December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

proxy servers in Singapore
by brendon＠home.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Did anyone else catch the AP wire story (it ran here in the SF Chronicle on Thursday) about the Singapore government cracking down on "undesirable" (e.g., sex smut, anti-govt. postings etc.) content on web sites, usenet etc. Their basically forcing, by law, Singapore ISPs to use proxy servers that contain the information that the govt. deems fit. Scary if you ask me. But then they have a govt. that acts like it's the management of Disneyland. "Have a nice ride!" -B ===================================================== Brendon Macaraeg http://www.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~brendonm Finger macaragb(a)acf2.nyu.edu for my PGP Public Key

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Re: Final release of Navigator (with strong crypto) now available
by qut＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > > > Jeff Weinstein (jsw(a)netscape.com) wrote: > > > > > > > > : The final release of Navigator 3.0, complete with non-exportable > > > > : strong crypto, is now available for download by US citizens. Note > > > > : that this is the released version of 3.0, so it will not expire. > > > > : You can get it from: > > > > > > > > Would it be possible to both supply an Linux ELF and a.out binary ? > > > > > > No, we will only be supplying ELF. Since linux is not officially > > > supported, we really don't have the resources to do multiple versions. > > > > ELF is cool. What about BSD? I've seen how you support BSDI so the > > binary should work with FreeBSD or NetBSD.? > > I'm not quite sure what the question is here. Your old version supported BSDI. Will the new 128bit version support BSDI in ELF or a.out? > Jeff Weinstein - Electronic Munitions Specialist > Netscape Communication Corporation > jsw(a)netscape.com - http://home.netscape.com/people/jsw -- Love, Qut(a)netcom.com

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Re: US Taxes on X-Pats
by Stephen Cobb 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Pardon me for jumping in...but a year ago I won a case in tax court brought aainst me by the IRA for not paying taxes on income earned while living overseas...apart from the verdict, the whole thing was a complete farce! My advice is to research the subject in detail before leaving the country and file IRS returns faithfully every year regardless of where you live even if you owe no tax (I owed no tax so filed no returns, penalty for not filing = % of tax owed, so no penalty for not filing, but only IF the IRS agrees you don't owe). Yes, there has been talk in the Clinton administration of dropping the overseas earning provision. You might want to email either Sen. Byron Dorgan or Sen. Kent Conrad of N.D. since both these guys were State Tax Commssioners before going to Washington and seem to be clued in on federal tax issues. The report I read in the Orlando Sentinel suggested that Clinton felt the exclusion was a money loser desined to help US corporations get employees to work overseas. However, it seems to me that it is also part of the complex web of international tax treaties designed to prevent double taxation. If you are a US citizen earning in a country that has an income tax they are likely going to expect you to pay tax, just as we tax foreign nationals living here. My impression is that many IRS staff lack in-depth knowledge of this very complex area (for example, I paid tax on my overseas income to the government of the country in which I was living when I earned it and that country has a tax treaty with the US...after about 6 very scary phone calls the agent assigned to the case agreed that I did not owe income tax...but then he tried to hit me up for thousands fo dollars in self-employed soc sec contribution -- when I told him that was also covered under a reciprocal treaty it was complete news to him...he asked me, and I wish I had taped the call, to send him the IRS document in which I had read this!) The result is often months of very stressful waiting, staring huge penalties in the face, while they learn up on the subject and say "I guess you're right, you don't owe that $60,000 in unpaid tax and penalties we asked the judge to award us." I still have a state tax lien triggered by this bogus action against me lying around on one of my credit reports. Respectfully...Stephen ps The recent US legislation denying soc sec benefits to legal aliens seems to be a breach of the referred to above. pps The relation to cypto is :-)?

