December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Usenet Conference on Security
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:55 PM 7/26/96 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote: >While the Department of Justice guy (whose name slips my mind) was saying 4 >horsemen over and over (really an oversimplification of his position), The person was Scott Charney.

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Re: You know it's getting late when... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, Forwarded message: > Subject: Re: You know it's getting late when... > Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 18:36:38 -0500 (CDT) > From: ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) > > > > Ostensibly, one of the reasons for having a free and fair political system > > is so people will not be inclined to throw bombs and plot violent > > revolution. Grandly ignoring this, that reporter seems to take the > > diametrically opposite tack: A totalitarian government can best avoid > > bombings and violence. > > > Actually the graph goes like this: > > ^ Non-State Terrorism > | > | ..-.. > | /~ \ > | .-~ \ > |..---/~ ~-. > +------------------------------------------------> Level of Totalitarianism > > ^ State Terrorism > | > | ------------------------------------- > | .-~ > | .-~ > | .-~ > |/ > +------------------------------------------------> Level of Totalitarianism > So we should take your personal opinion as fact? What statistics do you base this on? What are the vertical scales, number killed? What is the horizontal scale measured in, number wanted to kill? I suspect it simply is not possible to measure such a phenomena as terrorism as anything other than a simple counting game. The problem becomes quite quickly, what qualifies as terrorism? Consider (to some) a trivial example. There are 20 million cats and dogs killed each year because somebody was irresponsible. The vast majority of these are or were pets (not feral or wild animals as some would claim) which persons simply didn't want anymore. Now there is somewhere around 250 million people in the US. This means that 1 out of 10 (roughly) are costing the rest of us about $50 ea. to take care of their pet 'problem'. I see no difference in having my money taken via taxes (where most of it comes from) for this than having somebody come and take $50 for whatever reason by kicking my front door in. Why am I being forced to pay this money to pay for somebody elses lack of discipline and simple human empathy? Jim Choate

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Reuter on P8 Anti-Terrorism
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

G7, Russia adopt anti-terror pact, avoid sanctions Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 10:00:07 PDT PARIS (Reuter) - The world's major powers closed ranks to combat terrorism Tuesday, urging other nations to join forces with them but sidestepping a dispute over U.S. demands for sanctions against what Washington calls "terrorist states." Foreign and security ministers from the Group of Seven industrial nations and Russia approved a list of 25 measures to defeat terrorists around the globe. "We will not stop in this united effort until those responsible are brought to justice," U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno told a news conference after the five-hour meeting of the so-called P8 nations -- P being for political. The package included pledges to reinforce police cooperation and training, share intelligence, ease extradition and legal assistance, dry up sources of funding and weapons and strengthen national anti-terrorism legislation. The ministers also vowed to prevent extremists from using the Internet computer network to plan attacks and spread bomb-making instructions. Participants heard Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy recount how his 11-year-old son had shown him where to find such content on the Internet. French Foreign Minister Herve de Charette said the meeting had achieved its two objectives, "to adopt concrete measures and to send a very clear signal to the international community and to public opinion that the leaders of the P8 are strongly determined to act shoulder-to-shoulder, hand-in-hand." Under-Secretary of State Peter Tarnoff said the U.S. delegation had not raised President Clinton's contentious call for "strong sanctions" against four states he says support terrorism -- Iran, Iraq, Libya and Sudan. France, Japan, Britain and Germany all made clear they would not accept U.S. legislation to punish foreign firms that dealt with such countries. "We did not discuss country-specific cases ... We recognize the fact that some of legislation passed in the United States recently has encountered opposition among our trading partners," Tarnoff said. French Interior Minister Jean-Louis Debre, who co-chaired the meeting, said before it began: "The American analysis is a bit simplistic and a bit outdated. If we look at the phenomenon of terrorism today, we can see that it's more complex." He cited the bomb attack that killed two people and wounded 110 at the Atlanta Olympic Games last Saturday as evidence of what he called "home-grown terrorism" without outside help. State-sponsored and extreme-left terrorism were largely a thing of the past, and the international community now faced two virulent new forms -- regionalist extremism and religious militancy -- which did not have state support, Debre said. The United States offered extra proposals to tighten airport security and mark explosives chemically so bombers can be more easily traced, which the other countries accepted. Axworthy voiced widely shared alarm at the use of poison gas in recent attacks in Japan, including on the Tokyo subway. "We are beginning to see terrifying signs of what the future could hold if we don't take strong action. Terrorists are now getting access to weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons, biological weapons, even nuclear weapons," he said. "It's (a threat) that really has a doomsday quality unless we act now," he said. The United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia agreed that solving regional conflicts and stabilizing crisis areas was the best way to tackle the roots of terrorism. "There must be no safe havens," German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said. The ministers agreed their experts would hold follow-up meetings to draft a new international convention to prevent the abuse of political asylum to plan, fund or commit terrorist acts and to coordinate security in public transport. Japan said it would hold an Asia-Pacific counter-terrorism seminar by next June including Asian and Latin American experts. [End]

