December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Dimacs workshop on network threats?
by Adam Shostack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anyone else planning to go to the DIMACS workshop on network threats? December 4-6 at Rutgers. http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/Workshops/Threats/index.html Seems like its shaping up to be a fun workshop. Adam -- "Every year the Republicans campaign like Libertarians, and then go to Wasthington and spend like Democrats." Vote Harry Browne for President. http://www.harrybrowne96.org

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**Call for Authors**
by Marcus.Goncalves＠mars.process.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Publisher is seeking authors in the areas of Internet, Web security, networking and emerging technologies. If you have a book idea, an outline and a conviction about it, please let me know. All submissions will be considered. Send e-mail to mg(a)manning.com or goncalvesv(a)aol.com. We'll reply quickly. _____________________________________________________ M. Goncalves, Editor - mg(a)manning.com Manning Publications Co., 3 Lewis Street, Greenwich, CT 06830 508-460-8084, fax 508-460-8085 http://www.browsebooks.com, http://www.spindoczine.com _____________________________________________________

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Montgolfiering, the Hot Air Balloon of Cryptography
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Fie on the small minds that cackle at my brilliance! As a Mensa member and founder of the Society for Superintelligent Former NSA Employees, I chortle at the baseness of callow criticisms by those doubters and dilletantous denigrators of virtual one-time pads and PRNGs (perfect random number generators). Montgolfiering. What is it, you ask? It is demonstrably a new paradigm in the evolution of homo sapiens (Parry Messger excepted) toward Shannon's dream of a one-time pad needing only a single, easily memorizable number as a seed. I have heard only silence when I challenged the so-called superbrains of this latargial list to try to determine which number I am using as the seed of my system. If you are such great smarty pants, far smarter than my colleagues at the NSA and at Mauchly-Wood, why can you not then determine this number? Could it be because I have outsmarted you? Could it be because I understand the Sufi secrets of picking random numbers truly randomly? I submit this to you: 8 31 26 3 19. Now, oh great ones, tell me, what is the next number in this sequence? Ha, you cannot predict this next number, can you, oh gibbering greatnesses? Ths proves that my perfect random number genarator (PRNG, for those of you too stupid to remember) cannot be broken. Q.E.D. I question the issue of Parry Messger's objectivity in assessing the brilliance of my importations and acidulous assertations. I question whether Parry may have a peculiarly pecuniary interest in these affairs? Does Parry have an insider, or other position, or interest in one or more of the RSA interest? If, this explains his fantastical faith in the core of this so-called "RSA" system, which I proved to my colleagues at NSA could not possibly be valid. Why, you ask? Because it contains no virtual seed, and that which has no seed cannot grow. Q.E.D.--it has been debunked. Entropy, you quibble? Ha! What is entropy but thermodynamics? And what is the topic of thermodynamics, you small-minded ensemble (Gibbs) people who never worked for the NSA may ask? Thermodynamics is about hot air. Hot air is in balloons. Balloons were pioneered by the Montgolfiers. Thus we come full circle (can you understand this, you mental midgets?). Q.E.D.--it has been demystified. Montgolfiering = a new virtual one time pad based on hot air. Eureka! I have found it. P Information = P * log_base_infinity P As my colleague Dr. Bronner told me on my last balloon trip to his institute in Escondido, "NATURAL! NATURAL! NATURAL! YOU AND THE PLANET - CLEAN AND HEALTHY! PURE AND NATURAL CRYPTO COMES FROM WITHIN THE AGENCY." I pity your eupatrid minds for not accepting the wisdom of the Virtual Montgolfiering System (which I have dubbed "VMS"). I guess unintelligent creatures such as petty selves are too much like Parry Messger! Your mendacious misrepresentations of my brilliance are wounding me deeply--NOT! Only Dr. Bronner and Dr. Vulis seem capable of understanding the immmense mental breakthrough my IQ measured at 207 has provided the world. I laugh at your sanctimonious snivelings, your bombastic bombardings, and your fatuous flatulations. Remember, they laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Bozo. They laughed at Von Daniken. They laughed at Ludwig Plutonium! All of those who leaped at the opportunity to take me apart before are now displaying contemptuous intellectual pap, that is pap not the other similar word though that also applies. Their misleading inculcations did not work so what are they trying now. Montgolfiering into the hot air, I am, --KVFP, Esquire, KOTM (Montgolfiering. Q.E.D.--"it has been deflated") -- --

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No Subject
by FWJZ05A＠prodigy.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I want to be a cypherpunk, E-mail me back i want to know

