December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Down-Under Bounce Attack halted
by Mullen Patrick 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please excuse me for my ignorance, but... What is a "bounce attack"? I only know of mail bouncing, and I don't see a way of making an "attack" out of such an occurrance... ??? Thanks! PM _______________________________________________________________________________ From: wb8foz(a)nrk.com on Thu, Nov 14, 1996 1:10 Subject: Down-Under Bounce Attack halted To: Cypherpunks The postmaster of that AU site running the bounce attack assures me he has been able to vanquish the daemon running the box in question; despite the fact he did not even know it was there ;-} [Don't ask..] -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz(a)nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433 ------------------ RFC822 Header Follows ------------------ Received: by mail.ndhm.gtegsc.com with SMTP;14 Nov 1996 01:10:21 -0400 Received: from toad.com by delphi.ndhm.gtegsc.com with SMTP; Thu, 14 Nov 1996 6:06:00 GMT Received: (from majordom@localhost) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA09977 for cypherpunks-outgoing; Wed, 13 Nov 1996 15:56:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from wauug.erols.com (wauug.erols.com [205.252.116.240]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA09962 for <cypherpunks(a)toad.com>; Wed, 13 Nov 1996 15:56:29 -0800 (PST) Received: (from wb8foz@localhost) by wauug.erols.com (8.8.2/8.7.3) id SAA31763; Wed, 13 Nov 1996 18:56:30 -0500 From: "David Lesher / hated by RBOC's in 5 states" <wb8foz(a)wauug.erols.com> Message-Id: <199611132356.SAA31763(a)wauug.erols.com> Subject: Down-Under Bounce Attack halted To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com (Cypherpunks) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 18:56:30 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: wb8foz(a)nrk.com Organization: NRK Research X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Precedence: bulk

