December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Slander of Catholic Church
by attila 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Addressed to: Moroni <moroni(a)scranton.com> Cypherpunks <cypherpunks(a)toad.com> Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> Paul Penrod <furballs(a)netcom.com> On Tue, 11 Jun 1996, Paul Penrod <furballs(a)netcom.com> wrote: = On Mon, 10 Jun 1996, Timothy C. May <tcmay(a)got.net> wrote: <snip>... => => --Cardinal Timothy May => => (Who believes all cults and religions are basically the same shuck and => jive, and who thinks the "Church of Scientology" is actually a little bit => less foolish that the Church of Mormon, with its "baptism of dead = ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ = It's The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. = = If your going to criticize it, at least get the name right. = = > ancestors" into the Church, the concept is easy once you consider the sanctity of eternal "life" and the relation of the spirit. the principle is in the gospels of the disciples in numerous places. = the funny underwear people have to secretly = ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ = Do you wear yours on the outside like Madonna? = = > wear, etc. However, I have great respect for the practical tactics of = > the Mormons, and no respect for the day to day behavior of the CoS.) = > = > actually, I am curious as to when Tim wore his set of "funny underwear" sounds like a good topic for the Cypherpunk Enquirer! = = Frankly, I think this discussion needs to be put back into = alt.flame.the.religion.of.your.choice. It's bad enough to watch a = discussion on anonymous transactions devolve into useless drivel on whale = ownership and the questionable philisophical ruminations of a Piled = Higher and Deeper, without flinging this prarrie muffin on the pile too. = = ....Paul ** Reply to note from Moroni <moroni(a)scranton.com> 06/11/96 = Tim , = You should stick to your own religion and not criticize other = peoples. It is unforunate that the esteem that I once felt for you is = dwindling because of your anti-Mormon trash. Perhaps you do not realise = that some people take more than an academic interest in their religion = ;this is unforunate . It is pitiful. You are becoming the ugly = American that foreigners hate; always having an opinion about everything. = moroni too strong, moroni --remember _our_ values; not those of a critic. last night in FHE I covered the first mob in Jackson County where Bushop Partridge turned the other cheek to make it easier after the first was tarred by the mob. -- The result of today's 'government' is new world disorder, unfolding at warp velocity.

1 0

Comments on MicroPayments and the Web
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I do not see micropayment schemes gaining any acceptance in the long run. Here is why... 1) I expect a few scam artists out there to pull something like with what has been done with 976 numbers. Put up something that looks like a "hot page" and then charge you lots of cash when you hit the site. (Instead of a fraction of a cent, a quarter or twenty bucks?) If they are a heavy web surfer, the ream of paper needed to find the offending page would be pretty obnoxious. Most would just pay the bill. (Leading to even more scams of this type.) 2) If a dialog comes up for each site that wants to ding you for a bit of money, these sites are going to resemble the pay toilets of the net. People will go there if they have to, but avoid them (or crawl under with an old browser) if they can. All in all, it just sounds like another scam dreamed up by someone in marketing to Make Money Fast off the Internet. --- |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

2 1

Re: plugging in
by Alex Strasheim 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Indeed -- the notion is that one could do things like put support for > encrypted/signed pages or other cryptographic tools (I haven't checked > if Netscape mail handles plugins, too) directly into Netscape where > ordinary users could smoothly use them. Doing tech support at my ISP has made me very skeptical of anything that requires a plug in. Most people aren't willing or able to download and install them. Obviously that's not a problem for large organizations who want to run something internally -- they can make people install them and provide support to make sure it happens. But if you want to publish to the mainstream of people who use the net, using a plug in is a very bad idea. (I don't know anyone that doesn't design web pages for a living who's installed the shockwave plugin, for example. I'm sure that people do, just not the people I know. Only a marketing hack would download a couple of megabyte plug in to look at a soda company's web page.) SSL has a lot of problems (Verisign's pound of flesh, signatures on sites rather than documents, etc.), and those problems make a PGP based system attractive. But SSL's ubiquity (is that a word?) and the inherent kludginess of a PGP based plug-in make me think that the latter wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of catching on.

