December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Sen. Leahy's "impeccable cyberspace credentials"
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:50 AM 8/26/96 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote: > Go a head and reject the "Beltway politicians". It's fashionable, sure, but > what does it really accomplish? Some of them are dangerous. Others are > sympathetic. Not true, some of them are merely less dangerous and harmful than others. As to whether Leahy is one of the less dangerous and harmful ones, that is seriously questionable. > The fact is that short of armed rebellion they are going to be > here for a while.I shudder to think of the wrath our opponents > could wage if we all threw up our hands packed up our bags and left town. Bad cop, good cop. You cooperate with the "good" cop, you go to jail. You tell them both to go to hell, then maybe you will not go to jail, and if you do go to jail, at least you will have the satisfaction of screaming injustice all the way: Re read what our "good" cop has been up to: > > Worse yet, as recently as this month Leahy has > > been clamoring to fund the invasive wiretapping legislation ("Digital > > Telephony") he shepherded through Congress two years ago. > > > > Equally distressingly, Leahy demonstrated his "impeccable cyberspace > > credentials" by cosponsoring the Senate online copyright bill -- aka the > > Hollywood Media Mafia's wet dream. (Yes, these are the same rapacious > > folks who are demanding that the Boy Scouts and summer camps pay cash to > > sing "God Bless America" and "Puff the Magic Dragon.") Opposed by the > > American Library Association, EFF, and teachers' organizations, Leahy's > > bill would slam fair use rights online and could make it a crime to > > browse the Net without a license. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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Re: Credit enforcement
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:43 PM 8/17/96 -0400, you wrote: >I thought that classical libertarians agree that the enforcement of >contracts is a proper function of the government. The minarchists generally do, the anarchists generally don't, at least if you're talking about last-resort contract enforcement. The primary mechanisms always have been to use the market, whether through reputations, insurance companies, bonding agencies, boycotts, or (often the most powerful) the sheer value of repeat business. Much of the development of commercial law from the Romans through the Middle Ages been to find peaceful and efficient ways to do business without the King helping. There are historical alternatives to having government do it; the Irish, Icelandic, Somali, and American Arbitration Association non-state-based justice systems had/have various sets of social pressure to do the job. (For instance, Somali dispute resolutions usually end up with some number of cows or other money getting paid to a winning plaintiff, and if you don't pay, your extended family has to. Rarely, the family also refuses and bringing in a higher-reputation judge fails, and a brief feud ensues...) On the "should the government or the free market do this" scale, most people put last-resort contract enforcement at the "we don't mind too much if the government does it" end rather than the "overthrow the government if they even think about touching it" end, which is for issues like sex, drugs, rock&roll, freedom to travel, etc. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> Reassign Authority!

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Whistleblowing on the Internet
by Geoffrey Gussis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm writing a paper for my ethics class on Whistleblowing, and specifically how it has been aided by the Internet. If anyone knows of any resources, pointers, etc., I would greatly appreciate it. The results will be published on-line, and I can send a copy to anyone who is interested as well. I am interested in information covering both the private sector and the government as well. I do know that the Federal Government has an online BBS where you can send in information on fraud, etc. What I have uncovered so far: + As far as a Lexis/Nexis search goes, I only found a few articles, and they centered around the Tobacco Papers, and the Scientology debate. + I located the Whistleblowing FAQ and contacted its author, but its last update was in 1994 and it is no longer being maitained. + I visited a couple of other related Internet sites (I searched using many search engines), but they don't really have examples of using the Internet for whistleblowing purposes. + I am also aware of the majority of Anonymity/Privacy sites on the Internet, and will definitely be utilizing them in the paper. Overall, I am quite surprised that there isn't a whistleblowing clearinghouse on the Internet; a site sponsored by a non-profit that lists email addresses and secure forms for sending anonymized email to those areas of the public and private sector that deal with whistleblowing. As the Internet is a great medium for information dissemination, and offers significant privacy advantages, I really expected to find much more. Is anyone else working in this area? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Geoffrey Gussis 2L - Washington University School of Law ___________________________________________________________________ Internet Law Projects at http://www.digidem.com/legal/ + Worldwide Top-Level Domain/Trademark Dispute Resolution Policies + Businesses on the Internet (BOTI) Legal Research Initiative + Legal Links in Electronic Commerce and Interactive Entertainment

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CLE_nup
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