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CS First Boston lawsuit
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a lawsuit files in federal court in New York City, CS First Bostom has charged an unknown party with libel, slander and violation of the Federal Telecommunications Act, as well as with impoerly obtaining confidential financial information and sending it out in e-mail messages. The lawsuit seeks damages of at least $1M against "FBCbuster" and "FBCbuster2", the aliases of an America Online AOL) subscriber or subscribers. AOL was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which concerns two separate e-mail messages sent to First Boston employees. The suit sais the firsy e-mail message, which was sent on March 3, included a "macabre poem" about the destruction of the firm. In a second message, sent a week later, the lswsuit states that the writer included confidential salary information about current and former officers of the firm. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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THE POUCH
by C Matthew Curtin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Allow me to quote from your web page: http://www.flagler.com/security.html Quote #1: "The POUCH is a secure e-mail terminal program for IBM compatible computers. It uses a secret key phrase, advanced cryptographic techniques and several unpublished algorithms to protect data in the body of e-mail messages. The key phrase, which can be up to 48 bytes long, is easily remembered and communicated. The POUCH is highly resistant to all known forms of cryptographic attack." Quote #2: "We warrant that the product when delivered to you has no short cuts, covert channels or secret solutions of any kind. No other warranty, either expressed or implied is given." These two statements are contradictory; an unpublished algorithm is itself a secret solution, and a covert channel. Why is it that software manufacturers keep popping up and spewing nonsense? Obscurity is not security. Making the algorithm proprietary does extremely little in making it resistant to attack. All of your statements regarding the security of "The Pouch" are worthless, for you have no data with which to substantiate your claims. If it is any good, there's no way for us to know. But your marketing of the product has every indication that it's nothing more than smoke and mirrors. To coin a phrase, "pseudocrypto." Please refrain from your bogus marketing techniques. This kind of stuff, by claiming to be "real cryptography" makes real cryptographers look bad. - -- C Matthew Curtin MEGASOFT, LLC Director, Security Architecture I speak only for myself. Don't whine to anyone but me about anything I say. Hacker Security Firewall Crypto PGP Privacy Unix Perl Java Internet Intranet cmcurtin(a)research.megasoft.com http://research.megasoft.com/people/cmcurtin/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Have you encrypted your data today? iQCVAwUBMhdZaBhyYuO2QvP9AQHaxQP+OvqYc9U/3BTPwnEhL/9ADkzL+ulhILpj 1zbyhktoCB4yMB13WQgm05DM6lolUufo63nkhsX4giMhrQ2XCBeM5/8pxJOD2ThY 3+foxma7e3tUv8r6PjNlnhn2TzVPPgbN+6NdpUCbNtOpG8GsD4EdQ35S+H0Y+aJm 75FfHfaDrNQ= =6Zxy -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Hackers invade DOJ web site
by Mike McNally 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CNN online (http://www.cnn.com) is reporting a "breakin" by "hackers" to the DOJ web site. They don't elaborate exactly how thy did it. ______c_________________________________________________________________ Mike M Nally * Tiv^H^H^H IBM * Austin TX * For the time being, m5(a)tivoli.com * m101(a)io.com * <URL:http://www.io.com/~m101> * three heads and eight arms.

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Re: Final release of Navigator (with strong crypto) now available
by Alex de Joode 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jeff Weinstein (jsw(a)netscape.com) wrote: : The final release of Navigator 3.0, complete with non-exportable : strong crypto, is now available for download by US citizens. Note : that this is the released version of 3.0, so it will not expire. : You can get it from: Would it be possible to both supply an Linux ELF and a.out binary ? : http://wwwus.netscape.com/eng/US-Current/ : --Jeff -- Alex de Joode | Replay IP Service & Web DZign -- The Netherlands usura(a)replay.com | http://www.replay.com mailto:info@replay.com

