December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Small German bank claims first with online service
by bf578＠scn.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > >> FRANKFURT, Aug 28 (Reuter) - German private bank Gries & >>Heissel Bankiers on Wednesday launched an Internet banking >>service -- the first comprehensive service of its kind in a >>country where online bank options are gradually taking off. >> The small Berlin-based bank linked up with U.S. computer >>firm Hewlett Packard Co to develop the system, which Internet >>users can access using a high-security personal code. Sounds scarey and like a challenge! >> Clients will be able to view detailed balances on their >>deposit, current and securities accounts and transact all normal >>banking business on the World Wide Web. -- ------------------------------------------ There are no facts, only interpretations. I always wanted to be somebody,

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Re: Singapore Global Action Alert (8/29/96)
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: Cypherpunks(a)toad.com 29/08/96 Subject: Re: Singapore Global Action Alert (8/29/96) On 29 Aug 96 at 11:31, Declan McCullagh forwarded: > The application (...in Singapore) of broadcast-inspired, > "one-to-many" regulation to > this new *many-to-many* medium (...the internet) indicates a > fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Internet. I completely disagree here! Taking into account the philosophico-political context there, it *obviously* indicate a *complete* understanding of the nature of the net. It is you (the writer of the forwarded article) who did not either dare to state or simply recognize the true nature of a govt pushing such measures. I am fed up of seing net users giving every would-be dictator the benefit of the doubt. There is no tolerance to be applied to that. There is no such thing as being tolerent to poison. Why don't we start naming things by their true names? JFA - -- Jean-Francois Avon DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Limoges porcelain, silverware and crystal JFA Technologies R&D consultants: physicists technologists and engineers. Montreal, QC, Canada PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2i iQEVAgUBMiWnB8iycyXFit0NAQGvaAf9HHTGYk/MAg/uX3uP87sOd6mWrVLw8J8u 4XFp83YV1MPBkqZ5xIxmxBNR6bF2RyqFIiD/go3x3nbfX5YkdF9jXW4iOnYNK6Ji DzrlWTDNGFwTnbUnUbPraSjULU/0x3YdKAVmcxqr6KYBBLR2NVEtiqzbVQK2exHU DZUG6oamV4sK5QFRA5gj0L+oB+qEdveZJrTK13rZT3UC21GXuOBGRPpHQStfU5nK 3v7ajP4IdlxxHZutL/S1LmPJw1iSf9eDtn76J7Y8UxrgknNavavs9rxte3mUjns1 TneE7zz2g9VMS6cqGttncp/Cwc7AkeURi7nu0tnr7jCvwlo4GhGSoA== =4R7n -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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New Microsoft Product! ! ! (fwd)
by Charley Sparks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 11:11:00 -0400 From: ICSHAB(a)aol.com Subject: New Microsoft Product! ! ! Microsoft Panhandler v1.0 (Beta) Redmond, WA -- Microsoft Corporation chair, CEO and all-around babe magnet Bill Gates announced yesterday the introduction of a new product for Windows 95: Microsoft Panhandling. "The idea came to me the other day when a homeless man asked me for money,"recalls Gates. "I suddenly realized that we were missing a golden opportunity. Here was a chance to make a profit without any initial monetary investment. Naturally, this man then became my competition, so I had my limo driver run over him several times." Microsoft engineers have been working around the clock to complete Gates' vision of panhandling for the 21st century. "We feel that our program designers really understand how the poor and needy situation works," says Microsoft Homeless product leader Bernard Liu. "Except for the fact that they're stinking rich." Microsoft Panhandling will be automatically installed with Windows 95. At random intervals, a dialog box pops up, asking the user if they could spare any change so that Microsoft has enough money to get a hot meal. ("This is a little lie," admits software engineer Adam Miller, "since our diet consists of Coke and Twinkies, but what panhandler doesn't embellish a little?") The user can click Yes, in which case a random amount of change between $.05 and $142.50 is transferred from the user's bank account to Microsoft's. The user can also respond No, in which case the program politely tells the user to have a nice day. The "No" button has not yet been implemented. "We're experiencing a little trouble programming the No button," Bernard Liu says, "but we should definitely have it up and running within the next couple of years. Or at least by the time Windows 2014 comes out. Maybe." Gates says this is just the start of an entire line of products. "Be on the lookout for products like Microsoft Mugging, which either takes $50 or erases your hard drive, and Microsoft Squegee Guy, which will clean up your Windows for a dollar." (When Microsoft Squegee Guy ships, Windows 95 will no longer automatically refresh your windows.) But there are competitors on the horizon. Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corporation are introducing panhandling products of their own. "Gates is a few tacos short of a combination platter, if you get my drift," says Oracle Head Honcho and 3rd degree black belt Larry Ellison. "I mean, in the future, we won't need laptop computers asking you for change. You'll have an entire network of machines asking you for money." Gates responded with, "I know what you are, but what am I?" General pandemonium then ensued.

