December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

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by patrickbc＠juno.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please send me information on hacking bbs Hackmaster-p Patrickbc(a)juno.com

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American Imperialism, Firing Squads, and the Vincennes Shootdown
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:03 AM 9/2/96, Alan Horowitz wrote: >The Aegis ship in the Gulf wzs not in an exercise. It was in a war zone. > >If my memory serves, the Iranian jetliner had its squawker turned off, or >broken. The officer in charge in the CIC had about ten seconds to decide >if he was about to be locked-on by a missle. And no real information to >make the decision with. The U.S.S. Vincennes shot down an Iranian commercial airliner that was in its normal and well-known flight path out of Bandar Abbas. That the U.S. felt it was in a "war zone" was due to American imperialistic sentiments that say the U.S. can and should send its police forces to distant parts of the globe, even inside the Persian Gulf, no more than a few dozen miles from Iranian shores. (And the godless Jew Persians had the audacity to patrol its shorelines with gunboats! Jeesh. I'm sure the U.S. would not send the Coast Guard out to investigate or harass foreign warships cruising inside Chesapeake Bay, San Francisco Bay, or other coastal bays and inlets.) As to the "squawker" being turned off, this is not my recollection of the case (though it was nearly a decade ago, so memories fade...). (I just did an Alta Vista search to refresh my memory. Found this choice description: " Anderson's job in "Air Alley," the row of operators who handled air warfare, was to identify any air traffic within range of the ship. He told the Aegis system to query the incoming plane: Identify, Friend or Foe? By standard practice, all planes carry a transponder that automatically answers the IFF query with Mode 1 or 2 (military), or Mode 3 (civilian). Anderson got a Mode 3. "Commair" (commercial airliner), he figured. He reached beside his console for the navy's listing of commercial flights over the gulf. But as he scanned the schedule, he missed Flight 655. Apparently, in the darkness of the CIC, its arc lights flickering every time the Vincennes's five-inch gun fired off another round at the hapless Iranian gunboats, he was confused by the gulf's four different time zones." [http://www.waite.adelaide.edu.au/~aranjbar/Ali/pol/4] So, the Iranian jet's IFF module _was_ working...the U.S. ship just missed it. Fact is, the U.S. shot down a commercial airliner which was in its normal flight path! One can imagine the repercussions if TWA 800 was similarly shot down as it followed its ordinary flight path. The U.S. demanded sanctions against the Soviets in '83 for shooting down a Korean airliner which had strayed (maybe) deep into Soviet airspace and which refused to acknowledge several radio messages. Though I am no apologist for the Soviets, which event was the more egregious? That the U.S. demanded actions against the Sovs, but pooh-poohed and whitewashed the Iranian airliner shootdown, is evidence of imperialistic hypocrisy. That the U.S. demands trials for alleged terrorists while having no trial for Captain Rogers is further evidence of hypocrisy. (A military court martial and a firing squad for those found guilty might have sent a more consistent message.) Make no mistake about it: I cannot support the sending of American gunboats to the backyards of other countries merely for perceived notions about American rights to their oil. Hopefully, as crypto anarchy spreads, imperialism such as this will be undermined, destabilized, and ultimately be defeated. --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I 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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Let's Nuke Singapore Back into the Stone Age
