December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Neo-Nazis etc.
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Try to keep in mind that "Nazis" aren't skinheads and other troublemakers exactly, which is to say, those are the first people Hitler got rid of when he came to power. Real Nazis are/were bureaucrats; cold, calculating, bureaucratic. Do we know anyone like that?

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Sep 20th SF C'punks meeting: ITAR on trial
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We're having another "Cypherpunks Dress-Up Day" on Friday, September 20th. Meet at the Federal Building in San Francisco, 450 Golden Gate Avenue, at 11:45AM, in high-quality business drag. [There will also be a regular Saturday meeting this month, on Sep 14.] It's been eleven months to the day since our first hearings in Dan Bernstein's lawsuit against the NSA and State Department. At this hearing, starting at High Noon, we hope to convince Judge Marilyn Hall Patel to declare that the ITAR (export regulations) and AECA (export law) are unconstitutional. We are asking her to order the State Department to immediately stop enforcing them with respect to cryptographic software. Simultaneously, the government is asking her to declare that their actions have been completely legal and Constitutional, and to throw out our lawsuit. Judge Patel has asked both sides to fully explore all the legal issues in the case for this hearing, leaving aside any unresolved factual questions (like exactly how many people have had their exports denied). She plans to decide the questions: * Should the government's actions be examined under the "strict scrutiny" appropriate when they attempt to restrict speech, or under a looser "O'Brien" test that applies when the government seeks to restrict conduct and only incidentally restricts speech? * Is the ITAR Scheme a prior restraint on speech? * Does the ITAR Scheme impermissibly punish speech after the fact? * Is the ITAR Scheme too vague to constitutionally regulate speech? * Is the ITAR Scheme so broadly worded that it unconstitutionally limits speech protected by the First Amendment? * Were the government's actions as applied to Dan Bernstein unconstitutional restrictions on his First Amendment rights? It's possible, but unlikely, that the judge will decide some of this then-and-there. Instead, we will get some insights into how she is leaning, based on her questions and comments. Her written decision will come out some weeks or months later. She then plans to certify the case for immediate appeal to a higher court (the Ninth Circuit, also here in San Francisco), to confirm or deny her legal analysis. >From there it will probably go to the Supreme Court. Watch the wheels of justice grind! Meet the intrepid lawyers who are working hard to protect our rights! Shake hands with one or more NSA representatives specially flown in for the occasion! Meet some journalists and be quoted talking about crypto freedom! We will follow the hearing with a group lunch at Max's Opera Plaza, a block away at Van Ness Avenue and Golden Gate Avenue. As background, Dan Bernstein, ex-grad-student from UC Berkeley, is suing the State Department, NSA, and other agencies, with help from the EFF. These agencies restrained Dan's ability to publish a paper, as well as source code, for the crypto algorithm that he invented. We claim that their procedures, regulations, and laws are not only unconstitutional as applied to Dan, but in general. Full background and details on the case, including all of our legal papers (and most of the government's as well), are in the EFF Web archives at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/ITAR_export/Bernstein_case. Like Phil Karn's and Peter Junger's cases, this lawsuit really has the potential to outlaw the whole NSA crypto export scam. We intend to make your right to publish and export crypto software as well- protected by the courts as your right to publish and export books. It will probably take more years, and an eventual Supreme Court decision, to make it stick. But this is the hearing at which we plan to convince our judge that these laws really are unconstitutional. Her order restoring our legal right to publish crypto source code could come out by Christmas! Please make a positive impression on the judge. Show her -- by showing up -- that this case matters to more people than just the plaintiff and defendant. Demonstrate that her decision will make a difference to society. That the public and the press are watching, and really do care that she handles the issue well. We'll have to be quiet and orderly while we're in the courthouse. There will be no questions from the audience (that's us), and no photography, but the session will be tape-recorded and transcribed, and you can take notes if you like. The lobby guards will want to hold onto guns, "munitions", and even small pocketknives, before they'll let you go upstairs to the courtrooms. So, here's your excuse to put on a nice costume, take an early lunch, and pay a call on the inner sanctum of our civil rights. See you there! John Gilmore PS: If you can't come, you can still contribute. Join EFF's Legal Defense Fund; see http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/cyberlegal_fund_eff.announce.