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Censor John Gilmore -- EFF is a disgrace!
by aga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, Declan McCullagh wrote: > Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 13:12:50 -0800 (PST) > From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> > Reply-To: freedom-knights(a)jetcafe.org > To: Dave Hayes <dave(a)kachina.jetcafe.org> > Cc: freedom-knights(a)jetcafe.org, cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: Re: [REBUTTAL] Censorship on cypherpunks?, from The Netly News > > I am amused. I gave Dave Hayes about an 8.5 out of 10 on the scale of > meaningless political rants. > Jealousy rears it's ugly head. You just wish you had the credibility that Dave Hayes has. > I'll address some of his points. > Do it within his text as you are supposed to. > * "Political safety?" I stand by my record as a writer. Check out > http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Declan_McCullagh/ for some of my > recent articles. Political safety? Hardly. > This Declan_McCullagh is a long-time cabal.member, so his critique of a Freedom-Knight like Dave Hayes is to be given short shrift. > * Dave says "Notice that the net is compared to a home or private club." > Wrong. I never compared the Net to such. However, a mailing list run on a > computer in someone's home with his own cash is very similar to a private > club. There are private speech restrictions on the Net. Gated communities > exist. Try to join the "lawprofs" mailing list. You can't; you're not > (and quite obviously anything but) a law professor. Censorship? Not quite. > None of that analogy is applicable to the cyberpunks list. When a list gets as big as that, it it no longer to be considered a "mailing-list" but it is a _public_ forum. The whole problem here is the abuse of power by both the EFF and John Gilmore. > * Contrary to what you seem to be asserting, Gilmore hasn't blocked Vulis > from posting. > > * Dave warns us to consider "what would happen if one parent company owned > *all* communications media." Then we have problems. I've written about > this in an Internet Underground magazine column. However, this is not the > case now. Or are you arguing the government should get involved and force > Gilmore to allow Vulis on his list? > No, he is saying that people can use an e-mail filter and not listen to Vulis if they want to. It was a very simple thing; are you too uneducated to know how to use an e-mail filter? > By the way, if you haven't figured it out yet, Mr. "Freedom Knight of > Usenet," a private mailing list is NOT Usenet. Get a clue. > Wrong! The cyberpunks mailing list is PUBLIC property and should NOT be controlled by John Gilmore! This just goes to show the real facist censorship motives that the EFF has behind it. Time to kill the EFF, and let it rot in hell. They are disgrace to the entire InterNet community. I run 6 different mailing lists, and have NEVER puled the plug on anyone, even when they criticize me. The first time is the time when you lose all credibility, and there is never any forgiveness for a plug-puller. > -Declan > -aga.admin InterNet Freedom Council > > > > > > On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, Dave Hayes wrote: > > > [This is a rebuttal to a misguided news article.] > > > > > Cypher-Censored > > > By Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) > > > > Thank you for leaving your email address. It makes this easier. > > > > You people (read: the unaware and hypnotized masses, which includes > > reporters who's desire for attention and political safety holds them > > in line with the consensual illusion) keep missing the real issue, and > > substituting issues which only hold themselves in place. > > > > [Those of you who know, please excuse the mediaistic terms used in > > this rebuttal. One must use the symbols one is given to communicate > > at the level of understanding of those who use them.] > > > > > Thus began a debate over what the concept of censorship means in a > > > forum devoted to opposing it. Did Gilmore have the right to show Vulis > > > the virtual door? Or should he have let the ad hominem attacks > > > continue, encouraging people to set their filters accordingly? The > > > incident raises deeper questions about how a virtual community can > > > prevent one person from ruining the forum for all and whether only > > > government controls on expression can be called "censorship." > > > > "Cyberspace" is interacted with using tools under the control of the > > interactor. > > yes, and all you need is a simple mail filter. > > In person-to-person interaction, one's only real defense against what > > one decides to call "unwanted" is to remove oneself from the arena of > > interaction. It may not be possible to ignore or run away from certain > > sources of input. > > > > In cyberspace, however, it is not only possible but necessary and even > > desirable. Cyberspace allows one to interact with many more people > > then can fit in any given physical space. One simply -cannot- receive > > input from 2000 people and not employ some sort of filtering > > mechanism. Indeed, cyberspace has many buttons and switches (and even > > programmatic filters) which allow one to -completely- control whom one > > interacts with. > > > > Logically, we must conclude that those who frequently and repeatedly > > cry for the censorship or removal of any source of input from > > cyberspace are either: > > > > -quite clueless about the tools at their disposal > > -ideologically or personally opposed to the source of input > > or -in need of large