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Re: FCC_ups
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:36 AM 8/18/96 +0000, Vipul Ved Prakash wrote: >> >First flat rates would have to go out. >> >If Alice uses her phone for 5 hrs in month and pay _x_ dollars and Bob uses >> >his for 100 hrs and pays _x_ dollars, then Alice is subsidising Bob, which >> >is not really ethical. Everyone should pay for the amount of bandwith >> >one is using. >> >> I'm afraid you're promoting what I consider a rather old (and, now, odd) way >> to look at it. Unlike old mechanical telephone switches, the new hardware >> does not "wear out" and thus a person who uses it more doesn't cost the >> phoneco any more bucks. If that's the case, I don't see the logic in >> charging a person more for greater use. >> >Machinery 'wear and tear' is a small part of Infrastructure maintainance costs. There are tons of other things. Hidden costs, management, laying new pipes,etc. Well, let's consider such costs. Most of which (maintenance, management, rolling stock) are unrelated to amount of telephone usage. So there is no reason that these costs should be unequally attributed to a person who makes local calls 1 hour per day, as opposed to another who only calls 15 minutes per day, for example. As for the "laying new pipes" issue: Years ago in the the US, when inter-central-office trunk connections were all implemented using large bundles of copper pairs, it would have been _correct_ to say that higher telephone usage resulted in larger costs, since more trunk lines were necessary. Today, on the other hand, inter-office trunks (at least the new ones, and I presume that even many of the old ones have been switched over) are implemented in fiber optics. Extra capacity is either automatically available (since the capacity of a given fiber is unlikely to be fully used) or can be fairly simply added by converting old fiber from about 450 megabits per second to 2.4 gigabits, or even faster rates which have become more recently available. >But you miss my point, if a phoneco is not getting a penny for its long distanceservices (which subsidise the flat rate local calls) then the choice would >be to close down. Which would be a severe attack to the local internet usage. That's an entirely unsupported claim. Nobody claims that telephone usage (term used generically) is on the way out. "Closing down" is only going to happen if local phonecos cease to be able to provide a service that people are willing to pay for. And as for the amount of the subsidy, let's look at it. I've read around here recently that the amount of the charge is 3 cents per minute. If we assume an average LD rate of 15 cents per minute, that's 20% of the bill. If an average LD bill is $15 per month, that's only $3 per line, per month. It seems to me that those local phonecos could simply raise their local charges by this and totally compensate for the loss of that subsidy. However, an even more likely outcome is that they will make structural changes which they've been able to avoid after decades as a regulated, monopolized business: Reduce personnel levels, especially in areas other than those in which they are actually providing telephone service. Reduce salaries from "comfy" to "competitive." Before it was broken up in 1983, AT+T was a regulated monopoly and was, more or less, guaranteed a profit. Extra costs, such as higher staffing levels and higher salaries, simply increased the rates, they didn't reduce the profits. This system is still in force with the local phoneco side of the business. Anther thing which could be done, from the government's side (as part of an industry restructuring) is to allow phonecos to greatly accelerate their tax write-off of existing depreciating equipment, perhaps down to as low as 5 years or so. The theory is, these phonecos are going to start competing with companies who are only buying their equipment today, and it would be unfair to saddle the older companies with old, inefficient equipment without allowing them to completely write it off quickly. (This, of course, doesn't mean that they need to actually take it out of service...) Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Hackers invade DOJ web site
by Frank Stuart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>CNN online (http://www.cnn.com) is reporting a "breakin" by "hackers" >to the DOJ web site. They don't elaborate exactly how thy did it. I certainly don't support the person or people responsible for this and it may very well end up having an overall negative impact. Since it has happened, however, I think those in a position to do so should start with the spin control. Some suggestions: The fact that even the U.S. Justice Department is unable to adequately protect it's own site from intruders underscores the need for widely- available strong encryption. While this is certainly a major embarrassment for the Justice Department, at least the mandatory "key escrow" program the Clinton administration is insisting upon has not yet been implemented; no private citizens' data appears to have been compromised this time. It's doubtful that a new law or government bureaucracy would have prevented this from happening but it's entirely possible that tools such as strong encryption could have. It's ironic that the U.S. Government is focusing on the former while fighting use of the latter. This event could potentially draw a lot of interest from the general public. Since we're dealing with public perceptions largely created through the main- stream media, it's important to remember that "sound bites" are more important than carefully reasoned arguments. | (Douglas) Hofstadter's Law: | It always takes longer than you expect, even Frank Stuart | when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

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Re: Spamming (Good or Bad?)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:16 AM 8/21/96, Paul S. Penrod wrote: >On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Ross Wright wrote: >> Market Droids???? As a salesman I take offence at this slur. Sales droids are subservient to market droids...sort of like R2D2, a sales droid, getting his marching orders from C3PO, a market droid. >As for spamming, I get enough of it via snail-mail, I don't want to see >it in my Inbox too. And, for the record, there are lots of people out >there who pay on the bulk charge, not by time. Sending advertising or >junk mail to these folks costs them money, maybe not much for the one >message you sent, but several thousand over a month of a quarter add up >to real money. > >There is a time and place for legitimate advertising. I am sure that >given time and impetus, a number of clear channel venues will open up to >allow precision marketing and sales to happen electronicly. > >At the moment, it's bad nettiquette... The basic problem is that, unlike paper mail, it costs a sender essentially nothing to send nearly any size file to as many people as he wishes. This is the basic economic fact of the Net at this time. Until this eventually changes, spamming will be with us. (I understand experts in the field of "spamming" have various names for various flavors: spam, velveeta, jerky, etc. I'll call them all "unwanted messages.") The problem is one of economics and allocation of costs. Other industries have the same issues: * fax machines: costs of paper are borne by receiver, leading to high bills when "junk faxes" are received (and hence some laws restricting such faxes) * cellular phones: receiver of calls usually is charged air time. Thus, "junk calls" cost money. (My physical mailbox probably gets about $1 a day of junk mail, in terms of postage paid. More, in terms of costs to print catalogs, fliers, freebies, etc. It takes me about 20 seconds, tops, to decide what to discard immediately and what to save, so at this point "their costs" > "my costs.") In my view, attempting to legislate what is "junk" and what is not junk is misguided. (And I suspect it rarely works in halting junk mail.) Junk is in the eye of the beholder. There are technological fixes which I would favor over attempts to ban unwanted messages. --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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