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FW: Anonymous phone calls (was: What is the EFF doing exa...
by jbugden＠smtplink.alis.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Subject: FW: Anonymous phone calls (was: What is the EFF doing exactly?) There is another spin possible on the reasons for replacement of pay phones with credit card phones. In Canada all new credit card phones are also able to take phone cards (which are anonymous). Using a prepaid phone card permits full anonymity. But what it also permits is metered local calls. This infrastructure would be more familiar to someone from Europe where metered local calls are the norm. Paris made the change to phones that *only* take prepaid phone cards (thus fully anonymous) obstensibly because people were breaking into phones for the money. Prepaid phone cards avoid this as well as collection costs. James Why should my long distance calling subsidize your local internet access? ;-) ---------- From: "<pstira(a)escape.com>" <pstira(a)escape.com> Sent: Friday, September 06, 1996 9:54 AM To: unicorn(a)schloss.li Cc: vznuri(a)netcom.com; cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: What is the EFF doing exactly? Not just DC and Chicago, I'm afraid. If anyone around NYC noticed, there are less and less payphones, and all new ones installed, just about, are those yellow credit card phones. Not all of them, but it's now one for one, at least.

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Co$ Buys EFF
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The New York Times, September 6, 1996, p. D2. Behind an Internet Message Service's Close Pressure From Church of Scientology Is Blamed for the Shutdown. A Finnish judge says different rules apply to E-mail. By Peter H. Lewis Pressure from the Church of Scientology International was at least partly responsible for the recent shutdown of a well-known Internet messaging service based in Helsinki, according to the Finnish operator of the service. The service, known by its Internet address, anon.penet.fi, was used by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to send and receive electronic messages without divulging their true identities. It was the best known of a small, global network of special computers known as remailers, whose legitimate users include political dissidents, people with medical or drug ailments and others who want to communicate anonymously. Although previous news accounts had reported that the service was shut down because of accusations that it was a primary conduit for child pornography transmitted on the Internet, police investigators in Helsinki dismissed those accusations as groundless. The real reason for terminating the service, according to its founder and operator, Johan Helsingius, was a recent Helsinki court ruling that ordered him to reveal the true name of one of his system's users to the Church of Scientology. The judge held that under Finland's current telecommunications laws, Internet electronic mail does not carry the same privacy protections enjoyed by postal mail or telephone calls. The church, which in recent years has been trying to protect its copyrighted scriptures by trying to block their dissemination over computer networks, said an unknown person or persons had used the anon.penet.fi computer to illegally publish copyrighted church documents on Usenet, the global electronic bulletin board. Mr. Helsingius, a 35-year-old computer networking expert, has not yet revealed the name sought by the Scientologists, and said he planned to appeal the court ruling. But he said the court ruling opened the door for future subpoenas seeking the real names of anon.penet.fi users, and that he would rather close the system than spend all his time in court. Mr. Helsingius has operated anon.penet.fi for more than 3 years, handling over 7,000 messages a day. "In a sense I've done my pioneer work and it is now up to others to carry on," Mr. Helsingius said. Helena Kobrin, a Church of Scientology official, said the complaint against anon.penet.fi was just one of several actions the church had taken against the operators of remailer computers in Europe and the United States. She said the church has five lawsuits pending in the United States against remailer operators and users of remailers. "We have actively been in communication with various remailers about postings that have gone through their systems," said Ms. Kobrin, general counsel for the Religious Technology Center in Los Angeles, which is responsible for protecting the copyrights and trade secrets of unpublished Scientology scriptures. Earlier this year, another remailer, known as hacktic.nl, in the Netherlands, was shut down under pressure from the Scientologists. Unlike many other churches, the Church of Scientology, founded nearly 40 years ago by the science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, regards its gospel as copyrighted material and a trade secret. Several courts have upheld the validity of the copyrights. Foes and critics of the church have used the Internet to publish the church documents, as well as other documents the church contends were stolen from its computers. The Religious Technology Center has also unsuccessfully attempted to put a stop to the forum on Usenet, alt.religion.scientology, where many of the copyrighted documents are published. A series of recent news articles in The Observer of London among others had linked the anon.penet.fi computer to accusations it was a conduit for child pornography. Mr. Helsingius, who has denied that his system is a conduit for child pornography, declined to speculate on the motives of the accusers. The accusations of child pornography first appeared several days after Mr. Helsingius declined to turn over to the court the name sought by the Scientologists. The Observer quoted Toby Tyler, identified as an adviser to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as saying anon.penet.fi was the source for up to 90 percent of the child pornography on the Internet. But Richard P. (Toby) Tyler, a sergeant in the San Bernardino, Calif., County Sheriff's Department who said his involvement with the F.B.I. was minimal, said he was misquoted by the newspaper. Mr. Tyler, who has investigated pornography trafficking in cyberspace, said that most child pornography on the Internet did not pass through remailers. He did say, however, that of the small portion that does, 70 percent to 90 percent passes through anon.penet.fi. "I think that's a shame," Sergeant Tyler said upon learning that anon.penet.fi was closed. "I personally view its closing as a loss of freedom. I did not like the abuse of the remailer for child pornography, but I felt it served a necessary political purpose in this world." Ms. Kobrin of the Religious Technology Center said that despite its legal actions, the Church of Scientology does not oppose the operation of remailers, which are also known as anonymous servers. "We were not opposing the existence of his server," Ms. Kobrin said. "We have no opposition to there being anonymity for private, consensual communications. What we oppose is using anonymous servers for the purpose of permitting criminal or other unlawful acts. There has to be responsibility and accountability." [End]

