December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

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

17 Dec '03

At 4:45 AM 9/23/96, Brian Davis wrote: >On Wed, 18 Sep 1996, Timothy C. May wrote: >> Brian Davis, our former Prosecutor, can tell us how likely it is that any >> person would be charged and brought to trial for being a paid mercenary for >> some small country in the Third World. The CIA is often behind such >> mercenaries, so national security issues could make the issue murky. > >Exceedingly unlikely. A variety of practical problems. If you came up >to a U.S. Attorney to show him your picture on the cover of The Zaire Daily >News as mercenary of the week and spit in his face, you'd get prosecuted. > >For spitting in the prosecutor's face. > >On a slightly more serious note: you'd only get prosecuted in someone at >Main Justice (i.e. in Washington) wanted you prosecuted. This of course matches my expectation. I still think if prosecution is so unlikely, the law ought to actually come to terms with this and remove the "official illegality" of such things. _Almost_ more important to me than "libertarian" ideals are "consistency" ideals: namely, that there oughtn't to be laws which are not enforced, or which are too expensive to enforce, or which can be selectively enforced. And since I know that the full suite of laws, all 25,000 or 45,000 of them (on all 27 linear feet of bookshelf space) cannot possibly be consistently enforced, I favor a "minimalist" or "fallback" position of having relatively few laws, covering mostly "crimes" which are more easily detected and prosecuted (with draconian punishments). >> But the real reason such prosecutions are rare is that the government >> realizes how Orwellian it sounds to say: >> >> "You are being prosecuted because you were a mercenary for Oceania in its I was probably overstating things to say this was "the real reason." The real reason (or the more important reason) is that resources are finite, and, as Brian noted, no prosecutor is much interested in someone being in Zaire's mercenary army. It doesn't register on the public's concern meter, and it probably doesn't get one promotions in the prosecutorial community. But the law should still be changed to reflect this reality. --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."

2 1

Re: Bernstein hearing: The Press Release
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:10 AM 9/23/96, Brian Davis wrote: ... >There isn't such a clause. The allowed restrictions were developed in >case law. > >Constitutional literalists take note: the First Amendment says nothing >about what the executive branch or the states can do .... Which is why President Jefferson was able to say: "While the Constitution says "Congress shall make no law...," I am hereby outlawing all discussion of the following subjects:.... And I have had it with the Catholics and Jews in this country. While Congress has no power to make laws respecting the establishment of religion or the exercise thereof, I am under no such restrictions. Therefore, I am ordering the immediate arrest and summary execution of all Papists and Jews...." Seriously, does not the Constitution and Bill of Rights define what states may do? And Presidents? The Executive is under various restrictions, and cannot behave unconstitutionally. After all, if Alabama, for example, reinstituted slavery, would not the 14th Amendment trump this? If California were to, say, ban speech critical of women's or homosexual's rights, would not the First Amendment trump this attempt? --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."

4 3

RE: Where to write crypto?
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:33 AM 9/23/96 +0200, Remo Pini wrote: >Switzerland has NO crypto laws (yet)... > However they are cooperating with the Gang of Seven (G7) Net restriction efforts. See: http://www.admin.ch/ejpd/d/bj/internet/indexe.htm DCF

2 1

Re: A daily warning regarding Tim ... [edited]
by DMiskell＠envirolink.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>On Fri, 20 Sep 1996, John Anonymous MacDonald wrote: > >> Tim C[*] * studied yoga back-streching exercises for >> five years so he could * * (*). > >Likely the NSA has nothing better to do these days. They got bored with >just listening, so now they're spamming. Can we lock this fucker out of >the list? Sure, he'll probably pick another nym to post from... > Can't lock him out of the list, but you can either set up a kill file, or find something like the 3.0b version of Eudora, which has filters; you can set it up where, if an incoming message has a certain From: string, it is transferred directly into the Trash mail folder, which is, as a rule, cleaned up before quitting. Daniel. -- If in fact we are the only intelligent life on this planet, why the fuck are we in this goddamn mess? -- Find my public key on the World Wide Web -- point your browser at: http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-toplev.html

2 1

Snooping ISP admin??
by Michael E. Carboy 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greetings All, Question for the group: I have encountered a situation that causes me to believe an ISP is snoopingthrough encrytped mail. It seems that PGP'd mail has aroused the curiosity of an ISP (not hooked.net) I have encountered "POP3 account in use by another user" several times in the past few days and I am the only user... wondering if that "in use" messsage is the result of a clumsy sysadmin being caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Any thoughts from the group??? If those more knowledgeable than I deem these NOISE... my sincere apologies. regards, Michael E. Carboy carboy(a)hooked.net carboy(a)carboy.com