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The few, the proud, the under-quota'd-mailbox US Marine Corps
by Alan Horowitz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 29 Aug 96 3:46:15 -24000 From: MAILER-DAEMON(a)mqg-smtp3.usmc.mil To: alanh(a)infi.net Subject: Undeliverable Message To: "Skeeve Stevens" <skeeve(a)skeeve.net> Cc: <cypherpunks(a)toad.com> Subject: Re: DoJ is poking around Message not delivered to recipients below. Press F1 for help with VNM error codes. VNM3043: BANYAN SERVER@MAG26@2DMAW NEW RIVER VNM3043 -- MAILBOX IS FULL The message cannot be delivered because the recipient's mailbox contains the maximum number of messages, as set by the system administrator. The recipient must delete some messages before any other messages can be delivered. The maximum message limit for a user's mailbox is 10,000. The default message limit is 1000 messages. Administrators can set message limits using the Mailbox Settings function available in the Manage User menu (MUSER). When a user's mailbox reaches the limit, the user must delete some of the messages before the mailbox can accept any more incoming messages. UNDEFINEDI have a military account. Not all govt or military accounts belong to black-helicopter pilots.

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www.anonymizer.com
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

www.anonymizer.com got a nice plug in David Plotnikoff's column in today's San Jose Mercury News. He quotes Community ConneXion's motto, "Because on today's Internet, people do know you're a dog." He also mentions its similarity to anonymous remailers. His capsule review: "On the upside, it's very easy to use and it supports gopher and FTP transfers as well as Web pages. On the downside, it's predictable slow and pages, bracketed top and bottom with Anonymizer banners, often don't display quite right." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Cave ab homine unius libri | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | [Beware the man of one | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | book] - Anonymous Latin | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Re: Simulations
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:28 AM 8/29/96 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote: >At 10:05 PM 8/28/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: > >>To me, the most obvious one is GIGO: Simulations, especially >>political/social ones, might depend heavily on assumptions that are >>programmed into them. A trivial, yet interesting example is the computer >>game "Sim City" which allowed you to adjust the "tax rate" but problems >>always cropped up the further away you were from 7%. The libertarians were >>frustrated that we were unable to drop the tax rate and still get a >>well-functioning, happy society. > >I was taking economics back in the Armonk Iron days and we played around with >an economic simulation program written in Fortran. One was supposed to >adjust government spending and taxes to find an optimum level. I set both >taxes and spending to zero. We got a lot of economic growth and a lot of >inflation (this was not a monetarist simulation). Yes, it does sound a bit inaccurate. Let's see, while I only took one economics course in college (macroeconomics) as I recall inflation is generally the product of either the monetarization of the deficit or an increase in wages unmatched by productivity increases. The latter is unlikely to be caused extensively by government policy or spending (Davis-Bacon is an obvious exception to this in the private sector), and if the government spending and taxes are zero then obviously the former can't be the cause. > But we were happier. That reminds me of a related flaw in Sim City. When the program is queried as to what the public's main complaints are, the information is presented by the program as the percentage of the population considering various problems to be the "most important." However, it did not explicitly rank the SERIOUSNESS of these problems in absolute terms. Since it is practically an axiom of human nature that we'll FIND something to complain about if nothing comes immediately to mind, the danger is that you'll over-react to a non-problem with a "solution" (often involving more government spending) that is even worse. Another bias was the fact that the program seemed to lump all infrastructure-type spending into government, as opposed to a privatized solution. In reality, if you drop government spending very low problems will begin to be solved by private means. In Sim City, however, the system did not compensate in this way, leading to low or even negative growth, and extreme dissatisfaction, etc. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Singapore Global Action Alert (8/29/96)
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:21 PM 8/29/96 -0500, Jean-Francois Avon wrote: >I am fed up of seing net users giving every would-be dictator the >benefit of the doubt. There is no tolerance to be applied to that. >There is no such thing as being tolerent to poison. I don't think this is giving Singapore's rulers the benefit of the doubt. Rather, it is a case of asking politely the first time. Since it is asking him to change a policy of his, it is merely avoiding calling him a shithead in the process. When you want someone to do something voluntarily, it is usually better to start by being polite. It is up to other net-forces to make sure that censorship is ineffective for technical reasons. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Cave ab homine unius libri | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | [Beware the man of one | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | book] - Anonymous Latin | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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RE: Desubscribe
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> On Or About: 29 Aug 96, 16:57, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > > > jbugden(a)smtplink.alis.ca writes: > > > > can not unsubscribe since majo= rdomo notices > > > jbugden(a)smtplink.alis.ca in the header and treats the attempt to > > > unsubscribe as a forgery. > > > > If you don't have the brains to forge the From:, then you have no > > business being subscribed to any mailing list. > > > What's worse? Losers who can't unsubscribe from a mailing list they subscribed to OR spammers? ;-) Ross

