December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

German prosecutors redouble attack on Net, subversive leftists
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Note www.anonymizer.com doesn't seem to be blocked. --Declan] --- Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 01:59:36 +0200 (MET DST) From: Ulf Moeller <um(a)c2.net> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: German Internet Censorhip: http://www.xs4all.nl The German Generalbundesanwaltschaft (Chief Federal Prosecutor's office) has "advised" the Internet providers to block access to http://www.xs4all.nl:80 and http://www.serve.com:80 due to supposedly illegal contents at the URLs http://www.serve.com/spg/154/, http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal//154/ and http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/angela1/radilink.htm. The commercial ISPs have blocked the routes to the servers. Their statement (in German) is at http://www.anwalt.de/ictf/p960901d.htm "Radikal" (http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal) is a publication from the radical left that is illegal in Germany, but not in the Netherlands. --- Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 22:15:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Re: German Internet Censorhip: http://www.xs4all.nl I heard about this a few days ago, but I was unable to verify it. Yesterday I bounced mail through a German university to xs4all.nl back to EFF, and it came through just fine. I also tried golden-gate.owl.de and wserver.physnet.uni-hamburg.de, both of which have no problems talking to xs4all.nl. From those tests, I can say there's no complete ban, though I can't confirm or deny any partial ban. However, just in case the German government is successful in this censorship gambit, I've mirrored the three embattled web sites at: http://www.well.com/~declan/mirrors/ This is a quick grab of the files in question; I'll work on a formatted intro page later. (As background for more recent subscribers to fight-censorship, this isn't the first time the German government has tried this. A similar move came early this year when German prosecutors tried to cut connections to webcom.com in California, where some of Ernst Zundel's Nazi "Holocaust Revisionist" propaganda was hosted. I and a few other folks including Rich at Stanford and Blake at Penn held our noses and mirrored it around the country, prompting the Gemans to lift the ban. I had thought the German prosecutors smarter than to try this again. I guess I was wrong.) My global Net-censorship roundup is at: http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/ -Declan

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Re: rc2 export limits..
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm afraid my source is "Read it on the net and was surprised to hear it". My assumption is that the limit is for software that implements both signature and verification, since ITAR doesn't ban export of pure-authentication software. Is the State Dept doc on the net? It would be nice to have something saying there are well-defined rules that they agree to follow, unreasonable and unconstitutional though they may be. At 12:06 PM 9/4/96 -0400, Kent Briggs <72124.3234(a)compuserve.com> wrote: >stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com wrote: >> However, the usual guidelines for systems like RC2 and RC4 is >> 40-bit keys, and RSA keys up to 512 bits for encrypting >> session keys and 1024 bits for signatures > >Can you list a source for the 1024-bit signature restriction? I know >about the 40-bit RC2/RC4 and 512-bit public encryption keys because they >are specifically addressed in the State Dept's "Procedure for Submitting >a Commodity Jurisdiction Request for a Mass Market Software Product that >Contains Encryption". However, digital signatures are not mentioned in >this procedure. I can't image what justificication could be used to >restrict the strength of digital signatures. # 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: Reputations
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greg Burk writes: > Too little incentive to shoot for the heights: > > Suppose you judge that you've accumulated twice as much "reputation > capital" as Joe. How do you get twice as much payoff? It seems to me > that above the threshhold of credibility, minor side issues make more > difference than your two-fold "reputation capital" differential. Go read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (a good book to read anyway :) and examine the nature of the computer network "discussion groups" he talks about: a classic example of reputation markets in many-to-many discussions. With the proper tools someone with twice the reputation capital in a particular category as another will have a greater chance of what they say not being filtered out as noise. > As an "asset", it is extremely non-liquid: > > How exactly would you "convert" your reputation into other capital? > Would you accept bribes and tell lies? Seems to me you would only get a > one-shot "conversion" and it couldn't possibly hope to equal your > investment. Tell that to Walter Cronkite, Siskel & Ebert, Moody's and others who have converted reputation capital into large piles of money. Time is an asset that has a monetary value to most people, and they are willing to spend money to hear the opinions of sources which they feel have a high reputation in a particular area rather than spending the time necessary to do the research and investigation themselves. > So I think the latter part of the analysis is wishful thinking, or at > least restricted to a small subset of subject-matter. No, I think that you just don't understand the mechanics of reputations and how they interact with the most important resource in most people's lives: time. Instead of thinking of "reputation" look at it from the other end and consider the "attention marketplace." Right now reputation markets have a limited presence on the internet (mostly through killfiles) because the tools required are not integreated into the tools used to browse the information. In time this will change. jim

