December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: HISTORY - pre-CDA, "compromise", untrue civil-liberties groups
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 19:18:56 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: Danny Yee <danny(a)staff.cs.usyd.edu.au> Cc: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Re: HISTORY - pre-CDA, "compromise", untrue civil-liberties groups I believe the ACLU gets most of its money from individual contributions. (I may be remembering this from a conversation with some ACLUers.) But Jonah has a point below. What's important is not just which corporations fund a group, but whether the group sets policies based on its funders' desires. I know the Cato Institute, for instance, lost money from corporate funders during the Gulf War because of Cato's principled pacifist stance. I suspect EPIC has remained at its modest (but effective) size because of its principled uncompromising stance. This goes back to the original debate: pragmatism vs. principle. How do you stand on principle and remain an effective advocate in Washington? If you navigate the route of pragmatism and compromise, what does that mean for civil liberties? Can you avoid compromising them away? I'm reminded of a scene in Lord of the Rings. Frodo offers the Ring to Galadriel. She hesitates, then declines. She says she would have been tempted by its power -- but transformed by it. "I will diminish, and remain Galadriel." (This is from memory. It's been more than a couple years.) -Declan On Sat, 19 Jul 1997, Danny Yee wrote: > > From: Jonah Seiger <jseiger(a)cdt.org> > > What critics on this list seem to fail to understand is that CDT, EFF, > > EPIC, ACLU, etc. get financial support based on our positions and goals, > > not the other way around. > > Amnesty International does not accept funding from any state. It seems > to me that there's a very good reason for that. > > I'd be interested to see a list of financial supporters of the ACLU > and EFF. > > Danny Yee.

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Interesting Question..
by David D.W. Downey 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here is an interesting question. The U.S government has classified encryption software as a munitions under the U.S ITAR regulations, which will limit the export of same. They rarely if ever approve an export unless they have thoroughly inspected it and have been given certain shall we say assurances. Next they develop a number of different chips that rely on a classified algorythm, which incidently they developed. They say that they want the entire population of the U.S to use these chips, going so far as to use their market power to put additional pressure on enterprises to manufacture and use these chips. Next the FBI howls thatt they need a law to ban domestic non-escrowed encryption. Then we have the Congress trying to pass stricter laws regarding encryption while screaming that they have to protect the children from all this nasty stuff on the web. This they scream even though they can't pass a balanced budget or manage to find enough money to educate those self same kids. Next we have us, the general public, who are worried that the government will abuse this proposed system. The government says they won't, which we are supposed to believe even though their track record shows that we can't trust them past the first money trough that comes their way. That leaves one final question. How long until they stop asking and pleading and start demanding we use this system of theirs. How long until we become criminals by enacting our right not to use it? Interesting, don't you think?

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Crypto implants
by Steve Schear 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[I could find no instance in the cypherpunks archives of this thread. Forgive me if I've erred.] As single chip crypto devices are now available (e.g., smart cards) it is not unreasonable to ask how the implantation of advanced bio-chips may challenge current notions of civil liberties. A key US legal assumption of privacy is that one has an unlimited right to one's thoughts but limited rights to ones ideas reduced to tangible form and to communications. (The threads regarding the ability of the courts to cause the a witness to disgorge a crypto key are closely related.) Another civil liberty is the assumption that one owns and controls one's body (unless arrested/imprisoned) and the government may not alter or injure your body. Most citizens and hopefully the courts would find invasion of this most sacrosanct part of one's being are repugnant. An implied aspects of the privacy-crypto debate is that mechanical/electronic devices outside of one's body are required for use of crypto. But what happens if a person's body is augmented for various purposes, including data storage, crypto and communications? Unless a proven crime were committed via these devices, is it feasible that a person could be forced to submit to removal of an implant or to disgorge their data contents? --Steve PGP mail preferred, see http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html PGP Fingerprint: FE 90 1A 95 9D EA 8D 61 81 2E CC A9 A4 4A FB A9 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Schear (N7ZEZ) | Internet: azur(a)netcom.com 7075 West Gowan Road | Voice: 1-702-658-2654 Suite 2148 | Fax: 1-702-658-2673 Las Vegas, NV 89129 | --------------------------------------------------------------------- God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; The courage to change the things I can; The weapons that make the difference; And the wisdom to hide the bodies of the people that got in my way;-) "Surveilence is ultimately just another form of media, and thus, potential entertainment." --G. Beato "We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true." -- Dr. Robert Silensky