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Re: First Union Ahead of Curve with Sun's "JavaStation"
by Lawrence.Hughes＠Software.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:30 AM 10/28/96 -0800, you wrote: >When Sun Microsystems unveils today what it is touting as a radical advance >in business computing, First Union Corp. will be in the vanguard of those >adopting it. Dunno - sounds to me like an act of desperation that is at least 99.44% hype, from a company that has refused to acknowledge that the UNIX market is crashing even as we speak. While I was Intergraph HQ in 1989-1993, we saw projections of that coming demise from IDC, etc. Which had a lot to do with the big switch there to Intel/NT. Especially love the way they don't figure the price of any of those "fat $ervers" (from guess what California company) into the overall costs.... seems to be mostly a way to dupe folks into shifting funds from all those wonderful, independence granting PCs into paying for it-was-good-enough-for-my-dad-it's-good-enough-for-me big iron at the center, with dumb terminals (no matter what you call 'em) tethered to it. And $1500 is a lot for a dumb terminal. And that dazzling array of nearly 500 craplets.. I mean Java apps... that's sure a lot of eye candy, but I'd hate to try to run a business with them. Get real. No one, including a badly aging Sun, will ever put the distributed computing genie back in the "glass house" bottle that PC's allowed us to escape from DECADES ago. Lawrence E. Hughes Software.com, Inc. Principal Software Engineer 525 Anacapa Street Email: Lawrence.Hughes(a)Software.com Santa Barbara 93101 805-882-2470 x259 Fax: 805-882-2473 People's Republic of California www.software.com - purveyors of fine Internet Infrastructure to the trade "Those who would order the life of their nation must first set about ordering their home life" - Kung Fu Tse (Confucius), roughly 500 BC

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Re: FDA_dis
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Declan McCullagh wrote: > > I'll have to reread John's piece tomorrow (I'm on vacation right now), but > it doesn't surprise me. He and I have been arguing about this topic via > email for the last week or so. He takes the traditional liberal view of > government regulation of drugs is necessary; I take the more libertarian one. > > The Cato Institute, BTW, will be putting together a roundtable on this soon. > > -Declan Characterising this as the "traditional liberal view" is somewhat misleading, its not as if Bob Dole or Newt Gingrich would disagree much. The argument is more over which special interest group is to be advantaged by changes in regulation. If I was a citizen of a country where the government was elected by a billion dollars of corporate contributions I might be a libertarian. Its important to remember that its the World Wide Web and not simply limited to the US. As long as US companies set up subsidiaries in Europe they will be constrained by European law. In the net.age law is becomming a major export for many countries. Regulation is not necessarily anti-commerce. UK beef farmers would be better off today if there had been more regulation, a weak "free-market" attitude to public health has destroyed the entire industry. It is often in a companies commercial interest to voluntarily agree to be regulated. Microsoft recently signed an agreement to be bound by the European computer privacy regulations because by doing so they gained a business advantage - people would trust them with their data. Much of the advertising regulation being discussed is private, agreement on standard formats for image placements for example. There is existing government regulation of advertising in many countries however. In particular much stricter control over advertising of drugs, making misleading statements in advertising and so on.In the UK there is regulation of advertising through the advertising standards council which is a voluntary body in the sense that it has no statutory enforcement powers but has practical authority because the publishers will not publishe ads that fall foul of its decisions. A more serious problem however is likely to be dramatically different cultural norms. In the US people expect to be lied to in adverts. In countries where there is regulation of advertising there is a general expectation for comparisons to be fair and for ads to be truthful. I'm just waiting for a major corporation to create an Intel scale PR disaster by applying sleasly US style marketing techniques in markets where the downside is very large. One recent example is Hoover which had a $30 odd million debacle over a "free flights" giveaway that was based on sleasly US style marketing techniques. The company ended up having to live up to the spirit of its offer rather than the letter as it intended simply to preserve the value of the brand. If you don't believe in anti trust laws there is no basis on which you can object to the sort of regulation by cabal that the advertising standards council represents. Of course such cabals cannot exist in the libertarian belief system since their existence is denied a-priori by invoking the spirit of Milton Freedman. Milton Freedmen is of course a rightwing ecconomist whose theories are widely admired by free market ecconomists who admire Mitlon Freedman. Phill

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USENIX Annual Conference & USELINUX, January 6-10, 1997
by Cynthia Deno 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