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Test...sorry about this
by Z.B. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm just posting this to see if there's something wrong with my mail filter - it dumped a ton of messages from this list over the night, and I'm trying to figure out why the !@%$# it did that. Sorry for the interruption. --- Zach Babayco zachb(a)netcom.com <----- finger for PGP public key http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/4127

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Re: Anonymous phone calls (was: What is the EFF doing exactly?)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:08 AM 9/6/96 EST, jbugden(a)smtplink.alis.ca wrote: >There is another spin possible on the reasons for replacement of pay phones with >credit card phones. In Canada all new credit card phones are also able to take >phone cards (which are anonymous). Don't be too sure about the "anonymity" of these cards. You don't have to give your name when you buy or use them, but assuming a large number of phone calls (to, from different locations) can be associated together after the fact, your name can probably be fairly easily obtained. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Conservation Laws, Money, Engines, and Ontology (fwd)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:46 AM 9/6/96 -0400, Donald E. Eastlake 3rd wrote: >Suggest you look at draft-eastlake-internet-payment-*.txt in the >IETF shadow directories. I don't think any one step will solve all >our spam problems but I wouldn't mind spending, say, 5 cents for each >real piece of mail I sent outside my company and if end machines charged >5 cents per piece of ouside mail received, I think spamming would be >crippled. (Note that with bad guy lists, you could collect the money and >then just throw away the mail.) Assuming we all agree that we're moving from a paper-based mail system to email, it is logical that "junk mail" will move as well. As I recall, statistics show that the average cost of a piece of junk mail is about $1 or so, including postage, printing, etc. It occurred to me a while back (and this proposal appears to be at least approximated by other proposals around here) that since companies are already saving a dollar, they should use some of those savings to "bribe" Internet-users into reading those (commercial) messages. Don't bother with all the details on how to verify this, just include digital cash along with the message, to be credited automatically to the recipient. Assuming the average Internet user already pays about $15 per month for access, he would only have to receive 2 emails a day which pay him 25 cents per, to pay for this service. At that point, his Internet access would be free, at least somewhat analogous to free TV which is paid for by commercials. Everybody's ahead, except for the postman, the printer, etc. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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electronic offshore banking
by Jüri Kaljundi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Are there any good offshore banks that would allow you to use your account over the Internet? I know European Union Bank www.eub.com is on of those available, but their US$ 25.000 minimum deposit is too stupid. Jüri Kaljundi AS Stallion jk(a)stallion.ee