amounts of attention from others > > > > Cluelessness can be overcome by appropriate teaching and interest in > > learning (the latter issue we can safely assume users of popular but > > ineffectual windowing OSes are not able to overcome). Such > > cluelessness, however, is not and should never be a reason for > > censorship. > > > > A need for attention can be overcome by refraining from the denial > > that the need exists, followed by careful observation of that need. > > More can be said on this, but this is not the forum. Such a need > > is not and should never be a reason for censorship. > > > > Idelological opposition is another matter entirely. To understand this > > better, we'll need to observe this in action. Here is an example: > > > > > Vulis portrays himself as a victim, but as I posted to the list > > > last week, I disagree. Anyone who's spent any time on the > > > 100-plus-messages-a-day list can read for themselves the kind of nasty > > > daily messages that came from Vulis's keyboard. > > > > "Nasty" is, of course, by this reporter's standard of "nasty". Granted > > this standard may in fact be shared by Mr. Gilmore, however a shared > > standard is not necessarily an appropriate or correct standard. > > > > > The list is on Gilmore's machine and he can do what he wants with > > > it; he can moderate the postings, he can censor material, he can > > > shut the whole thing down. By kicking off an offending user, a > > > list owner merely exercises his property right. There's no > > > government involvement, so the First Amendment doesn't apply. And > > > the deleted, disgruntled user is free to start his own mailing > > > list with different rules. > > > > Notice how, once the opposition is admitted to, the rationalization > > begins. Suddenly this is not a matter of censorship, but of ownership. > > Just as suddenly, the classic anti-free-speech arguments of "if you > > don't like it, start yer own" begin to surface. (Anyone ever notice > > how this resembles the "love it or leave it" mentality of certain > > American patriotic organizations?) > > > > What would ideological opposition be without the attempt at analogy? > > Here we witness another example: > > > > > But then the question is whether Gilmore should have exercised > > > that right, especially in such an open forum. Again, I think Gilmore's > > > actions were justified. Consider inviting someone into your home or > > > private club. If your guest is a boor, you might ask him to leave. If > > > your guest is an slobbish drunk of a boor, you have a responsibility > > > to require him to leave before he ruins the evening of others. > > > > Notice that the net is compared to a home or private club. Actually > > the net is neither, however that would not serve the purposes of this > > analogy, so this fact is convienently forgotton. > > > > The net is a wonderful place. Any ideology, no matter who disagrees or > > agrees with it, can be expressed and discussed here...assuming those > > who oppose this ideology do not have their way with the source of > > expression. There is a more refined and deeper truth to be found > > in the very existence of the set of all human ideologies, which is > > just beginning to show itself to some netizens. Unfortunately, this > > truth can be ruined when people equate some notion of value to > > sources which ignore all but a tiny subset of the set of all ideologies: > > > > > Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, runs a number of mailing > > > lists and has kicked people off to maintain better editorial control. > > > Volokh says that the most valuable publications are those that > > > exercise the highest degree of editorial control. > > > > Value to whom and for what? If the editorial control produces one > > small element of the set of all ideologies, then this is only of value > > to the people who support this ideology. Given that the set of > > people who support an issue is smaller than the set of people > > who support and oppose an issue, would the value not increase > > by allowing both sides of an issue equal speaking time? > > > > > For his part, Gilmore calls removing the Russian mathematician "an > > > act of leadership." He says: "It said we've all been putting up with > > > this guy and it's time to stop. You're not welcome here... It seemed > > > to me that a lot of the posts on cypherpunks were missing the mark. > > > They seemed to have an idea that their ability to speak through my > > > machine was guaranteed by the Constitution." > > > > It is sad to note that this is the leader of one of America's > > forerunning organizations of freedom who says these words. For all > > *his* ideology of free speech, this statement reveals the hypocrasy he > > lives with for all to see. The true litmus test of free speech is to > > encounter speech that you *want* to censor. > > > > Mr. Gilmore, and other like minded parties, might want to consider > > what would happen if one parent company owned *all* communications > > media. Would they they be so supportive of the ideology of ownership > > and communciation they espouse? Indeed. The EFF is a disgrace to the entire InterNet. The EFF is definitely a censorship organization, and it should never be trusted again. > > ------ > > Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org > > Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet > > > > Truth (n.) - the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable > > of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed > > by all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death. > > > > >