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Nuke Singapore Back into the Stone Age
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:21 PM 8/29/96, Jean-Francois Avon wrote: >I completely disagree here! > >Taking into account the philosophico-political context there, it >*obviously* indicate a *complete* understanding of the nature of the >net. It is you (the writer of the forwarded article) who did not >either dare to state or simply recognize the true nature of a govt >pushing such measures. > >I am fed up of seing net users giving every would-be dictator the >benefit of the doubt. There is no tolerance to be applied to that. >There is no such thing as being tolerent to poison. > >Why don't we start naming things by their true names? I agree with Jean-Francois--most of the recent announcements by governments about the Internet actually indicate *full awareness* of what their actions could mean for the propagation of articles, the extradition of Net.criminals, and the development of a Global New World Computer Order. The United States knew what the CDA would mean, the government of Bavaria knew what the crackdown on "racist" Web sites and newsgroups would mean, the government of Singapore understands full well what their actions could mean, and so on. And it is likely that the "control" advocates in each of these countries (and others) are pleased when one of their brother countries announces new crackdowns on the Net and Web. Very few governments actually like free speech in all of its forms, and certainly the U.S. government does not. Sure, there is lip service paid to "free speech" in the U.S., but the list of illegal things to say keeps getting longer (just last week Clinton illegalized many forms of speech involving cigarettes--what part of "Congress shall make no law" is not being understood here?). As to why so many of the criticisms of such crackdowns use "weasel language," such as the example Jean-Francois disagrees with, well, this is the way the game is played. The alternative to "The government of Singapore fails to understand the nature of the Net and could do grievous harm to it" is not quite so diplomatic: "Fucking statists. Time to nuke 'em back to the stone age." Personally, if this crackdown in Singapore happens, I intend to post various anti-Singapore and anti-Lee Kwan Yew & Sons screeds to various newsgroups that Singaporans might like to read. Then, if the Yew Dynasty decides to pull the plug, it'll be to more and more groups. --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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Mail to sbinkley@atitech.ca
by Brian Pecic 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You are continualy sending to Scott Binkley (sbinkley(a)atitech.ca) Scott is no longer at ATI so please stop sending to this invalid address. Brian Pecic bpecic(a)atitech.ca

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