December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Court challenge to AOL junk-mail blocks
by Will Rodger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >If you know a valid email address on the spammers system you can always >bounce each message back to them. If enough people turned the messages >back on them it might give them the opportunity to experience first hand >what its like to receive tons of mail you don't want or need... > Ah, but they never do. Why not? Because spammers _invariably_ forge the return addresses to keep exactly that from happening. Indeed, Cyber Promo claims it "had an understanding" with AOL that it could use AOL boxes or bogus adresses to keep bounced messages from coming back at them and crashing their server. Deliberatlely forging addresses, Cyber claims, is entirely legal. AOL says it's fraud. Interesting footnote: AOL, of course, is able to trace a lot of the spam it gets. It has sent back thousands of messages at once to Cyber which, in turn, has gotten it bumped from several ISPs once their servers crashed as a result. Tough business, huh? Will Rodger Washington Bureau Chief Inter@ctive Week -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMjSGvTqp6Cc7rRIJAQHCEQP/fZwhp/GTSwj9Emusgh9QFnAlafpOL2qI ces6RqwSoZfmbAmhREh836sakjS2d+mHdYK84FH7WdXWnuzMlDAPCls7OO8AU4t8 oMN7koLM3cpgwlavt/Lw8NJp3wC5OnRnrqNeunkBvNEBs8aaJ+C6isH/zrErgbt5 0QL9cYlEyq8= =EW/y -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Hettinga Plays Horseman, Gets the Last Word...
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It seems the former Office of Technology Assessment, now called the Institute for Technology Assessment (Go, Newt!), had a need for a horseman on their law-enforcement panel tomorrow. Anyone know where I can get a riding crop? :-). I'm scheduled, anyway. I'm in Cupertino at the moment (the Mac-Crypto conference was, er, insanely great; more on that later), and I haven't received the plane tickets yet (Bob Hettinga: You Buy, I Fly), though they're supposed to show up today. We'll see when I get home tonight. Oh. Any former Pac-Man addicts remember the name of the ghosts? I think there were four, right? Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- The Institute For Technology Assessment ITA INSTITUTE FOR TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT WORKSHOP DIGITAL MONEY AND PUBLIC POLICY SEPTEMBER 10, 1996 US House of Representatives, Cannon Office Building, Room 121 A Workshop on Public Policy and New Technology: "Digital Money" is a rapidly evolving financial/communications technology. It is important that government, industry, and the public fully understand the unique characteristics and potential benefits and costs of this radically new technology, so that benefits may be fully realized and costs avoided through early, judicious attention to public policy issues and concerns. This workshop brings together the stakeholders and interested parties -including the public and their government representatives-to consider the issues that may be posed by this emerging technology. In this workshop, attention will be focused on three questions: What issues need to be resolved now if development of digital money is to proceed with minimal social costs and institutional risks? Where is there general agreement about needed actions, or about reasonable solutions to recognized problems? Where are there true uncertainties that must be monitored, solved empirically, or objectively researched? The workshop will consist of three sessions. Each will begin with invited presentations, followed by open discussion among presenters and participants. Moderator: Dr. Wayne Boucher of Strategic Futures International 10 a.m. Greetings and Introductions Keynote Address: The Honorable Michael Castle Chairman, Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy House Committee on Banking and Financial Services 10:30 a.m. Session I : Digital Money Systems, Today and Tomorrow - Industry Perspectives Who are the players in developing digital money -and what new players will emerge? What are the potential benefits -and costs-for banks, credit card companies, telecom companies, software vendors, or others? What has been learned from early pilot systems? What are the relative advantages-and risks-of smart cards vs. network-based systems? What older payment systems lose ground to electronic money and smart cards? Is the playing field level with respect to regulation and legislation? Specific issues that may be raised include questions about state licensing, Bank Secrecy Act coverage and financial privacy, protocols for payments of different sizes, clearinghouses, and multiple mints. PRESENTERS: Roger Applewhite, Benton International, Inc., Torrance, California William Barr, Bellcore, Basking Ridge, N.J. Electronic Funds Transfer Association, Reston, Virginia Kawika Daguio, American Bankers Association, Washington, D.C. 12:30 p.m. Buffet lunch 1:15 p.m. Session II. Government's Role in the Development of Digital Money How may existing