:alt.grelb | "Call 1-800-HOT-GIRL now!" http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick

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