December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: "X-Ray Gun for imperceptible searches
by Weld Pond 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This thing sounds like it could be easily defeated by sewing some "space blanket" material on the inside of coats, etc. Maybe jackets that show up false positives with gun shaped cutouts will become fashionable with the already harrassed inner-city set. Weld Pond - weld(a)l0pht.com - http://www.l0pht.com/~weld L 0 p h t H e a v y I n d u s t r i e s Technical archives for the people - Bio/Electro/Crypto/Radio

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Re: Article on Electronic Commerce with a few too many
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:19 PM 8/12/96 EDT, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: >jim bell <jimbell(a)pacifier.com> writes: >> I too find this concept offensive, at least to the extent that it is kept a >> secret from the marketplace. Even so, as a libertarian and free-market >> capitalist, I certainly see nothing wrong with "allowing such behavior," and >> indeed I'd see something wrong with NOT "allowing" it. Nevertheless, to >> the extent it occurs it should be well understood and identified for what it >> is. > >This reminds me of the recent revelation how a major disposable lens maker >was marketing three lines of lenses: cheap ones, good for a few days; >medium ones, good for a week; very expensive ones, good for a month. >You guessed it - the lenses inside the packaging were identical. > >(I find that most self-described "libertarians" are actually fucking statists.) I don't see how that last statement follows anything that went before. I made it explicitly clear that companies have a right to market in such ways; I also have a right to dislike those methods. As for other libertarians, I don't see that they're appreciably different. So where did that last comment come from? BTW, your KOTM credential is outdated...are you trying to have it renewed? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Rumors of death of Anguilla Data are greatly exaggerated
by Greg Kucharo 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In the Swiss system, who dictates to the banks thier policies about who and what they can store? Do the banks have enough influence to sway lawmakers? It seems to me that the issue is not illegality, but rather if the depositor is a viable political entity with "something on the other guy". When the Nazis or Columbian drug dealers are still in power, the Swiss look the other way. As soon as these types fall to other forces, the Swiss hand over the goods to the victors. I think if you were to sucessfully store information that a large power finds personally objectionable, the best solution is to play both sides. Scenario; The U.S. leans on the Anguilla authorities to close down Vince. Vince goes to the British consulate and negotiates for the depositing of some nasty information about the Queen or something. The British lean on the Americans to lay off. A little far feteched but you get the idea. And it would work in the majority of situations. I bet money stashed by Hitler and Goebbels got confiscated after World War II. But Gerhard Whelen got his loot when he linked up with the CIA. ??????????????????????????????????????? Greg Kucharo sophi(a)best.com "People want chaos for about 5 minutes. Then they want some money and a backrub." -Bruce Sterling ???????????????????????????????????????

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re: National Socio-Economic Security Need for Encryption Technology
by morgan＠keilin.helsinki.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It seems clear that capital investment in tools will contribute to the -productivity- of workers. (Tools here meaning whatever machinery/ infrastructure is used to get work done.) Bart Croughs quotes a number of economists who seem to be saying that when capital investment leads to increased productivity (per worker) this also leads to higher wages. I'm not sure I understand -why- this should necessarily be so. It's my impression that in manufacturing industries, the more mechanized production is, the more workers will get paid. Then again, perhaps a more mechanized industry will pay more because more mechanized industries hire workers with higher skills (albeit fewer workers). It's my impression that when a company makes capital investments which increase productivity, the fruits of this increased worker productivity are shared (to some extent) with the workers. I can imagine a number of reasons why this might be done, but it's not absolutely clear to me that this would be a direct result of market forces. -- ===================================================================== Joel.Morgan(a)Helsinki.FI http://blues.helsinki.fi/~morgan "Over the mountains there are mountains." -- Chang-rae Lee =====================================================================

