December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: John Gilmore on the Radio!
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:38 PM 8/9/96 -0400, P. J. Ponder wrote: >Today at lunchtime in the Eastern Time Zone, the radio show Real >Computing with John C. Dvorak had John Gilmore as a guest, >Gilmore was referred to by Dvorak as the head of the cypherpunks a few >times. What was that old saying, "Like herding cats"? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Massively parallel ca
by harka＠nycmetro.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

* Carbons sent to: In: tcmay(a)got.net -=> Quoting In:tcmay@got.net to Harka <=- In> But the FBI presumably has no data base of voices to compare the voice In> on the 911 tape to! They can have the most sophisticated voice analysis In> system in the world and it useless, except in comparing the voice to In> previously-recorded samples. In> (This is presumably how the NSA's capabilities are used, as they have In> the voice patterns of Boris Yeltsin, Yassir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Bob In> Dole and other previously-recorded voices. Plus, they can use COMINT at In> will outside the U.S. (and maybe in the U.S....) and can acquire new In> voice patterns for their libraries.) Here the technical progresses made in eaves-dropping technology come in really handy. Eaves-dropping on, let's say, apartments is these days rather trivial and a great way of collecting voice samples of 'suspects'. That the FBI doesn't have a voice database or at least access to one, I seriously doubt. Most of the technologically advanced countries use voice-recognition already to monitor phone traffic. The US does, Germany does, the UK.... The system functions 'vacuum-cleaner-like' and reacts to voice patterns (individual voices) and trigger words. If a trigger word is said, the entire conversation will be recorded and the telephone number on either end determined for later review. There are a few books out there, that deal with that kind of thing. Unfortunately, I only remember a german one: "The RAF Phantom", written by three journalists. But an Altavista might bring something up too... Harka ___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30 [NR]

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New web page for pgp.com
by Philip Zimmermann 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just wanted to let folks know that my new company has a new web page up at www.pgp.com. Also, we are hiring a lot of people. If you would like to work for PGP Inc, contact us. We need engineers, cryptographers, marketing people, and people with many other skills. If you are interested, send email to our CEO, Tom Steding, at tsteding(a)pgp.com. Or call us at 415 631-1747. --Philip Zimmermann prz(a)pgp.com

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Re: cybergangs?
by Eric Wilson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:47 PM 8/9/96 +0100, you wrote: > > > > Okay, so this is a bit Gibsonish but after reading that piece on cybergangs > and some of the ecash issues what I wanna know is this: > > There are no laws in cyberspace right? No one to enforce them as such > shall we say? What happens if a group of hackers/crackers/cypherpunks > set up shop and started offering their services to the highest bidder? > > Let's say that the US Government bans strong crypto and attempts to > enforce is using the many, conventional, means at its disposal... > what happens if the cypherpunks group raises the money to pay a group > or individual to hack/destroy/grind to a halt milnet? Or some such > government network? Or all of them? > > How come this hasn't happened yet? Okay maybe not at such a grand scale, > but ya know? > > Hey it's just an idea, > > Zaid > > >"The wave is already gathering; one day it will wash us away." - Hermann Hesse > A kind of Cybermilitia! Can we still wear green uniforms and camouflage face paint? Eric

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Another thing the Net is being blamed for...
by Deana Holmes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Yet another thing that we're being blamed for. FYI, the temple ceremony has been reproduced many times since it was first exposed in the 1840s. The most recent revision (1990) was kept secret for only a short time before notorious former members got ahold of a tape and transcript of the ceremony. (I have a good idea of how they got it.) As far as I can tell, it didn't actually make it on to the Net until about 1994. This particular Mormon churchman (Russell Ballard) gave a speech a year or so ago warning Mormons in vague terms about the evils of the Internet. I suppose this is part of it. ===== >From this morning's Rolley&Wells column in the Salt Lake Tribune (without permission): "During a press tour this week of the LDS [Mormon] Church's new Mount Timpanogos Temple in American Fork, a member of the news media asked why a writtem copy of the temple ceremony was not given to members with temple recommends so they could study it in the privacy of their homes. Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles informed the reporter that there was no need. A church member had 'broken the covenant' -- taped the ceremony, transcribed it, and put it on the Internet for all to read." <end> Deana M. Holmes April 1996 poster child for clueless $cientology litigiousness alt.religion.scientology archivist since 2/95 mirele(a)xmission.com