2 1

Venture capital financing/partnering for unique website ideas/entrepreneurs
by Ventureweb＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Re: Venture Capital Funding/Venture Partnering For Web Site Developers/Entrepreneurs Hello; My firm, DataMerge, Inc. is currently developing a program to provide financial backing and strategic assistance for commercially viable website development. It is my job to locate individuals with ideas and/or plans for creating high profile, niche market websites that, with our assistance, can be profitably brought to maket. We are very interested in unique, highly innovative, information based sites which are targeted to meet the needs of a specific market, industry or user group. While we are interested in creative services offered through the internet to a targeted group, we are not interested in backing companies for expanding into run-of-the-mill areas such as ISP, contract web-site design, or outsourced graphic design. We prefer to work with individuals or small teams (no more than three). Don't be discouraged if you don't have a lot of business experience. What we look for more than anything else is creativity and "entrepreneurial spirit." We find some of the best ideas come from college, and even high school students. What we can provide the entrepreneur includes the following: * Strategic, marketing and business planning assistance * Financial support during development * Marketing/promotional assistance (capital, coordination and partnering) * Long term royalty stream from site * Further site development and maintenance contracts DataMerge is currently the largest provider of niche market financing information and financing software applications to US businesses, intermediaries and finance professionals. DataMerge has a user base of 21,000 individuals, and a newsletter subscriber base of 73,000. DataMerge has been featured in publications including Inc., Financial Times, Entrepreneur, Success, Denver Post, and LA Times to name a few. If you wish to be considered for this program, please email me (Spencer Kluesner, CEO, DataMerge, Inc.) at VentureWeb(a)aol.com. Please provide a brief (one page or less) description of the website you propose to develop. Snail mail: DataMerge, Inc. Website Development Dept 1720 S. Bellaire Suite 310 Denver, CO 80222

1 0

Oblivious key escrow
by Matt Blaze 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've revised and expanded the paper on decentralized key escrow that I presented at the Cambridge Information Hiding workshop and mentioned here a few weeks ago. The paper is now called "Oblivious Key Escrow", and is available from: ftp://research.att.com/dist/mab/netescrow.ps (postscript) ftp://research.att.com/dist/mab/netescrow.tex (latex source) -matt \begin{abstract} We propose a simple scheme, based on secret-sharing over large-scale networks, for assuring recoverability of sensitive archived data ({\em e.g.,} cryptographic keys). In our model anyone can request a copy of the archived data but it is very difficult to keep the existence of a request secret or to subvert the access policy of the data ``owner.'' We sketch an architecture for a distributed key escrow system that might be suitable for deployment over very large-scale networks such as the Internet. We also introduce a new cryptographic primitive, {\em oblivious multicast,} that can serve as the basis for such a system. \end{abstract}

1 0

Re: Britain to control crypto - official (fwd from Usenet)
by John Pettitt 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:07 PM 6/11/96 -0400, David Lesher wrote: >The British government quietly announced yesterday that it will >legislate to restrict crypto. The details are in the attached >Reuters and PA newswires. So I didn't see any move top 'restrict crypto' in the two wire stories. It looked like the return of clipper with escrow agents other than government which seems *almost* reasonable when I note that they are not mandating any of this stuff. Still given the close relationship between Cheltenham and Ft Mead one is left wondering what the real story is ... John Pettitt, jpp(a)software.net EVP, CyberSource Corporation, 415 473 3065 PGP Key available at: http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/htbin/pks-extract-key.pl?op=get&search=0xB7AA37…

1 0

Re: plugging in
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:05 PM 6/11/96 -0500, Alex Strasheim wrote: >Doing tech support at my ISP has made me very skeptical of anything that >requires a plug in. Most people aren't willing or able to download and >install them. I have installed, RealAudio as have many other people. Likewise Streamworks. I agree with your general point about general plugins but plugins for specific purposes will be deployed (at least until Netscape includes the capabilities). DCF