8-26-96. FiTi: "Cleaning up the global economy. Policymakers must ponder the effects of money laundering." Is money laundering - as opposed to the crimes which produce it - necessarily such a bad thing? As Vito Tanzi notes in his IMF paper, the fact that money launderers are not fussy about economic fundamentals can help governments continue to pursue lax fiscal and monetary policies if they are equally unfussy about the origin of capital inflows. A pact with the devil, perhaps. But for many countries it may seem more attractive than signing up to a global financial market equivalent of Neighbourhood Watch. + Money Laundering and the International Financial System, IMF working paper, May 1996. ----- http://jya.com/clenup.txt (7 kb) CLE_nup

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Re: Cypherpunk voting - ITAR or CDA
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:37 AM 8/25/96 -0400, Vincent Cate wrote: >So it seems Dole is the better vote. Is this important enough to many >cypherpunks to actually determine their vote? Every time I think about voting for Dole, I read something in the papers that convinces me it is a bad idea. The most recent is that he wants to raise the intensity of the disastrous, failed war on drugs. You know the war. The one that has forced suppliers to enforce their contracts with violence because the courts won't help them. The one that eliminated the concept of responsible use which has worked so well with alcohol. The one that has eliminated reputation from the drug market, leading to overdoses and poisonings. The one that is responsible for most of the wire taps authorized in the USA. The one that has turned the USA into the prison capitol of the world. Don't get me started. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Cave ab homine unius lebri | 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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RSA/Security Dynamics filings are on the web
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The RSA/SDTI merger may be the only chance we ever get to see RSA's financial info. Previously it was a privately held company, which didn't report its finances publicly; now it'll be reported as part of SDI (a much bigger company), so its finances will be hidden in their larger business. You can also see what RSA and SDTI are saying about the RSA/Cylink/Schlafly lawsuits, the origins of VeriSign, how Addison Fisher bankrolled RSA and owned 55% of it, etc. Look on the SEC's EDGAR system, which contains copies of reports that the government requires publicly traded companies to file. Go to http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/srch-edgar?security+dynamics+technologies and view the various forms. The most fun is probably the big one, the 1.5MB S-4 form from the merger itself. These documents will require a tolerance for legalese, but there are lots of gems in there for the patient. John Gilmore

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ADMIN: Problems with the list goto the owner, not the list!
by Hugh Daniel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In the future please send all messages of the form ~something is wrong with the list~ to owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com and NOT the list its self. We already have enough off topic and puerile traffic cluttering up the list. If you think you see a _very_ major problem then please do email me directly. Now please get back to building the better world we sometimes still talk about building... ||ugh Daniel Majordomo Owner & Potty Trainer hugh(a)toad.com

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Code Review Guidelines (draft)
by Adam Shostack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A few weeks back, I posted a request for source code review guidelines. I got about 50 me-toos, but no guidelines. So I wrote some I think are decent. They're still in draft format. I'd appreciate feedback & commentary on them. http://www.homeport.org/~adam/review.html Adam PS: Someone did pay me to do this, but doesn't want their name associated with it, because there are shoulds and musts in it. I have their permission to post the anonymized document. -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume

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The POUCH
by JOHN E. HOLT 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Pouch uses a 64 x 64 block product cipher, a 1024 bit random initialization vector and the CBC technique. Most experts agree that such an implementation is highly resistant to all forms of cryptographic attack. Hellman and Dilfie rely on knowing the algorithm for their known plain text attacks An unpublished algorithm forces them into reverse engineering the computer programs to learn the algorithm. The POUCH has many roadblocks built in to prevent this. I refer to Cummings, Cryptography and Data Security pages 150 and 98 in this regard. John Holt