laws and regulations impede the development of digital money? Does the possibility of future regulations or restrictions threaten to drive development in sub-optimal directions? Do banks or other potential developers need firmer assurances about regulatory intentions? Does existing legislation and regulation adequately protect property and contract rights with regard to digital money? What might be the effect of European data protection initiatives, and what steps can the US government take to circumvent international friction over this issue? What are the major risks imposed by digital money, including risks of devaluation of US currency? Could private insurance buttress against network failure, electronic runs on money, or other sources of catastrophic risk? To what extent could a failure in digital money systems contaminate or threaten the traditional banking system, or the integrity of traditional money systems? Who will set standards with respect to risk management and capital adequacy of clearing systems? Should smart cards and small internet transactions be exempt from Regulation E and EFTA protections against consumer liability? Would -or should Representative Markey's On-line Privacy Bill cover digital money transactions? Would non-bank digital money mints be covered by the Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978 and the Electronic Communications Act of 1986? Which party would bear the risk of loss in case of hard-disk crashes, counterfeiting, network failure, etc.? PRESENTERS: Melanie Fein, Arnold & Porter, Washington, D.C. L. Richard Fisher, Morrison & Foerster, Washington, D.C. Professor Sarah Jane Hughes, Indiana University Law School 2:45 p.m. Session III: Law Enforcement Issues Will anonymous instantaneous digital money create the possibility of new crimes, or new versions of old crimes -theft, money laundering, insider trading, etc.? How would the flow of invisible, non-traceable money affect law enforcement and the administration of justice? Do benefits of encryption outweigh the possible harm to law enforcement capabilities? Does digital money threaten the new focus of law enforcement on seizing the proceeds of criminal enterprises? Considering the lessor of the Digital Telephony Act, can early cooperation between digital money providers and law enforcement avoid the heavy costs of retrofitting systems to accommodate the needs of law enforcement? What is the appropriate role of government in assuring the security of digital money systems against breaches by insiders, or criminals, or terrorists? To what extent would digital money threaten the ability of the IRS to collect taxes or to prosecute tax dodgers? PRESENTERS: Roger Weiner, Deputy Director, FinCEN, U.S. Department of the Treasury Scott Charney, Chief, Computer Crimes Section, U.S. Department of Justice Robert Hettinga, Boston, MA 4:00 p.m. Adjournment Conference Organizers Steven Bonorris, Vary Coates (ITA) 202 686 0693 ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "'Bart Bucks' are not legal tender." -- Punishment, 100 times on a chalkboard, for Bart Simpson The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

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SPL -- Suspicious Persons List
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Digitaltronics Corporation V.P of Human Relations: "Joe, thanks for coming in this morning. I'm sure you're busy, so I'll make this as short as possible. OK with you?" Joseph Shlubsky, Programmer: "Uh, sure." <nervously> Digitaltronics: "Joe, we have a problem. We understand that on your last two business trips you've been flagged for Special Processing at airport security. We checked, and it seems you're on the Suspicious Persons List. As you know, this causes problems for your fellow travellers (no pun intended, eh Joe <laughs>). And, Joe, it undermines the corporate image for one of our people to be on the SPL. I'm sure you see our problem?" JS: "Uh...." Digitaltronics: "Joe, we're not sure what you've been doing to get yourself put on the SPl, and we're forbidden by the Fairness in Employment Act from even asking you about your interests and affiliations, but we really can't have representatives of Digitaltronics being pulled aside for SPL processing, now can we?" JS: "But I told them I was only carrying a briefcase, and that they could search it all they wanted to, and--" Digitaltronics: "Joe, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to let you go. You know how these things are. Nothing can be done. Not our decision, when you think about it. The government has their ideas of who should be on the Suspicious Persons List, and there's just nothing we can do about it. We just can't have our corporate image linked to persons on the SPL. Now, Joe, you'll get a generous 6 weeks of severance pay, and Daphne will assist you with your outplacement processing. Of course, Joe, you will have to go through an inspection every morning until you're fully processed...there's that SPL matter, you know." <laughs> JS: "Uh..."