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

17 Dec '03

At 1:11 AM 9/6/96, Greg Burk wrote: >> I strongly disagree. It's quite possible for Person A to quickly convert >> his reputation to Person B to a _negative_ value. Real quick, in fact. > >I don't see how there can be such a thing as negative reputation >capital. Wouldn't that mean B believes the opposite of what A says? If >you anti-believed someone in a consistent manner, couldn't they exploit >that? Well, I suppose that if you don't believe in negative repuation capital, I'm not going to be able to spend enough time to convince you. It's like someone saying they're not sure such a thing as "entropy" exists. >For instance, when a certain infamously-low-reputation (deservedly so) >individual recently joined the cypherpunk lists, others who had endured >him in the past tried to relay their impressions of him. It proved very >difficult to convey, and they were somewhat attacked for their efforts >and not entirely believed. > >In other words, he *could not* spend down to 0, despite years of >unflagging effort. No, with many of the list members, his reputation was in fact negative. They disbelieved nearly anything he had to say, and his approval of some idea was largely cause for others to take the opposite tack. About as clear an example of a negative reputation as one can find. (Note that I am not saying his reputation is negative with _me_.) >I've already made the points I wanted to make, so I may not have further >comments. Nor me. --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 the NSA is patenting
by John Deters 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:26 AM 9/3/96 -0500, Bruce Schneier wrote: >I just spent a pleasant hour or so searching a patent database for all >patents assigned to the NSA. There's some interesting stuff: > > "Self-locking, tamper-evident package" > Method of retrieving documents that concern the same topic" > >Fifty-Four patents total. (Used to be they just kept stuff secret; now >they patent some of it.) Attached is the most interesting thing I found: a >patent on techniques for reading data off overwritten magnetic media. > >Bruce [ Interesting patent deleted ] This method implies that they have the ability to scan the entire platter surface at resolution level that is basically atomic. >From lots of experience gained from working with metalworking machinery, it sounds like some of the old magnetic data might be leaving traces behind by a process called "backlash". It happens because machines don't realign themselves precisely, unless the lead-in steps are repeated every time. A fairly simple demonstration of this can be found on most dot-matrix printers. They usually have a mode called "uni-directional" printing, where the printhead puts dots on the paper only when travelling from left-to-right. This is used to improve the quality of a graphic image. Print a simple pattern of repeating vertical bars (||||||) across the page and down several lines with this mode turned off, and you'll probably notice the lines tend to not line up perfectly. Turn uni-directional printing on, and watch the behavior of the printhead. It will "home" itself to the far left side before printing the next line of bars. The bars will then be lined up "better" than in the bi-directional print. We should be able to use this feature to our advantage to write a "backlash- enhanced" wipedisk driver. The wipedisk utilities I've seen today primarily consist of repeatedly writing a pattern such as 0x55555555, then 0xAAAAAAAA, then 0xFFFFFFFF, then 0x00000000. While this will probably eradicate most of the traces of the original data, it's all happening "unidirectionally" -- starting at the first sector of the file, write this data till all the sectors have been overwritten. Given that the original data may have been written in reverse sector order, or reverse cylinder motion order, or after a large cylinder change, the wipedisk might still leave traces remaining on the disk. Using the above example of printing vertical bars, imagine having each line print three times using the unidirectional mode, and randomly picking one line out of the entire array to print bi-directionally. It'll stand out like a sore thumb. That's what I think they're looking for with their data recovery method. What would probably make for a more secure wipe utility would be to alter the "head approach path" prior to making each of the passes described above. So, before overwriting the sectors in order from 0 to EOF full of 0x55555555s, have the head move to the 0th cylinder first. Before overwriting the sectors in order from 0 to EOF with 0xAAAAAAAAs, have the head move to the last cylinder beforehand. Repeat for the 0xFFFFFFFF and 0x00000000 sectors, except overwrite the sectors in order from EOF to 0. All this pre-writing motion could theoretically reduce the repeatability of the drive head positioning arm as well as possibly hitting different rotational sync points, using the backlash effect to its fullest extent. Of course, the biggest problem will be that of overcoming intelligent disk controllers. No self-respecting SCSI drive is going to voluntarily swing the disk head around inefficiently, and I don't know enough about how IDE works to say anything different about it. I hope some hardware hacker who knows their low-level stuff will be able to write a secure disk wiper. John -- J. Deters "Captain's log, stardate 25970-point-5. I am nailed to the hull." +-------------------------------------------------------+ | NET: jad(a)dsddhc.com (work) jad(a)pclink.com (home) | | PSTN: 1 612 375 3116 (work) 1 612 894 8507 (home) | | ICBM: 44^58'36"N by 93^16'27"W Elev. ~=290m (work) | | PGP Key ID: 768 / 15FFA875 | +-------------------------------------------------------+

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