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Re: Sen. Leahy's "impeccable cyberspace credentials"
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 18:52:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)eff.org> To: Jonah Seiger <jseiger(a)cdt.org> Cc: shabbir(a)vtw.org, fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu, brock(a)well.com, telstar(a)wired.com Subject: Re: INFO: Democratic convention chats online! Be there! (8/25/96) Jonah, I had expected some negative feedback from CDT, but I should say I was surprised by the tenor of your response. Unfortunately, you don't address the substance of my criticisms of Leahy: how can you defend Leahy's avowed support for Digital Telephony and the copyright legislation? How do his actions make him a "forceful" and "consistent advocate" with "impeccable cyberspace credentials?" (Hint: They don't. He isn't.) You write that: "Of course we are not going to agree with our friends on every issue." But I disagree with your underlying assumption; if a senator is our "friend," they won't do what Leahy does. Being familiar with technology does not a Net-advocate make -- take Al Gore, for instance, who net-surfs in an Old Executive Office building cluster... If I'm wearing any hat at all right now, it's my cypherpunk one. And that prompts me to say that we'll have more freedom online not by relying on the legislative process, but by deploying pro-freedom technology like anonymous remailers and PGP. We can't rely on an ossified Beltway Bureaucracy to preserve our freedoms. (In fact, we need to shrink the size of the Federal bureaucracy drastically to make it less susceptible to special-interest lobbying and to reduce its ability to encroach upon our civil liberties.) We've argued about this before, of course. I recognize that we have core philosophical disagreements. You want to work the legislative process and compromise, while I believe that some rights can't be negotiated away. I recall you supported White's "Harmful to Minors" CDA compromise that would have created a new and unprecedented category of speech crimes online. (The ACLU's Barry Steinhardt wrote on this list last fall that "no true civil liberties organization" would support such language.) You joined Leahy in supporting the Bennett bill, which would have permitted Equifax to create a national medical database with few privacy safeguards. Not to mention your defense of Leahy's pet Digital Telephony project... You write: "But none of them [members of Congress] are gong to continue reaching out a hand to us if we bark and bite when we don't get 100% of our way." I'm confused by this. Does it mean we shouldn't slam Leahy when he fucks with the Net? More disturbingly, the incorrect and misleading label of "impeccable cyberspace credentials" makes it more difficult to criticize Leahy when he does something (like DT funding or copyright) that harms netizens. I suppose you'd like to champion Leahy as a "Friend of the Net." But I'd rather not ignore his attempts to pass legislation that would hinder the development of the Net and intrude on our privacy. I reiterate my earlier statement: "Leahy is in no way a true friend of the Net; I don't know of any Beltway politican who is." -Declan On Mon, 26 Aug 1996, Jonah Seiger wrote: > Declan: > > What are you thinking?! > > In a world where we have very few real friends, I simply don't understand > what you are trying to accomplish. It's fine (and healthy) to raise > concerns about the particular positions a member of Congress takes (hell, I > don't agree with everything Leahy does), but to simply dismiss Leahy as a > 'no friend of the Net' is naive and counterproductive. > > Look at the record. Leahy is hands down the strongest supporter of the Net > in Congress. Period. No other Member (including our small but growing > handful of other friends like Burns, White, Wyden, Cox, Eshoo, etc) has > been a more forceful or consistent advocate for your causes for as long as > Leahy has. What exactly do you want? Perhaps we should elect you to > Congress and see how well you can do. > > Of course we are not going to agree with our friends on every issue. If > Leahy takes a position you don't like, I'd suggest you talk to his office. > I have found in my experience that Leahy's staff (and him personally) will > take the time to listen when presented with a well presented argument. > > I'm also confused about another thing: which hat were you wearing when you > wrote this? If it is your "advocate" hat I think it must covering your > eyes. If it's your "journalist" hat, you need to do a bit better job of > checking your facts in the future. > > Go a head and reject the "Beltway politicians". It's fashionable, sure, but > what does it really accomplish? Some of them are dangerous. Others are > sympathetic. The fact is that short of armed rebellion they are going to be > here for a while. > I shudder to think of the wrath our opponents could wage if we all threw up > our hands packed up our bags and left town. > > Face the facts. Members of Congress have a lot of constituencies to deal > with, and we are a small and relatively powerless faction. We can do a lot > to change the outcomes of policy debates (if I didn't believe that I > wouldn't be doing what I do everyday), but we have to be realistic, > recognize where we fit in to the process and who are friends are. One > thing's for sure - we have A LOT more enemies than we have friends. > > Most members of Congress don't really understand us or our issues. Many > are willing to learn, and some have been real champions for our causes. > But none of them are gong to continue reaching out a hand to us if we bark > and bite when we don't get 100% of our way. Zealots rarely win (though it > sure is fun to throw bombs). > > Sorry for the public thrashing, but this kind of attitude REALLY gets under > my skin. > > Flames welcome (though response is not guaranteed <g>), > > Jonah // declan(a)eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan(a)well.com //

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