December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Voluntary Disclosure of True Names
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a rare moment of lucidity Vladimir Z. Dettweiler wrote: >I think cpunks should hold the view that communication is a matter >of mutual consent between sender and receiver. if a receiver says, >"I don't want any anonymous messages", then should be able to block them. But this is precisely what nearly all of us have been arguing. Namely, that the issue of anonymity vs. providing of True Names, is a matter of _contract_ between parties, not something the government is justified in sticking its nose into. Those who wish to not deal with the entities they cannot reliably verify the True Name of are free to filter them out. All we are asking is that those of us happy to deal with S. Boxx, Black Unicorn, PrOduct Cypher, Pablo Escobar, and other pseudospoofing tentacles, not be told by a government that, for our own good, such communications are felonies. >the above is almost exactly what Dyson was saying, and I have been No, Dyson said "Therefore I would favor allowing anonymity -- with some form of traceability only under terms considerably stronger than what are generally required for a wiretap." This implies a role for government, and concomitant restrictions on related anonymity technologies, to provide traceability. So much for mutual agreement between sender and recipient. (I have nothing against senders and recipients agreeing to use the services of some third party in providing ultimate traceability. I'm not wild about the U.S. Government being this third party, paid for by tax money, but so long as it is not required, it's a minor concern to me. I surmise, though, that use of the U.S. Government as a third party would not be optional, in the schemes of Dyson, Denning, and others of that ilk.) --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: Steganography -- Tell Tale Signs?
by makof＠alias.cyberpass.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi there! I'd appreciate some help from you experts in steganography. 1) If I hide some PGP encrypted data in a gif, jpg or wav file will there be any tell tale signs to the naked eye of an expert? If yes, what are they? 2) Would it better to hide the data in a jpg with black and white image rather than a color one? 3) Are there any tools at the moment to expose (not crack) the hidden encrypted data? If none. are there tools in development? If this is off-topic please accept my apologies. and if necessary, please email replies to me directly. Thank you. Makofi

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Re: Voluntary Disclosure of True Names
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Or About: 4 Sep 96 at 21:48, Timothy C. May wrote: > In a rare moment of lucidity Vladimir Z. Dettweiler wrote: > > >I think cpunks should hold the view that communication is a matter > >of mutual consent between sender and receiver. if a receiver says, > >"I don't want any anonymous messages", then should be able to block them. > > But this is precisely what nearly all of us have been arguing. Namely, that > the issue of anonymity vs. providing of True Names, is a matter of > _contract_ between parties, not something the government is justified in > sticking its nose into. I always use my true name and am happy to spread it far and wide, but I have been doing some work for a GroupWare manufacturer. They have seen that even in a corporate environment where information sharing is practised and embraced, sometimes people want to make a comment and not take the heat for making that comment. This can provide some constructive input, so they have a anonymous comment feature built in. So you could say that it is absolutely necessary for the web to have that feature as well. > of some third party in providing ultimate traceability. I'm not wild about > the U.S. Government being this third party NO WAY, These guys are in my life enough already, and you can't trust them anyway!!!! Ross =========== Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: 415-206-9906

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Re: ZD Net Registration
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:45 AM 9/5/96, Carl Ellison wrote: >http://community.zdnet.com/register/register.cgi > >Check this out! Harvesting Mother's Maiden Name. >I wonder how many they get each hour.... "Think of it as evolution in action." I tried to register as "foobar," but the name was taken. So I added a few bits. I used "fuckyou" as my mother's maiden name (no pun intended). So now I'm an full-fledged member of ZD Net, fuck you very much. The more things change... --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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WinSock Remailer Available Overseas
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Winsock remailer announced by Joey Grasty available at Obscura, an access-contolled site on August 21, became available August 26 at at least five overseas sites, one of which is ftp://ftp.replay.com/pub/replay/pub/remailer/wsa12.zip OK, let's get some more non-USA remailers running!!