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Re: Internet blamed in shoe-cam crimes, assailant free on $750 bail
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 4 Sep 1996 23:31:29 -0400 (EDT), The Deviant wrote: >> He said the man was detected by two couples who noticed him moving his >> foot under the skirt of a woman. They followed the man, held him and >> called police. >> Police ask women who feel they've been victimized to call 808-5289. >> George Walter Campbell, 62, of Cornwall, has been charged with sexual >> assault and mischief. He returns to College Park court on Sept. 10. >> He was released on $750 cash bail yesterday. >Hrmm.. I can see how its _wrong_, but exactly how is looking under >somebodies skirt _assault_? Mischief is true. However it does get back to the eventual question: if they are giving off radiation, are we guilty receiving them? For instance, if you have your pot sensing IR camera in a plane, do you need a search warrant? If you walk around with a scanner listening to cell-phones is it illegal? One can also imagine a sewer worker getting sued for looking out of one of those cover grill things. (Perhaps up at a cover girl. Pun intended.) - "'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: Race Bit: C
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>At 02:47 AM 9/4/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >>At 3:02 AM 9/4/96, James A. Donald wrote: >>>At 10:33 PM 9/3/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: <...> [I am unsure just *who* wrote:] >>As the recent discussion of knives, switchblades, and throwing stars >>showed, such ambiguous laws are often used to keep the coloreds down. Gunlaws and druglaws have deep roots in racism, but it is politically incorrect to say, even if I can find it in the congressional record. [and I can.] But then it was certainly Jim Bell who wrote: >Perhaps the most ominous part of making "use of encryption to thwart an >investigation" illegal is _not_ that remailer operators might be prosecuted, >but that they might NOT be prosecuted in a deal where (in exchange for not >being prosecuted) they continue to operate the remailer, "cracked" or >sabotaged so that they share all the info with the cops. While even that >won't make chained remailers totally useless, eventually suspicions of such >a crack will surface, which will help sabotage the credibility of all >remailers, not just the ones that have been "stung." If someone tried a scheme involving violence such as A. P. through a remailer I was involved in, the feds would not have to threaten me with prosecution to get me to cooperate with them. I may not keep any logs right now, Jim, but if your little scheme gets underway I will cooperate willingly as long as I don't compromise the privacy of non- violent people such as drug users & sellers. For them, I would go to jail; for you, I would even cooperate with the BATF (which should be defunded 100%, IMO). Violence begats violence which begats even larger government, don't start us on that road -- leave me in peace.

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Re: FWD: Another try to kill democracy
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:53 PM 9/2/96 +0000, SPG wrote: > I just got wind that the German government is planning to force german > ISP's to shut off access to my ISP, XS4ALL, because the german magazine >'Radikal' has a web page on xs4all. A few more details please: What german agency is taking what action. Has any access been shut off yet, or is it just some two bit asshole fascist with delusions of grandeur? > Please considder mirroring or linking to this site. Linking is pointless if the site is cut off or access seriously threatened. Mirroring is appropriate only if access is seriously threatened. How serious is this threat? --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Reasons for Preferring Anonymity
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:41 AM 9/4/96, Jon Lebkowsky wrote: >The terms "responsibility" and "accountability" are misused, which is >unfortunate, since I think we'd all argue in favor of taking responsibility >for our speech/actions in a positive sense. The negative is in asking me to This issue keeps coming up: "Shouldn't people be willing to take responsibility for their speech and actions?" No, actually, and I presented the fact that people are using anonymity and remailers as evidence that clearly they are not willing to take responsibility under their own, traceable True Names for their speech. Q.E.D. But the issue persist. Well, why do people use anonymity in general? * To call the IRS to ask questions. Maybe to ask what they should do if they haven't paid taxes since 1983. Believe me, with the advent of "Caller ID" here in California, I've learned to use payphones before calling the IRS office over in San Jose. (As the Net takes on a larger role, what will be the parallel to anonymous calls to the IRS? Obvious answer.) * AIDS test results. And a whole panoply of similar queries. Caller anonymity is crucial. * Whistleblowing, obviously. * Ordering of information and supplies is often done through agents, or cut-outs. Coca Cola, as the story goes, orders supplies so as to deliberately confuse those trying to deduce the formula for Coke (probably a bad example, as the 80-90 years of Coke has probably made the formula for Coke a kind of joke). But there are very real cases where businesses make queries or orders and cannot tolerate traceability to them. (Dyson's thought that maybe anonymity should be banned for businesses shows her lack of understanding of the issues.) * As a special form of whistleblowing, sometimes people have information they feel should be disseminated, and have no desire to be "accountable" for releasing this information. The release of RC4 code is an example. The Dumpster diving of Mykotronx is another. * Admissions and confessions. Those who use the various "recovery" groups obviously feel no need to ensure "accountability" and "traceability," nor should they. * Their comments may affect their Real World jobs, their status in organizations, their distant future political careers, etc. (In an age of Web spiders, anything said may show up in future lawsuits, divorce settlements, tenure reviews, political campaigns, etc.) And so on. John L. may wish that all people believe in being held accountable for their speech and actions, but obviously this demonstrably is not the case. Names are just another credential, another potential factor in a transaction. Sometimes they help to close a deal, sometimes they are unneeded. The notion that a government-issued name credential is necessary for mutually-satisfactory transactions is just an illusion. --Tim May (have any of you checked that I am really, truly who I claim to be? Have you been dealing with me on the basis of belief that I am a persistent personna, or because you saw me present an SS card?) 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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No Subject
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > The gubment has no right to fuck with any speech - (seditius) libel, child > > porn, bomb-making instructions... > > > Agreed. Otherwise, by a slipery slope argument, they can eventually > supress any form of speech whatsoever. true enough, most punks on here are a bit less radical but we need more of this sort of absolutism Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Http://www.fatmans.demon.co.uk/crypt/ "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey" -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6 mQCNAjH9j+cAAAEEAMBvREiQR0ot9dFCO0TiSCSunAYLv2g1Bc6I3bz8FzKXNH53 6mieJf/W4rD+CxJpT0q9RQaaoRtkHJLwbjfK2il3D7mEahMAyqvF/xRJNqkXfhM3 sRJM0Jh43l+W0M5vwokbEbk25/bxWWGspTsLD3YHbzKnG6pOcL5OPIRbv66xAAUR tCdQYXVsIEJyYWRsZXkgPHBhdWxAZmF0bWFucy5kZW1vbi5jby51az4= =riHc -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Re: FWD: Another try to kill democracy
by SPG 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