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One Big Telecoms Company
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:12 PM 11/13/96 -0800, Declan McCullagh wrote: >* Dave warns us to consider "what would happen if one parent company owned >*all* communications media." Then we have problems. I've written about >this in an Internet Underground magazine column. However, this is not the >case now. Or are you arguing the government should get involved and force >Gilmore to allow Vulis on his list? > The risk of "one big company" owning all communications that lefties on the net spend a lot of time worrying about is a real screamer. We had "one big company" controlling telecoms in most countries on earth for the last 100 years (those were the government monopoly PTTs). In spite of the fact that those PTTs were protected from competition by everything up to and including (at least in the case of BT and France Telecom) nuclear weapons, they lost their monopolies. Two days ago, the UK announced that they were granting licenses to all 46 companies that have applied to carry bits into and out of the UK. DT is being sold off starting in January. If government monopolies can't hack it, what chance do private companies have? DCF

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Re: "Freedom Knights" are closet censors
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

What is "censoring other people's censorship?" Say I argue in favor of the CDA. Would you censor me then? Why not? Isn't this censoring others censorship? I wonder why the so-called "Freedom Knights" are so insecure in their beliefs that they will not tolerate a dissenting voice on their mailing list. (Let's forget for the moment that my point in subscribing was to disrupt it. That's not the point, is it? "More speech, more speech!") -Declan Founder, Boycott Freedom Knights society, Washington, DC chapter On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, Dave Hayes wrote: > > The so-called "Freedom Knights" have censored me from their mailing list. > > Dave Hayes refuses to let me subscribe and read and contribute to the > > discussions there. Why? Simply because he doesn't like what I have to say. > > I might criticize him. Truly, censorship says more about the censor than > > the censored. > > Notice that I now have you arguing -my- side of the argument. Are you > so easily controlled? Have you asked yourself why you are that way? > > > John Gilmore, on the other hand, has been much more tolerant. He allows > > anyone to subscribe to cypherpunks and only kicked one person off after > > months of ranting and off-topic drivel. > > An ineffective move with symbolic complications that affect no one but > him. Why do you support this? > > > And I wonder why the Freedom Knights want to censor certain newsgroups. As > > in their FAQ, where they condemn speech they don't like on the alt.cancel > > and alt.nocem newsgroups and advise operators not to carry such > > groups. > > Ah, you finally got the newsgroups right. Good. > > I censor other people's censorship. That is what I do. Call me a > censor if you will, but if you were truly in support of free speech > you would understand. Since you don't, your cry of wolf demonstrates > the depth of your consideration of the subject matter. > > > I think it's time to lift the veil from this public Net-menace! > > Knock ya-self out. > > > Founder, Boycott Freedom Knights society, Washington, DC chapter > > You -do- realize, of course, that you have to organize the people > and create a large group of opposers to my cause. > > That is your destiny. Carry it out. > ------ > Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org > Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet > > Nasrudin arrived at an all-comers horse race mounted on the slowest of oxen. > Everyone laughed, an ox cannot run. > "But I have seen it, when it was only a calf, running faster than a horse.", > said Nasrudin. "So why should it not run faster, now that it is larger?" > > >

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Re: Secrecy: My life as a nym. (Was: nym blown?)
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:22 PM 11/13/96 GMT, Adam Back wrote: ... >Nym sues nym. I think not. An alternate view of slander law suits is >as a way to encourage the use of Nyms. Certainly the dissenters of >the unnamed pseudo religious have learnt the value of nyms, remailers >and so forth. There are distinct advantages to nyms. ... They learned the value all right. Right up to the time that one of the founding remailers disclosed thier return addresses to save the rest of the hard drive. There are definate advantages to TRULY anonymous remailers too. Ones where the return address is not stored. For mailing lists and newsgroups, where you are going to get conformation on your post when its relayed to you, why do you need the return address anyway? Someone inside the group uses a remailer, just post your comments to the list, that person will most likely see it there. I assume that these already exist somewhere.

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RE: Remailer Abuse Solutions
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:32 PM 11/13/96 -0800, Lucky Green wrote: >On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, Peter Hendrickson wrote: > >> At 10:34 AM 11/13/1996, Mullen Patrick wrote: >> > Also, >> > what happens when your long-lost friend comes across your addy and tries to >> > email you? Surely you don't want to charge postage for an otherwise free >> > service to him/er. Maintaining a list of "accepted sources" would be a hassle >> > not many people would accept. >> >> Absent highly intrusive global net monitoring techniques, that's what they >> are going to have to do anyway. E-mail is inexpensive. The advertiser >> can justify the expense even if generates a small number of leads. Expect >> more spam. > >There is a very simple way of dealing with your long lost friend. And any >other person not on your "free" list. If you find their email worth your >while, you can always give them their money back. For future contact, you >can move your friend on the "free" list. > >Frankly, I don't think there is anybody new that I care to communicate with >who wouln't be willing to make a small deposit for initiating communications. > >-- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred > Member JPFO. "America's Aggressive Civil Rights Organization" You might want to consider making that a price on message size, otherwise I'll just send you the contents of the Sears catalog, the Damark catalog, the full collection of the clearing house sweepstakes, and an Amway catalog at one low price. (My backers could get in on a great cut, at $1.00 a message they would each pay $.25) I would say $.50 per Kilobyte, including attachments.