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Re: What is the EFF doing exactly?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:13 PM 9/4/96 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote: >On Wed, 4 Sep 1996, jim bell wrote: >> Why WOULDN'T the police want to shut down anonymous remailers? The Leahy >> bill clearly didn't distinguish between remailer operators and users, so it >> is no leap to conclude that they would be treated similarly. > >Why *wouldn't* the police want to shut 'em down? Because the police >respect the Constitution and our civil liberties, of course, and realize >and respect the value of anonymous political speech. "Hey, man, whatever you'se been smoking, could'ja give me a joint or two?" Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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German prosecutors redouble attack on Net, subversive leftists
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Note www.anonymizer.com doesn't seem to be blocked. --Declan] --- Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 01:59:36 +0200 (MET DST) From: Ulf Moeller <um(a)c2.net> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: German Internet Censorhip: http://www.xs4all.nl The German Generalbundesanwaltschaft (Chief Federal Prosecutor's office) has "advised" the Internet providers to block access to http://www.xs4all.nl:80 and http://www.serve.com:80 due to supposedly illegal contents at the URLs http://www.serve.com/spg/154/, http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal//154/ and http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/angela1/radilink.htm. The commercial ISPs have blocked the routes to the servers. Their statement (in German) is at http://www.anwalt.de/ictf/p960901d.htm "Radikal" (http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal) is a publication from the radical left that is illegal in Germany, but not in the Netherlands. --- Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 22:15:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Re: German Internet Censorhip: http://www.xs4all.nl I heard about this a few days ago, but I was unable to verify it. Yesterday I bounced mail through a German university to xs4all.nl back to EFF, and it came through just fine. I also tried golden-gate.owl.de and wserver.physnet.uni-hamburg.de, both of which have no problems talking to xs4all.nl. From those tests, I can say there's no complete ban, though I can't confirm or deny any partial ban. However, just in case the German government is successful in this censorship gambit, I've mirrored the three embattled web sites at: http://www.well.com/~declan/mirrors/ This is a quick grab of the files in question; I'll work on a formatted intro page later. (As background for more recent subscribers to fight-censorship, this isn't the first time the German government has tried this. A similar move came early this year when German prosecutors tried to cut connections to webcom.com in California, where some of Ernst Zundel's Nazi "Holocaust Revisionist" propaganda was hosted. I and a few other folks including Rich at Stanford and Blake at Penn held our noses and mirrored it around the country, prompting the Gemans to lift the ban. I had thought the German prosecutors smarter than to try this again. I guess I was wrong.) My global Net-censorship roundup is at: http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/ -Declan

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Re: rc2 export limits..
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm afraid my source is "Read it on the net and was surprised to hear it". My assumption is that the limit is for software that implements both signature and verification, since ITAR doesn't ban export of pure-authentication software. Is the State Dept doc on the net? It would be nice to have something saying there are well-defined rules that they agree to follow, unreasonable and unconstitutional though they may be. At 12:06 PM 9/4/96 -0400, Kent Briggs <72124.3234(a)compuserve.com> wrote: >stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com wrote: >> However, the usual guidelines for systems like RC2 and RC4 is >> 40-bit keys, and RSA keys up to 512 bits for encrypting >> session keys and 1024 bits for signatures > >Can you list a source for the 1024-bit signature restriction? I know >about the 40-bit RC2/RC4 and 512-bit public encryption keys because they >are specifically addressed in the State Dept's "Procedure for Submitting >a Commodity Jurisdiction Request for a Mass Market Software Product that >Contains Encryption". However, digital signatures are not mentioned in >this procedure. I can't image what justificication could be used to >restrict the strength of digital signatures. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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Re: Reputations
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greg Burk writes: > Too little incentive to shoot for the heights: > > Suppose you judge that you've accumulated twice as much "reputation > capital" as Joe. How do you get twice as much payoff? It seems to me > that above the threshhold of credibility, minor side issues make more > difference than your two-fold "reputation capital" differential. Go read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (a good book to read anyway :) and examine the nature of the computer network "discussion groups" he talks about: a classic example of reputation markets in many-to-many discussions. With the proper tools someone with twice the reputation capital in a particular category as another will have a greater chance of what they say not being filtered out as noise. > As an "asset", it is extremely non-liquid: > > How exactly would you "convert" your reputation into other capital? > Would you accept bribes and tell lies? Seems to me you would only get a > one-shot "conversion" and it couldn't possibly hope to equal your > investment. Tell that to Walter Cronkite, Siskel & Ebert, Moody's and others who have converted reputation capital into large piles of money. Time is an asset that has a monetary value to most people, and they are willing to spend money to hear the opinions of sources which they feel have a high reputation in a particular area rather than spending the time necessary to do the research and investigation themselves. > So I think the latter part of the analysis is wishful thinking, or at > least restricted to a small subset of subject-matter. No, I think that you just don't understand the mechanics of reputations and how they interact with the most important resource in most people's lives: time. Instead of thinking of "reputation" look at it from the other end and consider the "attention marketplace." Right now reputation markets have a limited presence on the internet (mostly through killfiles) because the tools required are not integreated into the tools used to browse the information. In time this will change. jim

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Re: Internet blamed in shoe-cam crimes, assailant free on $750 bail
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 4 Sep 1996 23:31:29 -0400 (EDT), The Deviant wrote: >> He said the man was detected by two couples who noticed him moving his >> foot under the skirt of a woman. They followed the man, held him and >> called police. >> Police ask women who feel they've been victimized to call 808-5289. >> George Walter Campbell, 62, of Cornwall, has been charged with sexual >> assault and mischief. He returns to College Park court on Sept. 10. >> He was released on $750 cash bail yesterday. >Hrmm.. I can see how its _wrong_, but exactly how is looking under >somebodies skirt _assault_? Mischief is true. However it does get back to the eventual question: if they are giving off radiation, are we guilty receiving them? For instance, if you have your pot sensing IR camera in a plane, do you need a search warrant? If you walk around with a scanner listening to cell-phones is it illegal? One can also imagine a sewer worker getting sued for looking out of one of those cover grill things. (Perhaps up at a cover girl. Pun intended.) - "'Anonymity is bad,' says a source who wishes to remain anonymous." - Nuff' said. * Home: Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp * Autoresponder: send email w/subject of "send resume" or "send PGPKEY" * Work: cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 | (619)689-6579 * Member in good standing of the GNU whirled hors d'oeuvre

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