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Re: ... subversive leftists
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:57 PM 9/9/96, William H. Geiger III wrote: >In <Pine.LNX.3.94.960909125148.16761A-100000(a)blau.pin.de>, on 09/09/96 at >12:53 PM, > Stephan Schmidt <schmidt(a)pin.de> said: > > >>I hope this one was ironic. > >>> The Democratic People's German Reich is fully justified in cutting off >>> contacts with subversive radical publications in Jew-dominated nations like >>> Holland. >>> >>> As Reichskommander Schmidt points out: "The citizen-units who access >> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>But this one is tasteless and insulting even if it was >>meant ironic. > >If the boot fits....... > I don't know why Stephan waited so many days to make his comment. It was my noticing that I had "collided" with his name, Schmidt, when I made my facetious post that caused me to almost immediately issue a clarification that I was not thinking of him when I made my first post. To be clear, again, I was not basing my "Reichskommander Schmidt" line on Stephan Schmidt. That was just a coincidence. As to the "Reichskommander," in our country, and on the Net, such jokes are not illegal. I rather suspect they are in Germany, either the DDR or the Western side. As to "tasteless and insulting," a matter of personal perspective. I find it helpful to call a spade a spade, and others apparently do as well. --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, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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U.S. as a Terrorist State
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:29 PM 9/9/96, Duncan Frissell wrote: >And I support a terrorist organization (the US Government) every year >whether I want to or not. The US was convicted of a major violation of >international law (akin to terrorism) in the International Court of Justice >back in the '80s for air sowing mines in Nicaragua's main harbor. This is a lie, a lie by the subversive left. As is well-known, the recent unpleasantness surrounding the Sandanista State was a police action in which Air America was protecting its agricultural subsidies to certain freedom-loving, non-leftist nations. Principally Bolivia, Columbia, and Peru. As noted foodstuff vendor, the Culinary Institute of America, was the prime importer of these agricultural products, the CIA was of course involved in this police action to protect the flow of their goods. The mining of a harbor of a state with which we are not at war, and which has a government elected by a democratic process, is justified if the Commander in Chief believes it is. When the U.S. funds freedom fighters in Iran and Iraq, this is different of course from when Libya funds terrorists. (It is different because our Commander in Chief tells us it is.) That the World Court would find the United States guilty of terrorist actions (and cases are pending involving the U.S.-funded bombing of Cuban planes, the use of bomblets in toys dropped in other police action cases, and the funding of the Brigate Rose by Gehlen operatives...) shows the World Court is becoming dangerously independent. I suggest the U.S. cut off funding until it learns to heel. --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, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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papers on anonymous protocols
by Wei Dai 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I found a couple of papers on anonymous protocols that I haven't seen mentioned here before. I'll list them for people who might be interested: Cryptographic Defense Against Traffic Analysis by Rackoff and Simon. http://pct.microsoft.com/papers/ta.ps gives a proof of security for a mix-net like protocol. A. Pfitzmann, B. Pfitzmann, M. Waidner: ISDN-MIXes - Untraceable Communication with Very Small Bandwidth Overhead; Proc. Kommunikation in verteilten Systemen, Feb. 1991, Mannheim, Informatik-Fachberichte 267, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg 1991, 451-463. describes a protocol for anonymous telephone calls. Wei Dai

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Crypto Num Mum, Hmm
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Washington Post, September 9, 1996, p. A2. Computers: Number Crunchers' 1 and Only It's big. It's beautiful. And it's prime. Computer scientists at Cray Research have discovered the largest known prime number. A prime number, for those of us who have forgotten grade school mathematics, can only be divided by itself and by 1. Smaller primes include 2, 3, 5, 7 and 11. The new one, 2^1257787-1, is a bit bigger. Printed out, the 378,632 digit number would take up 12 newspaper pages. "We're pretty confident that this is the largest known prime number," said researcher Paul Gage. There are an infinite number of primes but they are extremely difficult to find. The newly discovered prime number is of a type known a "Mersenne" prime, named for a 17th century French monk and mathematician. It is easier to prove the prime-ness of Mersenne numbers than other primes, thanks to complex mathematical software. Cray runs the prime-testing program to search for bugs in its new supercomputers. Gage said the discovery of the prime was a happy byproduct of the process. The new number was discovered during a six-hour run testing a new Cray T94 system. Prime numbers are useful in the field of cryptography, where they are used to help construct virtually unbreakable codes. The new prime is far larger than those commonly used. Said Gage, "A cryptographer interested in numbers this big wouldn't be talking about it." -- John Schwartz [End]

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Re: China joins Singapore, Germany, ....