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:41 AM 9/2/96, Arun Mehta wrote: >At 10:35 31/08/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: > >> If discussions of Lee Kwan Yew's dynasty are considered illegal, then >>Singaporans will have to choose not to carry the various newsgroups into >>which *I* post such messages! > >How long do you propose to carry on doing that? Soon, the others >in the newsgroups will be asking you very impolitely to stop, >just as you would if someone kept on and on posting such stuff to cypherpunks. Actually, we already have several examples of how this worked, including some cases I was directly involved in. During the Teale-Homulka trial in Canada, many of us (me, too) posted numerous articles about it to the various *.canada newsgroups, such as soc.culture.canada. Canada had the choice of instructing all ISPs to halt the *.canada newsgroups. There were no real complaints that I recall about messages being "off-topic," as they clearly were very much on-topic. (Not that a few complaints have ever stopped me. While I don't spam newsgroups with auto-generated spam, I figure any article I take the time to actually write and that deals with the newsgroup involved, by my own standards, is fair game. My ISP can cancel my account if he feels I have spammed newsgroups in some way.) My proposal is not to post anti-Singapore screeds to comp.lang.java or the like, but to post them to various groups Singaporans and their neighbors might read. If Singapore wishes to disconnect itself from soc.culture.singapore, this is there choice. Then, the attack can spread to various other groups Singaporans might want to read.... (I call this a _good_ use of "info-terrorism.") ... >True, but Usenet only functions because it works most of the >time. To the extent we subvert this consensus, we damage Usenet, >make it less useful. It shouldn't happen that in trying to save >or spread Usenet, we have to destroy it... Posting the Homulka stuff did not kill the Usenet. Posting the autopsy photos of Nicole Brown Simpson did not kill the Usenet. Posting the innards of RSA Data Security algorithms did not kill the Usenet. If Canker and Sludgewell spam cannot kill the Usenet, if "Make Money Fast" noise cannot kill the Usenet, and if "Babes will fuck 4 U" posts cannot kill the Usenet, then surely some informative posts about the fascist Yew posted to various newsgroups of relevance to Singaporans and Asians will not kill the Usenet! >>And _never_ has it involved determinations of "inappropriate" by >>_governments_! > >There I'm with you -- I'm merely suggesting that you find a way >to protest Singapore's actions in a manner that would be less >objectionable to most Internet users, in Singapore and outside. Why? What is "objectionable" about exposing the truth about Lee Kwan Yew, his feeble son, and their dynasty? What is "objectionable" about teaching them how to use Web proxies, remailers, and other tools of liberty? If the citizens find this stuff objectionable, they can simply not read the stuff! As with books, movies, and magazines. What could be more natural than this? But of course it is the _rulers_ of these Asian kingdoms and satrapies which want the distribution of certain thoughts controlled and denied to their serfs and citizen-units. --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I 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: Moscowchannel.com hack
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:23 PM 9/1/96 -0400, David Lesher wrote: >> > Write your web site to a CD-ROM and hard-code the base directory into the >> > webserver. >> A hacker who has root can forcibly unmount the cdrom and mount another >> directory on that node. Not a good solution. >Real hard disks such as RL02's & RK07's have WRITE DISABLE >switches.... Many modern SCSI drives have them also, though you may need to connect a switch to the appropriate jumpers. In Hugh Daniel's copious spare time, he's been working on hacking *bsd Unix to cope with a write-protected root drive (you mainly need to set up the swap partition and anything that needs writing in on a separate drive and build lots and lots of symlinks for random logfiles.) RM05s also let you connect them to two computers, though it was a really bad idea to tell both computers to mount them as writeable, since they'd scribble over the superblocks. (This was more useful before Ethernets became widely supported, since you could blaze away at full MASSBUS and/or disk speed instead of 19.2kbps UUCP.) You can play the same games with SCSI today, if you're careful. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> Reassign Authority!

