December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: [WAS xs4all.nl] Terrorists
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:29 PM 9/9/96 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote: >At 01:49 AM 9/9/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >>And the net effect of crypto anarchy is to destabilize and marginalize >>central governments, which is a net positive effect. If some eggs get >>broken in the process, the biological imperative will generate more eggs. >>No big deal. > >Particularly since governments murdered 160 million in the last 100 years >while we civilians have only managed to murder a paltry 20 million or fewer. >A savings of 160 million deaths leaves a lot of room for a non-harmful >increase in private murder. We could increase the private murder rate by 8 >to 10 times and still break even. I think the analysis is even more attractive than these numbers would imply. Probably the victims of government were, on average, no more "worthy of death" than that of the average citizen. They were the soldiers killed in wars (many or most of whom were drafted), civilians bombed, the victims of oppression and holocaust, etc. More or less ordinary people, a cross-section of society. While it's harder to generalize about victims of private killing, probably a far higher probability were either the bad guys killed off by other bad guys, or the bad guys killed legitimately by the good guys. Even when they were "good guys killed by bad guys," in many cases it's due to fallout from drug laws, or people prevented from carrying guns for their own protection. >Note too that most terrorism is aimed at governments (even if practiced on >civilians). In the absence of government, terrorist incentives may be reduced. Normally efforts to reduce terrorism would be welcomed by the government. Wouldn't it be interesting to see their reaction to an organization which announces that there are too many innocent citizens who are becoming victims of terrorism, and publicly calls on these terrorists to direct their attacks to non-private individuals, possibly researching the matter and giving suggestions? I think the public would understand, after a little education, that the average terrorist doesn't really have any reason to want to kill a private citizen if a better alternative were presented. I don't suppose you'd ever see a conventional polling organization ask the public questions like, "would you prefer to see 200+ randomly-selected citizens die in an airplane bombing, or the deaths of 50 government employees most responsible for the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents." Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Crypto Anachy MUD
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:10 AM 9/10/96, Jon Leonard wrote: >Duncan Frissell wrote: >> Did anyone make the point (I gave up on the thread) that we already have a >> great Crypto Anarchy MUD with lots of the coding already done. We call it >> the Internet. Digital cash, strong crypto, remailers, everything. > >Tim May expressed doubt that it was worth the effort: Not much easier >than the real thing, and not as good. That's the closest to your point, >I think. .... >Finally, a MUD has the potential to spread crypto-anarchic ideas to people >who would not otherwise have considered them. > >It may be that I'm wasting my time, but I could come up with some useful >new crypto protocol too. Don't tar me with the "Tim said it was a waste of time" label. Rather, I said I thought it would be pretty tough to get a reasonable ontology, one with rich enough behaviors and reasonable incentives and disincentives. Simulations are an art...they were useful in nuclear war planning, where the degrees of freedom were constrained, and so on. I agree that various cryptographic and crypto anarchic constructs can be "faked" in a game (MUD) that cannot be reasonably implemented at this time in the real world. Note: Didn't Steve Jackson Games have something called "GURPS Cyberpunk" which was somewhat similar? Anyway, good luck and have fun. --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: BoS: Can you trust your ISP ??
by Ben Camp 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Any sort of Certificate authority based protocol is dumb. It's like RSAC charging 500 bucks for rating a web site. Nothing anyone does on the web is important enough to encrypt. Anyway, as far as SSL goes...we've all heard about how proactive Netscape is in preventing key comprimise. Its too late. Ben Camp At 06:49 PM 9/9/96 -0700, Eric Murray wrote: >I~nigo Gonzalez writes: >> >> Hello, >> I'm thinking about how can I get rid off this kind of attack *before* it >> happens. Can you please send me your comments about this? I don't know so >> much about the how SSL works, but I think this is something that can >> happen... > >[classic Man-in-the-Middle attack] > > >What you described is the Man In The Middle attack, often >abbreviated on these lists as MITM. The fact that there's >an abbreviation for it should indicate to you how often >it is discussed. However it's also one of the first >problems (besides the basic encryption) that protocol >designers think of. > >It's been taken care of in SSL3- the server's certificate >must be signed by a CA that the client trusts. Unless >the digital signature can be spoofed, and it probably >can't be, the client can be certain that the server certificate it got >is really from the server that it claims to be from. > >Assuming that RSA still can't be broken, the client can be sure >that the pre-master-key material that it sends to the server >(and which is the basis for the symmetric crypto session keys) >will not be compromised. > > >If you grab a copy of the SSL3 spec (from netscape's web site) >and read the appendicies there's more good stuff about possible >attacks and what's been done to counter them. > > > > >-- >Eric Murray ericm(a)lne.com ericm(a)motorcycle.com http://www.lne.com/ericm >Principal, LNE Consulting: SSL, crypto applications, Internet security. >PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03 92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF > > >