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Re: Computer Security Training
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:44 PM 11/13/96 -0500, Paul George wrote: ... >I'd like to ask very poignant questions since this will be my second to >the last day working for Uncle Sam. (I'm going Private Industry, yeeaa!!) > >And I really don't care what my boss thinks of my questions. ;) > >Paul. > >Oh, I unsubscribed to the list, 500 emails over a long weekend is too >much. So please CC: questions to george(a)justice.usdoj.gov and I will >forward all answers to the list. Thanks a bunch.... ... First of all, do you need references? Your boss would probably be the best one, unless you destroy h[is,er] faith in you. Second, when would they fire you anyway? Two th three weeks later? After your grace period expired? By then you should already be out of your office. Unless you need the course for your free enterprize work. If not, you could impress your boss, (and possibly get a few extra government contracts down the line), by volunteering to stay at your desk as you won't need the material for your employment. The above was made under the assumption that your branch occasionaly "outsources" projects or calls on private consultants when it needs extra hands (minds).

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RE: Remailer Abuse Solutions
by Mullen Patrick 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

First of all, I would like to apologize if it looked like I accused Peter of being involved with a conspiracy. I have communicated with him privately concerning this matter, and am now making my public apology. Thanks! Concerning my other statements, I think I was a little confused on the implementation of this idea, but now that I've re-read the posts, I'm confused in another way. It seems this feature only applies to mail forwarded through a remailer. As mentioned on several posts, which may be the main idea, this would reduce the amount of noise submitted to lists. This would be a good thing, for sure. Knowing that your useless messages are costing even $.25 would be enough to cut down drastically on spam. However, I still don't see how this is to be implemented for direct email. How would this work for an entity sending email directly to your account, rather than through a remailer? The solutions that come to mind are 1) get new mail software which performs this filtering/charging and 2) have an autoreply that sends mail not sent through your "post office" back to the sender with a note saying to route it through the "post office." This "post office" would be much like with snail mail. All it does is collect and redistribute mail (for a small fee, of course... :-) This would be a good business proposition, indeed. However, I don't know how widely accepted it would be. Comments? Am I missing the point? PM USER ERROR: REPLACE AND STRIKE ANY KEY WHEN READY

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Re: Babble about universal service
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:43 AM 8/8/96 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote: >(My objections to universal service are perhaps not surprising. It >devolves more power into the hands of the DC bureaucrats such as the FCC, >and provides a slippery slope on which we can slide down towards more and >more government regulation. By concentrating regulatory authority in the >Federal government, it also makes decisions more subsceptible to >special-interest lobbying and political patronage. But I recall Ronda has >been arguing for universal service for some time now, including on the >netizens mailing list.) It also lets the Feds say, "You can't have something until everyone has it." Besides we have universal service right now (in America anyway). Much more universal service than the Feds would have provided with decades of bureaucratic futzing around. Anyone in the US who wants to get wired can do so for very little money. All it takes is desire. The government can't provide the desire. DCF

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Re: PGP3.0 & ElGamal
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > Also I understand, though there appears to be no available > > documentation saying as much, that pgp3.0 will not use RSA, nor IDEA, > > nor MD5, using instead El Gamal for public key encryption and > > signatures, 3DES (unsure?), and SHA1. > > Can someone confirm that PGP3.0 will use ElGamal? > I cannot confirm that but I do know 3.0 will be downward compatible using RSA keys for people using 2.x, I also understand that IDEA will be the symmetric algorithm though I can`t confirm this. I know 3.0 uses discrete log cryptography but whether it will be El Gamal or DH or other I don`t know. I would imagine in the end it would come down to a question of what is unpatented first and I have no idea on the patent date for El Gamal (is it even patented?) but DH hasn`t long to go.... Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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