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[NOISE] Re: FLT 800: From the Rumor Mill...
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Angelos D. Keromytis" <angelos(a)gradin.cis.upenn.edu> writes: >This has happened before; an Aegis ship in the Persian Gulf shot down >an Iranian Airlines (or whatever it's called) aircraft; i'm not sure >how many died in that incident (i think about 70 - can very well be >wrong). The US just "apologized" for the mistake AFAIK. >- -Angelos Well, not quite the same situation. IIRC, the Iranian aircraft refused to respond to challenges. The captain of the Vincennes added that to the info that the Aegis system was giving him, and decided the aircraft was a threat. Turn a key, push a button, and so long, Airbus. (There was also some discussion about whether the Airbus had military IFF gear aboard that may have led the captain to think it was a warplane, but I don't remember if anything came of it.) The Iranian Airbus was also flying out of what was essentially "hostile" airspace. Despite the massive number of "terrorists" who live here -- at least according to the popular press -- I don't think the Navy has taken the step of declaring CONUS to be a hostile territory. :-) Feel free to correct my memory if I'm wrong.

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Re: FLT 800: From the Rumor Mill...But It Makes Sense.. (fwd)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:15 PM 9/1/96 -0400, Simon Spero wrote: >On Sun, 1 Sep 1996, Alan Horowitz wrote: > >> The Aegis ship in the Gulf wzs not in an exercise. It was in a war zone. >> >> If my memory serves, the Iranian jetliner had its squawker turned off, or >> broken. The officer in charge in the CIC had about ten seconds to decide >> if he was about to be locked-on by a missle. And no real information to > >I think it was actually a combination of a design flaw in the user >interface for the control system combined with a human error that led to >the radar officer confusing the airbus with an (F4?) a hundred miles away >that he'd previously clicked on. Isn't there just the tiniest bit of a double-standard here? If the ship was supposedly "justified" in firing on an airplane just because it _could_become_ a threat, and _could_ fire a missile at any moment, then why can't we turn this logic around and claim that an Iranian aircraft could view an Aegis as a ship which "could become a threat" and "could fire a missile at any moment." Generally, I'm not sympathetic to the Iranians; far from it. But I can smell hypocrisy a mile away and the US military's "logic" in this area is unbelievable. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Free Speech and List Topics
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:19 AM 9/2/96, Mark M. wrote: >On Mon, 2 Sep 1996, James Seng wrote: >> ps: Sorry for the off-topic discussion. > >Cpunks is certainly not the best place to be discussing free speech. However, >the link between free speech and the spread of cryptographic technology is too >close to completely overlook. I think it is as good a place as any to discuss free speech. The issues surrounding Net censorship, Singapore, the CDA, Germany, the shutdown of Julf's server, etc., are central to our concerns. And, in fact, it is "cypherpunk technology" which will have a more lasting effect on these issues than mere talking about it in some "free speech discussion group" will have. More disturbing to me recently has been the steady increase in subscribers to this list who don't seem to value free speech very highly, who write of their own nation's censorship as valiant efforts to protect citizen-units from foreign devils, and, even more shockingly, from supposed defenders of electronic freedom who are now talking about the need for limits on anonymity. With friends like those... --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I 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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Your password for BARRON'S Online
by webmaster＠online.barrons.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thank you for registering with BARRON'S Online! THE USER NAME YOU HAVE CHOSEN IS cypherpunks THE PASSWORD YOU HAVE CHOSEN IS cypherpunk Please remember that your user name and password are case-sensitive (i.e. Bsmith is different than bsmith) and you should enter them as shown above. Your user name is required in its exact form each time you want to use registered areas on our site (including the exact upper/lowercase combination). The same restriction applies to your password. Your user name and password will allow you to access all of the features of BARRON'S Online. The rest of this message contains information about using your password and user name on BARRON'S Online. You may find it helpful to save this message for future reference. WHAT HAPPENS NOW? 1. Return to BARRON'S Online (www.barrons.com) You can use your password and user name to log in to any part of the site that requires registration (such as the Table of Contents, this week's stories, Dossiers and Market Day, and so on). The first time you go to one of these parts of BARRON'S Online, you will be prompted to enter your user name and password. 2. If you ever forget your password, or need any registration-related information, just click on the REGISTER button from the BARRON'S Online gateway page to find the help you need. Welcome to BARRON'S Online... we look forward to seeing you again and again! BARRON'S Online Customer Service barrons-support(a)www.barrons.com

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Silenced Machine Guns Are Safer Than TWA
by qut＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

! "James A. Donald" <jamesd(a)echeque.com>, writes: ! >I heard on talk.politics.guns somebody say that in Sweden they ! >had banned knives with a sharp point at the end, and were going ! >to ban sharp knives altogether. I think he was just engaging in ! >hyperbole, that he really meant that gun control in Sweden was ! >unreasonably strict, but on reflection I am not sure. ! > ! ! In a survey conducted in Sweden a few years ago, 50% of Swedish ! households had access to guns (generally military service weapons ! and sporting shotguns). Guns are, however, licensed and regulated, ! and seldom used in crimes. Licenses for "personal protection" are ! almost unobtainable. At least one military officer was court martialed ! when his service revolver was stolen from his automobile. ! ! The most significant "mass murderer" crimes in Sweden (one last ! year and one in the 1970's) were caused by people who used their ! legally-obtained military weapons. Hundreds of thousands of private American citizens legally own machine guns, silencers, live hand grenades, .75 caliber machine guns, etc. Perhaps 40% or so of the populace lives in an area without significantly higher regulations concerning such than the federal, which is not that bad. There is no federal law making silenced machine guns substantially more difficult to purchase and shoot than ordinary handguns. The feds certainly don't require training or any other similar requirement. Contrary to popular fiction, ALL firearms have been permanently registered since the 1968 Gun Control Act. The media monopoly lies when they say the contrary. How many firearm crimes were committed by these hundreds of thousands of ordinary untrained destructive weapon owners with their destructive weapons in the entire span of 1980-1996? *NONE*! THEREFORE, everyone in Sweden and America should be allowed to own silenced machine guns without any greater than the usual restrictions. BTW, I muse that the issue of guns, drugs and censorship make an excellent litmus test for libertarians: either you support the legalization of, all of, or your a fake.

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http://infinity.nus.sg/cypherpunks/
by qut＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Someone keeps asking for the filtered cypherpunks archive: http://infinity.nus.sg/cypherpunks/ It's filtered with hypermail and is lynx friendly. It's easiest to read by choosing the link to filter by subject.

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