1 0

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: HACKERPUNKS MAILING LIST
by David Rosoff 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 10.12 AM 6/11/96 -0400, SINCLAIR DOUGLAS N wrote: >I don't have a C2 account, and don't really want to pay for one. >I trust someone will put the hackerpunks archives on the web so >the rest of us can read them. C2 nym accounts are free. =============================================================================== David Rosoff (nihongo o chiisaku dekimasu) -------------> drosoff(a)arc.unm.edu For PGP key 0xD37692F9, finger drosoff(a)acoma.arc.unm.edu or get from keyservers pub 1024/D37692F9 1995/07/01 David Rosoff <drosoff(a)arc.unm.edu> Key fingerprint = 25 7D AA 01 85 41 43 89 50 5A 33 76 F1 F1 99 67 I accept anonymous mail. If I didn't sign it, you don't know I wrote it. === "Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find-- and not to yield." <---- "Ulysses", by Alfred, Lord Tennyson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMb4A5xguzHDTdpL5AQGxLQP/YXH9uWmXC2xK/Pr/c4kdyopE213bsQpL +T3RD2qSK+qO234fHL3nJmQVBTS5Eyyw4YtMEmnV87vclpWbP9WIr+7RDvYpr/aM 1/6QBEux3f/K6SaPD5iBHfuoc8XkriqhfXgiiUnVK4IxbhHaLatPpSeKLQmX0o2Q 3fVXFjWuEGs= =sSf7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Information Age Intelligence
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Foreign Policy, Summer 1996: "Information Age Intelligence." by Bruce D. Berkowitz, a former CIA analyst and staff member for the Senate Intelllgence Committee. Excerpts of 14-page essay: During most of this century, the intelligence community led the world in developing information technology. Intelligence organizations were deeply involved in the development of telegraph and telephone networks, modern computers, and space-based communications and surveillance systems. The intelligence community also established new forms of analysis and areas of expertise. Yet several signs suggest that the intelligence community is no longer the leader in the information world, and it may have fallen behind significantly in some respects. The underlying problem is that the intelligence community has failed to keep up with changes in how modern society uses information and how information technology develops in modern society. As a result, our model for intelligence is out-of-date. This reality is what current efforts at intelligence reform are failing to recognize. The intelligence community needs to move as fast as information businesses do to capture markets, but the traditional organization is not up to the task. Today's model for intelligence -- how it is organized and how it operates -- is an artifact from an earlier age. Even the name "Central Intelligence Agency" is reminiscent of the New Deal era, when large, powerful, national bureaucracies were the accepted way of getting things done efficiently. It makes less sense in a world moving toward fluid, distributed, networked information organizations. As the capabilities of the private sector improve, the intelligence community will need to move on to the next frontier of technology or expertise that the private sector has yet to fill. While one challenge for intelligence reform is to keep up with these changes, fundamentally the greater challenge will be to establish an organization that can adapt with the times. One reason why the intelligence community cannot deal effectively with the Information Revolution is that intelligence requirements and the intelligence community's comparative advantage are both fluid, but the traditional intelligence bureaucracy remains static. In addition, organizations responsible for developing and applying technology, such as the National Reconnaissance Office (NRC)) and the National Security Agency (NSA), have created organizational dogma, and dogma always resist change. Once such organizations carve out a place for themselves (and their technologies) in the budget, they can be difficult to dislodge. The fact that these organizations often operate at a classified level further insulates them. As a result, the intelligence community often locks into specific technologies, even when new and possibly better ideas have come along. http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~jya/fpintel.htm ----- Our Web site was hosed clean today, so this article may not survive. If not there, send us e-mail with the subject: FPI_ntl

1 0

Re: Micropayments: myth?
by foodie＠localhost.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Brian describes a UI metaphor for micropayments, with a gauge indicating the value of your micropayment purse and a cutoff for the maximum automatic per-unit payment: >Now, let's consider bridging this metaphor into the micropayments world. >Imagine that surfing the web is like driving a car - you'll dribble out >small amounts of money over a period of time, but as long as you watch >your speedometer (the rate at which you spend money) and the feul tank >levels (the amount of coinage in your wallet), you are in control of your >spending rates. Whether you approve every micropayment explicitly, or >you set a minimum level below which requests for payments are automagically >granted, is up to you. Me, I'd probably be alright with just about any >site I go to asking for less than $.02 for any action I take. Anything >above that, I want to be explicitly asked. My user interface has a gas >gauge and a speedometer in the upper-right-hand corner instead of a >throbbing "N". When my levels are low, I go visit my bank and "refill" >my wallet. Voila! That's fine so long as the majority of sites one visits all cost within, say, an order of magnitude or so. What happens if people skip around a lot? When I go from checking out Hagbard's Poetry Corner, which charges $.02 cents per page (and falls below the speedometer cutoff), and switch over to Belbo's Future's Tips Market, which charges a dollar a page, I'm going to get annoying alerts every click. If one allows customizing the cutoff for each page, the guage becomes meaningless (as much as if your car occasionally sucked half the gas tank at one stoplight). If you don't, it is annoying. Sure, $1.00 a page, perhaps, pushes the micropayment scale, but I'm sure there are plenty of folks who would set the cutoff in that range or higher. Perhaps a graphical relation-o-meter, comparing some user defined scale to the cost of the current page, so that users could get a relative feel for high rent districts (Web-rent control, anyone?), but I can see pitfalls to this appoach, too. I don't think this works unless the micropayments world standardizes on a very narrow price band, which isn't very likely, or people are found to stick pretty consistently to a given price when browsing, which I don't think is very likely either. >And yes, I am presuming a system involving transfers of digitally signed >tokens of some sort. I don't think this is a mistaken presumption. It strikes me as perhaps more useful for account-driven billing systems, where one has a contanst quanta of payment magnitude. -j -- The signal is the noise. ____________________________________________________________________ Jamie Lawrence mailto:jal@cyborganic.net mailto:foodie@netcom.com

1 0