January 6-10, 1997 USENIX 1997 TECHNICAL CONFERENCE Anaheim, California, Marriott Hotel USELINUX Linux Applications Development & Deployment Conference Co-located with USENIX 1997 Technical Conference Co-sponsored by Linux International Attendees may pay one fee and attend both conferences. There are 20 day-long tutorials offered on January 6-7. Topics include: IPv6 Kerberos Approach to Network Security Secure Java Programming Introduction to Java Windows NT and Windows 95 UNIX Network Programming How Networks Work Topics in System Administration Web Security System and Network Performance Tuning Inside the Linux 2.0 Kernel Java Applets and the AWT UNIX Security Tools CGI and WWW Programming in Perl Administering a Web Server Device Drivers under Linux Solaris System Administration Beginning Perl Programming Writing Secure Code Creating Effective User Interfaces Java, the Web, Intranets, Security, Windows NT are among the topics of the Technical Program which takes place January 8-10. It begins with a keynote address by James Gosling, a creator of Java. 23 refereed papers present up-to-the-minute research. A second track of invited talks cover cryptography, Inktomi and AltaVista Search Engines, IPv6, benchmarks, and a new networked operating system from Bell Labs that offers unprecedented portability for applications and services. Linux Torvalds speaking on the future of Linux, is one of the highlights at the Linux Applications Development and Deployment Conference. USELINUX will offer tutorials and technical presentations for developers. Concurrently, those interested in the Linux marketplace may attend case studies and expert presentations on how to create a Linux-based business. An Exhibition on January 8-9 offers presentations of the latest hardware, software, and networking products from 55 vendors. ADMISSION TO THE EXHIBITION IS FREE. If you cannot make it to the conference but would like to visit the exhibition, please contact Cynthia Deno at 408 335 9445 or cynthia(a)usenix.org. For more program and registration information: Access our Resource Center on the World Wide Web--http://www.usenix.org Email to: info(a)usenix.org. In the body of your message state "send usenix97 conference"

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Nations Bank Visa scam/error
by Brad Dolan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- This may be off topic or then again it may not be. A friend paid his balance and cancelled his Nations Bank Visa card about 6 months ago. A couple of days ago, he received a bill from Nations Bank for a *recent* charge, which the indicated vendor denies submitting. My friend has been trying for two days to get through to Nations Bank on its customer service line, to no avail. He keeps getting a "due to heavy calling volume our queue is full" message. Anybody know who screwed up how? bd -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMmT3y680j2q8tTgtAQGC7wQA2ris5C3KAD6qLy3AmtglJRoZrei72CIH MEm7DGasD4AXqfwkjdmvZScAVXRD+KHHgVZQKQp+H0+D/TWHZCN9nrwE1z5/j73R o8qXDCC0owwJabZHknOMwpBm4Sf6JUGs7Wm1K9JmpVlF01GP+z7rxOMXfvZrlxvy mwcK3wjIPCU= =PTmz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: When did Mondex ever claim to be anonymous?
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 29 Oct 1996 20:13:04 +0100 (MET), Asgaard wrote: >> I don't think spreading false rumours is a good idea - it can discredit >> the spreader if anyone bothers to check any details. > >Disinformation is a time-honoured weapon in political struggle. >A rumour is called just that because it can't easily be checked >- somebody heard from somebody, who heard from somebody etc. The >spreader is hardly ever discredited since he does not guarantee >the validity of the information. 'It's just a rumour, but...' And don't forget the old he-denied-a-wild-claim: "Mr. Politician denied reports that he spent several days in the Lovebird Inn with a goldren retriever, six gallons of coolwhip and a hoover vacuum." # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # <cadams(a)acucobol.com> | send mail with subject "send PGPKEY" "That's our advantage at Microsoft; we set the standards and we can change them." --- Karen Hargrove, Microsoft (quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review editorial)

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Re: When did Mondex ever claim to be anonymous?
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, R.J.Blakemore wrote: > >> As for the Bank, they get details on the item the student has purchased, >> purchase location (the building and exact 'Mondex point' in the bar/shop >> where the transaction took place), the exact time and date the >> transaction was carried out, together with (obviously) the name and ID >> of the purchaser, etc. > Relax, bandwidth is limited, all transactions over certain amounts and in certain areas have been logged for a long time, these will continue to be logged. Records made on the chip will probably have a shorter life than the memories of those people present, still admissible in court. Because the computers logging the details, either on site or at the finantial institution, have limited storage capacity, less useful data will be continuously overwritten by more current data. On site, this may be nightly, at the bank, possibly weakly, maybe even monthly. All records, except those already logged, will have a fairly short halflife, this will be especially true of locations which enjoy heavy traffic. As for the "smart card", it will have a half life as well, especially if you purposely flood it. Go to the ATM with the lowest rates, 0 if possible. Pick one heavily visited, the nearest to a coin-op laundry would have a particular poetic justice to it, and transfer funds back and forth for several cycles to overwrite the data on the card. Suddenly, the card has been through too many transactions to recall what happened 500 transactions back. Someone with experience with the technology might also modify an electronic wallet to blank transaction records, this could be as basic as transferring funds repeatedly between two cards.

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