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:29 PM 9/9/96, Duncan Frissell wrote: >Course there hasn't really been much net censorship. Germany and China's >attempts have not been effective. The Feds lack a mechanism for "blocking >sites." There is no one in a position to give such an order. There is no >chance that such an order would be obeyed in any widespread way in any case. >Outlaw boards crackdowns didn't diminish the number of outlaw boards. Porno >boards crackdowns did not diminish the number of porno boards. Since it is >easier to create a site than it is to set up a board, legal maneuvers by the >Feds won't work. > >Making sites "illegal to connect to" is meaningless because most users won't >even know what is on the list and most of those who do will be encouraged to >connect to them rather than discouraged. While I agree with Duncan's sentiments (obviously) and even agree that censorship is impossible to completely implement, I think Duncan is oversimplifying and thus trivializing the dangers to Chinese, German, Singaporan, etc., subjects. Prison sentences in Germany for those who reveal forbidden information about "the Holocaust," prison terms (or worse) for dissidents in Burma, China, and, of course, various other nations and "democratic people's republics." Even here in the United States, connecting to an illegal site may mean imprisonment. (The charge: trafficking in child pornography, for example.) Rather than saying such laws are "meaningless," developing blinded, steganographic, etc. proxies may be a more useful strategy. --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, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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RE: What is the EFF doing exactly?
by jbugden＠smtplink.alis.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This may be a hopelessly naive question, but is it possible to refuse payment in cash? Is it really good for all debts public and private? James ---------- From: kamml(a)secret.org Sent: Monday, September 09, 1996 3:23 PM To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: What is the EFF doing exactly? Fedex will not accept cash in New York City. I have tried to pay cash and been refused. I have talked to customer service and confirmed that they will not accept cash in NYC although they will elsewhere.

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Re: Terrorists
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:58 PM 9/9/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >Remember, folks, it is _governments_ which interfere with natural movements >of people, capital, but not birds. > >I don't want to jeopardize my reputation as a List.Racist, but I think one >of the longterm (not in the next 15 years) implications of the things we >talk about will be the increased lowering of national borders. (Yes, I have >long talked about national borders being only speed bumps...here I'm >talking about _physical_ borders.) I assume defacto open borders pretty quickly. We currently have 40 million crossings a year (mostly us and Canadians) but as people get richer that is bound to grow rapidly. Since technology causes wealth and wealthy people like to travel and governments don't like to block wealthy travelers and travelers can increase faster than border guards swamping occurs. What happens when 2000-passenger surface effect aircraft (or other new travel technologies) start showing up on the market and la migra has to deal with high volume travel. They're having trouble with current levels at JFK and Miami. They scale back. I'm not predicting de jure open borders just defacto open borders. And with those who work on the net being able to work from everywhere and nowhere, they will be able to work in countries where they do not have work authorization as easily as a novelist can today. DCF

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