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Call for Abstracts (Multimedia Data Security)
by Bill Johnston-Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory-ITG 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A Call for Abstracts As part of SPIE's EI '97 Electronic Imaging: Science and Technology 8-14 February 1997 San Jose Convention Center San Jose, California USA (http://www.spie.org/web/meetings/calls/pw97/pw97call_ei.html) Multimedia Data Security The growth of the use of public networks as the platform for multimedia applications in the past year has made it important to devise mechanisms for ensuring proper use of intellectual property and increased the importance of employing security mechanisms for video and audio data. This conference will serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas in the areas of security systems and mechanisms especially in applications that handle large data volumes. Papers are solicited in all areas of security systems and algorithms including but not limited to: - security systems for imaging applications - security systems for real time video applications - performance studies and comparisons for securing image data - watermarking and detection of fraudulent copying of intellectual property - metering schemes for intellectual property usage - audio and video encryption mechanisms - key management and security protocols for broadcast applications - payment systems for online multimedia applications - content protection mechanisms for online multimedia distribution. Please submit abstracts to Bill Johnston (johnston(a)george.lbl.gov) by August 15, 1996.

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Re: Taxes in the digicash world
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:45 PM 7/30/96, Lucky Green wrote: >At 6:17 7/30/96, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: >[...] >>Another alternative that I see is property taxes and poll taxes,or >>taxes on some commodities such as oil. But incomes seem to be hard to >>track. > >What you also will see is an increase in sales tax. You still got to buy >groceries locally. In the spirit of looking for points to quibble about: * food is mostly exempt from sales taxes, in most states in the U.S. Expect a major protest if a loaf of bread incurs a sales tax--I don't expect it anytime soon. * booze has a high tax rate, in excise taxes which can account for as much as 40% of the final price, plus sales tax. If the tax rises much higher, expect increased black market sales. * electronic and computer goods are often untaxed because many order them via mail-order. There have been proposals to tax out-of-state purchases, but the logistics and legal issues are murky (who gets the tax? and why should Idaho, for example, get the tax revenue for an item ordered from Georgia?). Of course, I'm not an expert in answering Igor's original question about where the taxes will come from. I'm more interested in reducing them, not raising them. --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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update.281 (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 29 Jul 96 10:18:54 EDT > From: physnews(a)aip.org (AIP listserver) > Subject: update.281 > > PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE > The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News > Number 281 July 29, 1996 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein > > SOLAR NEUTRINO FLUX IS NOT CORRELATED WITH > SUNSPOT ACTIVITY. The Kamiokande detector, situated a > > THE PHYSICS OLYMPIAD IN OSLO, like the sports Olympiad > > TUNNEL JUNCTION MAGNETORESISTANCE may lead to > higher-density magnetic storage devices. Physicists have known for > some time that sandwiches of alternating magnetic and nonmagnetic > microlayers can undergo a change in electrical resistance in the > presence of an external magnetic field (arising, say, from a tiny > domain on a segment of magnetic tape). This magnetoresistance > (MR) effect can be used to decode binary data and has been > employed in reading heads in computer hard drives. Giant > magnetoresistance (GMR), a stronger version of MR, affords even > greater data-decoding sensitivity. Prototype hard-drives with read > heads using GMR have achieved areal data densities of 3 > Gbits/sq.in. Tunnel junction magnetoresistance (JMR) is yet another > approach to transforming a tiny magnetic field into a change in > resistance. Unlike the all-metal GMR sensor, a room-temperature > JMR sensor consists of two metal (ferromagnetic) layers separated > by an insulating layer. A JMR trilayer junction tested recently at > MIT is only 20 nm thick and the signal (the fractional change in > resistance) was 23%, compared to a signal of less than 7% for a > 40-nm-thick, 4-layer GMR prototype. MIT physicist Jagadeesh > Moodera (moodera(a)slipknot.mit.edu; 617-253-5423) suggests that > the more compact size, relatively larger signal, and the low sub-nanoamp operating current of the JMR sensor could make for easier > engineering of devices and lower production costs. An areal density > of more than 10 Gbits/sq.in. is possible, he says. (J.S. Moodera et > al., Applied Physics Letters, 29 July.) >