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Re: "X-Ray Gun for imperceptible searches
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:36 PM 8/12/96 -0400, Weld Pond wrote: >This thing sounds like it could be easily defeated by sewing some "space >blanket" material on the inside of coats, etc. You could probibly build little clip on active jammers. (With published specs to the "Evil Internet(tm)".) Such intrusive methods should be pretty easy to screw up with proper detail on their operation. (I expect the 2600 crowd will have jammer kits available soon. And working ones a few months after that...) >Maybe jackets that >show up false positives with gun shaped cutouts will become >fashionable with the already harrassed inner-city set. I want one that will make me show up as a multi-tentacled alien horror from beyond space and time. Why make them wig out and shoot you when you can really mess with their minds...? --- |"Computers are Voodoo -- You just have to know where to stick the pins."| |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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Re: Police prepare stunning end for high-speed car chases
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:54 AM 8/12/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: > >(And I'm not ignorant of such technologies, having attended several of the >Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conferences. I also played around with >this as a minor plot element in a novel I was working on several years ago, >namely, a character killed in Los Alamos when the Electronic Engine Control >circuitry of his BMW was zapped while on a mountain road. This, by the way, >is a "side effect" of widely deploying such EM cannon technologies--people >using them on twisty mountain roads. I can think of some places near Big >Sur and around Devil's Slide where such a gizmo would produce real >interesting effects!) Why would you need an "EM Cannon" for this? Just string a 1-car-sized loop of wire on the surface of a road, and off in the bushes hide a battery, DC-to-Hi voltage DC converter and 20kv+ capacitor, and a vacuum switch or some other switch arrangement. When the car in question traverses the loop, short the switch and the car will be blasted with 20,000 volt-turns of induction. Sure, most of it will pass harmlessly through the car's steel, but even iron has a limited "mu" which means that every electrical device in the car will be subjected to a certain amount of induced EMF, probably enough to at least reset a few microprocessors and possibly even destroy them. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Hoax: A ban on cryptography?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:37 AM 8/13/96, David Kennedy wrote: >My mailer thinks the e$pam list pulled this from cypherpunks: > And I'll bet you're still looking for "Oceania" in your atlas? This is one of the main reasons I hate it when my articles get "spammed" to other lists, lists where people have no idea of who I am and no idea of my sense of humor. For the clueless, I simply took the "Defense Authorization" bill which had been posted to Cypherpunks by geeman(a)best.com and replaced a few of the words involving "explosives" with "cryptography." Oh, and I twiddled the number of the bill to include "666." Finally, I even said "This may not be real, but it could be" at the end. Jeesh. The worst part of having my stuff spammed, e-spammed, gurgitated, and regurgitated is that I get letters from people saying "I saw this thing you wrote on the Kangaroo Hopping List. What is "crypto"? Thanks a bunch, dude." Wake up. And for those who forward my stuff, please include appropriate disclaimers to your "spammees" that a) one should read things with an appreciation that a post may be tongue in cheek, b) that back-spamming to another list is not cool, and c) that I don't want to be bothered. >>> S.1666 > > Department of Commerce Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997 (Passed by the > Senate) << > >And this is bogus, and as far as I can tell not a typo, it's complete hokum. > >S.1666 is an obscure bill about courts in Utah. > >A search of http://thomas.loc.gov on "encryption" reveals the expected bills, >PRO-CODE etc. > >A search for the DoC Authorization Act reveals nothing, as far as I can tell >this bill has not been drafted let alone passed. I don't know enough about how >the DoC is funded to know if they get their own Authorization Act or receive >authorizations piecemeal and by the reconciliation. > >Again, this is bogus. > >!^NavFont02F02350014QGHHG|MG~HG85QG87HI}2126 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: "X-Ray Gun" for imperceptible searches
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:42 PM 8/12/96 -0700, Time Keeper wrote: >I wonder how well the imager works through mylar or gold lame' clothing (or >other high-metal content clothing)? You will be required to escrow such clothing with the proper government authorities. Inspections will be done by the Bureau of cocktails, discos, and munitions according to strict rules set down by President Clinton, with advisement from Former Sen. Bob Packwood. Actually they will just use harder radiation in those cases. The higher cases of radiation burns and sickness will be offset by the gains in perceived public safety. "Eyes melt. Skin explodes. Everybody dead!" - An unnamed source at the FBI. --- |"Computers are Voodoo -- You just have to know where to stick the pins."| |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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Re: Spam and Eggs. (fwd)
by Damien Lucifer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I put together a few pages regarding remailers and net spamming. Nathan Waddoups <nathan(a)metareality.com> hosts a well written site dealing with the larger issue of netspam, and has graciously agreed to host the remailer pages. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 17:06:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Nate Waddoups <nathan(a)metareality.com> Subject: Re: Spam and Eggs. I just finished adding your page. You're linked from the main spam page: http://www.metareality.com/~nathan/visit.cgi/html.Spam ...and your page is at this address: http://www.metareality.com/~nathan/visit.cgi/spam/html.Remail Groovy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- <sig> see http://www.metareality.com/~nathan for more of the same </sig> Help stop junk email! http://www.metareality.com/~nathan/visit.cgi/html.Spam

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Re: "X-Ray Gun" for imperceptible searches
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:43 PM 8/12/96 -0700, Mike Duvos wrote: >Color me skeptical. > >"E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH(a)ocelot.Rutgers.EDU> writes: > > > The gadget doesn't send out X-rays; instead, it picks up > > electromagnetic waves emitted by human flesh. > >Would these electromagnetic waves be something distinct from the >blackbody spectrum of a human-sized blob of "mostly water" at the >appropriate temperature? > >Or to put it another way, is this just a sophisticated IR imager >thickly coated in snake oil and marketing hype? That depends on what you mean by "IR." Near-IR is about 300 Terahertz; I've seen some items in electronic magazines recently concerning systems that emit and receive around 1 terahertz. Apparently, they can read writing in envelopes, etc. It isn't clear whether this particular system is more like a thermal IR system, or one of those newer ones. Chances are good that when such a system is produced, it will be produced WITHOUT any kind of recording system that must be installed. The problem is, this leaves it open to interpretation as to what a cop saw, and judges and juries tend to be too deferential to cops who "are trying to protect us." All a cop has to do is to claim he saw a gun, or drugs, or practically anthing else, and suddenly he has probable cause where he wouldn't have had it before. Yet more abuse with no obvious benefit. All the more reason to adopt an AP-type system: The so-called "justice system" rarely punishes its own; if we are to have a realistic deterrent, the only way to do it is to let outsiders deal with abuse. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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