7 6

Re: (Fwd) Australian "ITAR" regulations
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>An anonymous opinion from inside the Defence Dept holds that electronic >>bits on a wire do not constitute goods, and as a result if you ship >>electronically, you are not subject to the regulations. If you ship a >>CD or floppy or other physical media containing software, you violate the >>regulations. > >Watch out for those anonymous opinions; I received exactly the opposite >opinion when I spoke to the Defence Signals Directorate about the issue >(back in 1994) -- after specifically asking about a few hypothetical >cases. Of course, either opinion may be correct, which is the real >problem! If the DSD is anything like our GCSB then what they'll have told you is what they'd like to be the case, not what's really the case. They will tell you what it pleases them to tell you, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the facts. The easiest way to check the real situation is to look at your customs act, the NZ Customs Act of 1995 (which in the relevant area is almost identical to the 1966 one) covers forms of export in excruciating detail. Doesn't mention anything about computer networks in there. In practice it'd have to be decided in the courts, but I don't think the DSD will take action because there's a very good chance they'd get a ruling against them, which is also why the NSA is so reluctant to enforce the ITAR in court. Peter.

1 0

RE: USA_exe
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

John (jya(a)pipeline.com) posts: >The Washington Post reports at length today on the Defense >Department's disclosure yesterday of heretofore classified >training manuals used in the School of the Americas to instruct >Latino troops on killing a wide range of civilians for political >purposes. This is not particularly new news, I have a copy at home of one of these manuals, it was put out by a humans rights group that got their hands on it during all the El Salvador business. It's as nasty as it sounds... Further info on request. Brian "Semiautomatic's and Boundless Love."

1 0

Bank for International Settlement's Security of Digital CashReport now on the web...
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Sender: e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com Reply-To: Ian Grigg <iang(a)systemics.com> Precedence: Bulk Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 12:22:59 +0200 From: Ian Grigg <iang(a)systemics.com> To: Multiple recipients of <e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com> Subject: BIS_rep Thanks to all the help I got last week, I have located the BIS report on Smart Card Security. I have C&P'd and squeezed it into HTML format. There are still many errors in it, notably many double words that C&P contributed, and I haven't touched the Annexes (messy footnotes, no graphics or headings). However, for those desparate to get their hands on it, go to our page: http://www.systemics.com/docs/papers/ and type (anti-bot protocol format): BIS_smart_security.html at the end of the URL. The real (no errors :-) document is located at: http://www.bis.org/publ/cpss18.htm but only the forward, exec summary and intro are there at the moment. When they are all there, I will drop my version. I am not really that keen on repairing the errors in my version, as I gather that BIS will make the original available some day. But last I looked, they didn't have an email address, so who can say? -- iang iang(a)systemics.com --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "'Bart Bucks' are not legal tender." -- Punishment, 100 times on a chalkboard, for Bart Simpson The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

1 0

Re: Public Schools
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 22 Sep 1996, snow wrote: >I would agree that parents can do as good or better at _most_ >subjects thru about the 3rd or 4th grade, and I do agree that >most of todays schools are shit, however there is one area-- >social skills--that homeschooling simply can't compete. >From John Holt's "Teach Your Own" "If there were no other reason to homeschool your children, protecting them from the 'valuable social atmosphere' of the schools would be sufficient." John was a commie liberal BTW. He felt that the schools had a very nasty and artificial social environment with rigid age segregation that bore no resemblance to real life where there are people of wider age ranges. Certainly, most people suffer worse mistreatment from their "peers" at school than they do later in life. As a libertarian, I would add that the social atmosphere of a Stalinist "brain factory" is not exactly the socialization I would choose for my children. I would choose a more market oriented model. DCF "Even if they manage to teach nothing else, the very existence of government schools teaches State supremacy."

7 10

PKI_gak
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

9-21-96. MiPa: System and method for centralized session key distribution, privacy enhanced messaging and information distribution using a split private key public cryptosystem (Assignee -- Bell Atlantic Network Services, Inc.) The method and system also provide for authorized wiretapping, video and data distribution and private enhanced messaging (PEM). ----- http://jya.com/pkigak.txt (4 kb) PKI_gak

1 0