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Re: In Search of Genuine DigiCash
by Pierre Uszynski 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Linn Stanton <lstanton(a)sten.lehman.com> writes: > > hughes(a)ah.com (Eric Hughes) writes: > > [I read somewhere] ~"The cost of compliance in a typical USA > > bank is 14% of operating costs."~ > > The real figure we need is not the US cost of compliance, > but the difference between US costs and costs in other major banking > markets. Well... not if we compare to an unregulated cypherbank. What WE (cypherpunks) need to know is also how much of our taxes go to the government side of this regulatory activity. I'm not sure cypherpunks are ready to wait for deregulation to happen :-) >From the customer's point of view, if not the bank's point of view, there is the cost of creating and maintaining all these laws, agencies, and regulations. So not only the bank customers end up somehow paying the bank's cost of compliance (as typically the individual customers may be less susceptible to foreign bank competition than the shareholders who may be more easily convinced to invest in foreign banks), but the tax payers (be they customers or shareholders) end up paying the government side of this regulatory activity. Complete the picture by figuring in there the taxes paid by the bank to maintain the regulations ;-). Perpetual Travellers who bank in cypherspace and run cypherbusinesses for fun and profit end up winning several ways. Their banks can afford to pay better interest and charge less per transaction. They are not taxed to fund regulatory efforts, and they have a competitive advantage over regulated businesses. (In the short term, though, they have a major reputation (or lack thereof) or tradition problem to overcome.) They also take risks (testing unproven markets, trusting unproven business and crypto protocols, losing money to penultimate transaction cheaters...) Pierre. pierre(a)shell.portal.com

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Governments and repression
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

jamesd(a)netcom.com: > Obviously most people do not call MIT a government. > > And if MIT built some prison cells under the Admin building and started > locking people up in the dungeons for long periods, then people would > call MIT a government. Hezbollah, Hamas, the IRA, the Khmers Rouges lock people up. You may not believe it but there are those who accept their 'rules' under the threat of violence. I suppose 'most people' call _them_ governments? I'm amazed at the way some of you keep screaming about the violence of governments. Maybe you need to experience some _real_ repression. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Re: Bad govt represents bad people?
by Rachel_P._Kovner＠gorgias.ilt.columbia.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>... the problem is more than just people in government. >>I was just contradicting the idea that (as Tim May says) people get the >>government they deserve. Certainly not all people, maybe not most "deserve" >>this deal. It was once said that (and I quote -very- loosely) "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance", therefore, 'bad government' is probably not a result of some kind of evil or malicious people, but just people who do not guard their rights. Obviously, there will be people in a society who will do their best to protect their rights, but I speak of "people" as a society as a whole, and therefore, if the isolated persons who stand up for their rights are unable to make an impression on society at large, they will also be subject to this 'bad government'. Government will continually encroach upon its citizens' rights if the people do not stand up for their liberties - therefore, if the citizens do not protect their liberties, the liberties will be lost, and the people will be responsible for this loss of liberty. ---------------------------------------------- Delivered by the NLTL Internet Gateway