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Re: e$: Watching the MacRubble Bounce
by Chris Adams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 9 Aug 96 01:54:52 -0800, deviant(a)pooh-corner.com wrote: >> If you accept that, then doesn't that make writing crypto software for >> any Unix platform *even more* of a waste of time? Because last time I >> checked, there were way more Macs on mom-and-pop's desks than Unix >> machines, counting *all* vendors. >Pardon my French, but you mus be fucking stupid or somehing. How many >universities use UNIX platforms? How many companies use UNIX platforms? >Sun, DEC, and SGI don't stay in buisiness by building cheap Windows boxes >ya know. There are 13948 _registered_ LINUX machines, not to mention the >unregistered ones. Don't tell me that Cray's were designed to run MacOS >or Windows 95. UNIX isn' NEARLY as dead as Apple is. I think the numbers have escaped you: there are far more Macs than Unix machines. It doesn't matter that Unix has a larger market with universities or Internet weenies, merely that overall more people use Macs than Unix. Also, FWIW some of those Unix machines are Macs running A/UX (Apple's Unix). One last thought: Sun, Dec, SGI, etc all make RISC Unix machines. Apple is the largest RISC vendor on the planet... Given that the Amiga is still around (and may be revived) despite the fact that the Mac:Amiga ratio is probably the same as the PC:Mac ratio, I'd say that it's quite likely Apple will stay around. Inspite of the hype about loses, Apple posted tens-of-millions-of-dollars profits last quarter - rare for a dead company... <g> They still cannot meet the demand for the PowerBooks - probably the best notebook available at any cost. # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> - Webpages for sale! Se habla JavaScript! # Automatically receive my resume or PGPKEY by sending email with a subject # of 'send PGPKEY' or 'send resume'. Capitalization counts so be careful! # Web site: http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp

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Re: Massively parallel carbon-unit-based voice pattern matching
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:09 PM 8/9/96 -0700, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >On Fri, 9 Aug 1996, jim bell wrote: > >> Would it be possible to modify speech to remove the identifiable >> characteristics which came from the speaker, and replace them >> with those of some other person. > >Equipment exists that can remove the microtremors associated with >stress, thus defeating voice stress analysis technology. I wonder if such equipment is used on CSPAN and CSPAN-2? (And that's a serious question!) There is a relatively famous neurologist named Oliver Sacks who has written a series of books concerning odd brain disorders among his and other patients. In one book (maybe it was, "The Man who mistook his wife for a hat") he describes a scene where a group of patients with the same ailment (maybe it was called "aphasia", but it's been a few years...) were watching a speech by Ronald Reagan. As I recall, people with this ailment can't understand what's being said to them, but they CAN tell whether the person speaking is telling the truth. (or, at least, BELIEVES he's telling the truth...) All the patients laughed at Reagan's speech. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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open diplomatic pouch
by morgan＠keilin.helsinki.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

According to the Economist (20 July p. 28) the Danish ombudsman has ruled that correspondence between the foreign ministry and embassies must be available to the public. -- ===================================================================== Joel.Morgan(a)Helsinki.FI http://blues.helsinki.fi/~morgan "Over the mountains there are mountains." -- Chang-rae Lee =====================================================================

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Re: Why should we trust the system?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:10 AM 8/9/96 +0000, jonathon wrote: >On Thu, 8 Aug 1996, jim bell wrote: > >> Okay, I'll admit that I _never_ believed that judges actually follow the >> standards they claim to. But many other people of those who are more > > I know of a very good way to ensure that judges do follow > the standards that they claim to follow. > > It works even better at making politicians keep all the > election promises the make. > > Has one drawback --- it reduces the number of people willing > to carry out those two functions to virtually zero. OTOH, that > probably would be a very good thing. > That's odd...I know of one also! B^) Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Data Bases of Voiceprints?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:26 AM 8/10/96, harka(a)nycmetro.com wrote: > * Carbons sent to: In: tcmay(a)got.net (BTW, I read the list, so no need to send carbons to me, or carbon-based units. or carbon-based citizen-units.) >Here the technical progresses made in eaves-dropping technology come in >really handy. Eaves-dropping on, let's say, apartments is these days >rather trivial and a great way of collecting voice samples of 'suspects'. >That the FBI doesn't have a voice database or at least access to one, I >seriously doubt. Most of the technologically advanced countries use >voice-recognition already to monitor phone traffic. The US does, Germany >does, the UK.... I'm skeptical. To paraphrase Dr. Strangelove, what use is such a data base if cops and agents don't know it exists? (Granted, useful in a few exceptional cases, even if field offices and agents are unaware that it exists, but not useful for many cases.) If such a voiceprint database, obtained surreptitiously through National Technical Means (tm), were to exist and be known to exist by investigators, word of its existence would leak out quickly enough. This is just my opinion, of course. But, as the Martian watchers say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Do you _know_, that such a data base exists? (A data base of, say, more than 5% of all the adults in the U.S., in a data base that is searchable by voice print match to samples submitted by FBI or other law enforcement agents.) >The system functions 'vacuum-cleaner-like' and reacts to voice patterns >(individual voices) and trigger words. If a trigger word is said, the >entire conversation will be recorded and the telephone number on either >end determined for later review. >There are a few books out there, that deal with that kind of thing. >Unfortunately, I only remember a german one: "The RAF Phantom", written by >three journalists. But an Altavista might bring something up too... Sure, we all know--or should know--what the _capabilities_ are, technically. But capability !=! actuality. I doubt such a data base of voice prints exists. --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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