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Re: Taxes in the digicash world (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 12:14:50 -0700 > From: tcmay(a)got.net (Timothy C. May) > Subject: Re: Taxes in the digicash world > > * electronic and computer goods are often untaxed because many order them > via mail-order. There have been proposals to tax out-of-state purchases, > but the logistics and legal issues are murky (who gets the tax? and why > should Idaho, for example, get the tax revenue for an item ordered from > Georgia?). The State of Texas requires by law that tax be paid on out of state purchases. You legaly should send in a check with copies of the receipts each year to the State Comptrollers Office. Historicaly everyone ignores it. Jim Choate

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Chicago Area Physical Meet--
by snow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just realized that I didn't put a subject on the last post I made I didn't put a Subject on it. Any way, the post, and a correction: Correction: The web page is at http://www.encodex.com/cpunk. Here is the original e-mail: >From snow(a)smoke.suba.com Fri Jul 26 12:13:09 1996 Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 12:12:57 -0500 (CDT) From: snow <snow(a)smoke.suba.com> To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com cc: alex(a)suba.com, andrew_loewenstern(a)il.us.swissbank.com, cabeen(a)netcom.com, erehwon(a)c2.org, lzkoch(a)mcs.net, paulrice(a)midway.uchicago.edu, somebody(a)tempest.ashd.com, strix(a)rust.net Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.93.960726114143.1310A-100000(a)smoke.suba.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: As previously discussed, I am announcing a Greater Chicago Area CypherPunks Physical Meet. The date is Saturday, 3 August 1996 at or around 4 p.m. at Ye Olde Saint Andrews Pub, 5938 N. Broadway, Chicago Il. Instructions are at the end of this post. Things _I_ would like to discuss, of course, this is me, so it is very amenable to changer: 1) Setting up a Chicago Area Remailer, not simply running a single remailer on a single account, but trying to go one better. 2) Discuss the possibility of a public event to spread the word about cryptography/encryption. 3) Discuss the next meeting. The reasons for selecting St. Andrews Inn: 1) It is relatively empty. 2) It has Food (Supposedly real good shepard's pie, made from real shepards(I asked)), Drink (Cider, and they know what snakebite is), and Non-alcoholic beverages. 3) It is easy (relatively) to get to. To get to St. Andrews Inn: By Car: Take Lake Shore Drive North until the LSD ends. Go North on Sheridan (right turn off of LSD) to Thorndale (About 5900 North) Turn left on Thorndale (heading west) and drive to Broadway (About 4 or 5 blocks) Park. St. Andrews is on the North West Corner of the intersection, under the green awning. By El: Take the Red Line (Howard/Dan Ryan) to Thorndale Go west 1/2 block from the El, This is Broadway St. Andrews is on the North West Corner of the intersection, under the green awning. I will try to have a map up at http://www.encodex.com/cpunk later today. Petro, Christopher C. petro(a)suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff> snow(a)smoke.suba.com

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Re: VISA Travel Money
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:17 PM 7/30/96, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >On Tue, 30 Jul 1996, jim bell wrote: > >> Even if not, chances are good that "all" of the transactions >> can be linked together, even if they can't be directly linked >> to an identifiable person. Doesn't sound too promising. > >It sounds VERY promising to me. Though I'm sure Jim's conjecture >about linking transactions is correct, I don't see how such an >aonymous payment system could not be useful in preserving privacy. >One could purchase several of these cards--preferably in the >smallest denominations consistent with their mission. Each card >could be used so that its audit trail left whatever impression >one wished to leave. I'm also skeptical of these "VISA Travel Money" cards. That is, they don't seem to be too useful for anything. After all, cash works well. (It's rarely stolen, in my experience, or at least this is not a major concern. Traveller's checks work well, and can be "cashed" into the local currency. ATM machines fill the same function these "VISA Travel Money" cards apparently do; at least when I was in Europe the last time this is what I used, and my French francs were as untraceable as could be. As I see it, yet another marketing solution looking for a problem. A real step would be a true privacy card, a card issued in a jurisdiction unfriendly to U.S. investigators and offering various transaction-blinding options. I have to wonder what pressures have been put on the major credit card companies... --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: Dry Under the Waterfall
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:32 PM 7/30/96 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >Untrue, Duncan. Far more than 5% of the population is online already, >and the numbers are expanding rapidly. Soon even the semi-literate >will be on line, if only so they can get the latest pornography and >sports videos. Don't forget the pipe-bomb designs! Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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