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Re: Verisign gets export approval
by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I think you have to see the whole gameplan to understand what is going on. The issue is the "exportable" versions of Navigator and Internet Explorer. Presumably Microsoft wants to release as strong a general crypto solution as they can. So if you are a merchant in the US selling to a European customer you want to use 128bit encryption if it is available. The issue to consider is not the 128bit certs, it is the client base. To access that base of 128bit "exportable" clients you have to have the magic certificate whether or not you are in the US. Sameer's server is irrelevant, the certificate is used to "throw the switch" on the client, not the server. This only looks like it hands Uncle Sam a magic key if you consider the single case. The problem is what the response of the other users of the foreign certificates is should the government actually put its key to use. The revocation must be a public act for it to be effective. Certainly I can't imagine the US government asking Airbus industries to hand over their accounts data so they can pass it straight on to Boeing. I can't see it affecting any of the similar industrial espionage risks that concern the companies likely to be allowed to use the system. This is not a personal privacy issue, it is an individual talking to large corporation who is not going to resist a lawful subpoena in any case. I don't think getting someone else to act as a CA would work either. Whoever approved the scheme at the NSA would have insisted on the clients requiring a cert directly signed off a root controled by a party that had agreed to enforce the USG terms. It would be much easier to circumvent the restrictions by replacing the https transport component in Internet Explorer. The API is designed to allow new protocols to be slotted in. It should not be a big hassle to introduce a full and unrestricted SSL implementation. All Verisign is doing is selling a cert that states that the holder is trusted by the USG to operate on terms that it considers acceptable to use 128bit encryption. If the USG no longer trusts the holder in that manner the attribute is false and the cert should therefore be revoked. The problem for the USG is that if the scheme succeeds it creates a demand for 128 bit encryption that makes the revocation mechanism too dangerous to use. Freeh is essentially operating under the assumption that he can persuade the Europeans to accept his proposals if he has more time to explain them. I suspect that the opposite may be the case and that the resistance to Freeh is informed about the ecconomic power that the situation hands the US. Phill Phillip M. Hallam-Baker Visiting Scientist MIT Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence. Email: hallam(a)ai.mit.edu http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/hallam/hallam.html http://www.hallam.demon.co.uk/

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Re: Bad govt represents bad people?
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)imsi.com> writes: > > Not to denegrate either of those individuals, but the "original" work > on public choice economics was worth a Nobel Prize some years ago to > Buchannan (sp?). Its only been recently that the ideas have been James Buchanan is at GMU, clearly one of the brightest stars on the faculty. > popularized by others. The concepts are more or less inherent in the > work of the Austrian school economists as well, so I suppose one > should credit Mises, Hayek, and the rest... Required reading, of course. Spontaneous order of markets and all that. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Re: Bad govt represents bad people?
by koontzd＠lrcs.loral.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Government will continually encroach upon its citizens' rights if the >people do not stand up for their liberties - therefore, if the citizens do >not protect their liberties, the liberties will be lost, and the people >will be responsible for this loss of liberty. Since when is the victim responsible for the crime?

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Alt.Gvmt.Bad.Bad.Bad
by blancw＠pylon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From Rachel_P._Kovner: >It was once said that (and I quote -very- loosely) "The >price of liberty is eternal vigilance", therefore, >'bad government' is probably not a result of some kind >of evil or malicious people, but just people who do not >guard their rights. It could also be said, somewhat loosely, that criminal theft is just the result of people who do not protect their property. For them it's as easy as falling off a log: the big G will just keep getting worse and taking over more (Somebody Stop Me!). >From :Perry E. Metzger: >Actually, as public choice economic theory has shown, >bad government tends to be the inevitable result of >the evolutionary pressures on government and >government officials. The 'evolutionary' pressure on Government tends to go in the direction away from keeping accurate accounts, including keeping an eye on the consequences of policies & procedures. They would rather not note what the real source of new goods and wealth is, and they would rather not keep track of the success/failure of their legislative constructs. All this pressure towards backsliding on the evolutionary scale means that the big G will accept being as dependent on others, as some would like to be upon them. At the very least, they're not very admirable for making the rest of the population work so hard to prevent them from taking everybody down with them. Blanc

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