James A. Donald wrote: > > A few more details please: What german agency is taking what action. Oke, taken from: http://www.anwalt.de/ictf/p960901e.htm ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Internet Content Task Force (ICTF), Press Release of Sep. 03, 1996 RA Michael Schneider, eco e.V. A telefax was received by us from the Public Prosecutor General on August 30 in which eco e.V. is informed of an on-going investigatory procedure. We have been requested in this context to inform all Internet service providers affiliated with ICTF (Internet Content Task Force) the following in writing: "Under the following addresses in Internet: http://www.serve.com/spg/154/ http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal//154/ and using the link on page http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/angela1/radilink.htm one can call up the entire edition of the pamphlet entitled radikal Nr. 154". Parts of this pamphlet justify preliminary suspicion of promoting a terrorist organization under § 129a, Par.3 of the German Criminal Code, public condoning of criminal activities penalizable under § 140 no.2 of the German Criminal Code and preliminary suspicion of inciting to criminal activity under § 130a Par.1 of the German Criminal Code. The Public Prosecutor General at the Federal Court of Justice has therefore initiated a criminal investigatory procedure against the parties disseminating this pamphlet. You are herewith informed that you may possibly make yourself subject to criminal prosecution for aiding and abetting criminal activities if you continue to allow these pages to be called up via your access points and network crosspoints" +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > Please considder mirroring or linking to this site. As of today: http://burn.ucsd.edu/%7Eats/RADIKAL/ http://www.jca.or.jp/~taratta/mirror/radikal/ http://www.serve.com/~spg/ http://huizen.dds.nl/~radikal http://www.canucksoup.net/radikal/index.html http://www.ecn.org/radikal http://www.well.com/~declan/mirrors/ http://www.connix.com/~harry/radikal/index.htm http://www.connix.com/~harry > Linking is pointless if the site is cut off or access seriously threatened. > > Mirroring is appropriate only if access is seriously threatened. > > How serious is this threat? Serious enough i think. henk (SPG)

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Re: Herr Schmidt
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:07 AM 9/5/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >By the way, I used the name "Schmidt" in my satire post, sent out earlier >this morning. I picked that name randomly, being a common German name >(cognate to Smith, I believe), and meant nothing with regard to Stephan. > >(I also don't dislike Germans in general. I studied some German in high >school--don't ask me to use it, though!--and have visited Germany. They >just have a certain well-known tendency to take the authoritarian path at >times.) >--Tim "Once all the Germans were warlike and mean But that couldn't happen again. We taught them a lesson in 1918... And they've hardly bothered us since then!" Tom Lehrer, "MLF Lullaby" Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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