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Re: Test...sorry about this - Reply - Reply
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:07 PM 9/9/96 -0500, you wrote: >I subscribed just once, real name. Yep, the Welcome msg is ReallyTrulyFine[M]. > I reallytrulyread it. High-traffic, though, is relative. In light of >Z.B.'s post , I thought that maybe I , too, had a mail probem. Seriously, >thanks for the info. BTW, if it's too much of a flood, you can read it with a newsreader at nntp.hks.net # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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Re: China joins Singapore, Germany, ....
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:13 AM 9/10/96 -0500, Mike McNally wrote: >Declan McCullagh wrote: >> >> The revised Hatch "child porn" legislation criminalizes even >> *attempting* to download the forbidden data. > >What would it look like, exactly, when they went in to arrest the >AltaVista search engine? "Drop those bits! We've got you delimited!" Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: What is the EFF doing exactly?
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 9 Sep 1996 10:51:04 -0400, kamml(a)secret.org wrote: >>> Try and pay cash in most Fedex offices. >>I always do and as long as I have exact change I have never been >>hassled. >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. You could try the "Really? Could I borrow a phone book for a minute? I need to get UPS's number." approach. It has been known to work... <g> - "'Anonymity is bad,' says a source who wishes to remain anonymous." - Nuff' said. * Home: Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp * Autoresponder: send email w/subject of "send resume" or "send PGPKEY" * Work: cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 | (619)689-6579 * Member in good standing of the GNU whirled hors d'oeuvre

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Re: Crypto Num Mum, Hmm
by red 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Are perfect numbers of any use in cryptography? I have yet to come across the usage or application, let alone heard of it, but has there been any proposals? Thanks. -rednax- red_naxela(a)geocites.com "smile and the mirror smiles"

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Re: China joins Singapore, Germany, ....
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:41 AM 9/9/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >Prison sentences in Germany for those who reveal forbidden information >about "the Holocaust," In a country where you get 10 months for stabbing a famous tennis star in the back, prison isn't much of a penalty. >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.) The percentage of total hits that will end in jail terms or executions is meaninglessly small as a percentage of total hits, though. You must admit that a ban on 100 sites out of all the sites in the world is pretty insignificant. The swamping effects of thousands and soon millions of sites means the governments of the world won't even be able to evaluate a significant percentage even if they want to. And all this *before* we apply any of our technical fixes. DCF

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Re: [WAS xs4all.nl] Terrorists
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:54 PM 9/9/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >Given the mounting hysteria about terrorism (by the government, at least), >and given the various laws on the books, I would not be surprised to see >some Web sites prosecuted as "harboring" terrorists terrorist-symps. > >If any of you are not citizens of the U.S., and are here on visas, I would >give this some real serious thought. Of course, maybe deportation is a >blessing in disguise. > Course in 1951 they tried the same thing against Commies with the Smith Act. Even authorized concentration camps for 'em and everything. But it didn't work. We were still up to our asses in Commies even with the Act. They even captured the White House eventually. I don't think the anit-terroism act will be any more effective. DCF

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Re: [WAS xs4all.nl] Terrorists (fwd)
by Stephan Schmidt 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Stephan Schmidt wrote: > > Perhaps my connection is only disrupted accidently, but > I can't access www.xs4all.nl from one account > (the two others still work). > IP tried : 194.109.6.100 > > SPG: What is the 'new' IP ? The numbers are rotating every hour, so i can send you a the ip-number every hour to trace to :) > (I hope you don't think I'm a spy for > the German Government :) spy's are not interrested in ip-numbers i think. > Perhaps this time we have to > proove that it's impossible to > block an IP/Web site, so that all govs > get a clue about who inet works. i think they have already or will be informed by the ICTF in some day's. Look at: http://www.anwalt.de/ictf/_960910d.htm Also note one of the first lines: ACHTUNG: Dieses Dokument (einschließlich aller Anlagen) darf bis zu seiner Vervollständigung und Freigabe weder zitiert, in WWW-Server eingestellt, noch abgedruckt werden. :) Henk ps. stephan, can you forward this to the list. I'm reading this list on a server with mail2news, also as a newsgroup i cant reply to ;(

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