December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Anthrax on the 'net [Was Re: Fear of Flying -- from HotWired ]
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 17 Sep 1996 17:14:53 -0400, Mike Fletcher wrote: >>>Gee, biotech has come a long way. Now I can download the Anthrax DNA >>>sequence from the net and insert it in some carrier bacteria and start >>>making Anthrax bacteria. Neat! >> Now the bad news: the DNA replicator only works under Windows 95 and comes >> with buggy drivers! > Buggy drivers? But isn't that the point in this case? :) True, true... <g> And you *really* don't want to see what happens when it crashes! >> Unfortunately, it can be very deadly. The idea here is that it rarely infect >s >> humans - in the normal course of events. If a determined biowarrior is tryin >g >> to infect people, all bets are off. > > The Frank Herbert (of _Dune_ fame) book _White Plague_ comes >to mind. Basically a molecluar biologist's wife and kids are killed >by an IRA bomb while visiting Dublin. He snaps and creates a plague >which kills women (men are carriers) as revenge. All without using >that nasty Internet (in fact, the book was written back before even >ARPAnet). I remember reading this one. Very applicable! # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell

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Re: Snake-Oil FAQ
by droelke＠rdxsunhost.aud.alcatel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dale Thorn <dthorn(a)gte.net> wrote: > > Krenn wrote: > > It would be nice to have a list of actual products which are deemed > > potential snake-oil. Such a list could be maintained anonymously > > through a nym to avoid all the annoying legal problems with commenting > > on another's product. Though truth is the best defense against libel > > charges, it would be very annoying to be sued or some such by some > > hairbrained snake-oil peddler. > > Think how much more annoying it would be if the shoe were on the other > foot. > Libel/Slander is very different from doing a review. Unfortunately, in todays legal climate, it is way to easy to find a lawyer that will harass someone for a negative review. Unless you are prepared to fight such a legal battle, it is much easier to do anonymous reviews, and build up a reputation as a good reviewer through use of signatures, etc. If you have a good product, and get negative reviews, the truth will come out eventually through other channels. Either the product really isn't good, or the reviewer loses his reputation and his messages descend into the noise. Thats life - deal with it! Dan ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Oelke Alcatel Network Systems droelke(a)aud.alcatel.com Richardson, TX

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Re: SSN database scam?
by Jim Byrd 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One thing people forget is that Lexis-Nexis is hardly the first company to offer this kind of service. Several years ago, there was a controversy when Lotus planned to offer this kind of information on CD-ROM. The main competition of Lexis-Nexis, West Publishing Company ("Westlaw"), offered this kind of service before Lexis did. The last I heard, it was possible to get SSNs via Westlaw. I don't know if this is still true. I checked with a friend of mine, and got this response: "Westlaw offers access to several databases (including its PEOPLE-CB and INFOAM databases). They provide a person's "Credit Bureau Header," which contains social security number, previous address(s), telephone number(s), spouse name, date of birth, related names/aliases, and the date the report was filed." I happen to work for Lexis-Nexis, but I don't speak for the company. I work in a very different part of the company, and don't know the people involved with P-Trak.

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Edited Edupage, 17 Sept 1996
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"educom(a)educom.unc.edu" 18-SEP-1996 05:39:23.00 >************************************************************ >Edupage, 17 September 1996. Edupage, a summary of news about information >technology, is provided three times a week as a service by Educom, >a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities >seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. >************************************************************ >THE BOTTOM LINE ON ELECTRONIC LIBRARIES >A former Public Library Association official estimates the cost of wiring >the nation's libraries at somewhere between $2- and $3-billion -- "a sum >nearly equivalent to that spent by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie during >the great spurt of library building," notes journalist Nicholas von Hoffman. >But, "being able to afford the hardware is one thing," says a senior VP of >New York Public Library's Research Libraries. "Being able to replace it >year after year and being able to afford the staff to help people use it is >another. We could put workstations everywhere, but we don't have enough >staff. The equipment is on a three-year, six-thousand-dollar replacement >cycle. If people are using things like the World Wide Web, we need one >staff member out on the floor for every 20 workstations in use... Right now >we have 250 workstations for the public, so one staff member for every 20 >workstations becomes a major investment." (Architectural Digest Oct 96 p130) I would suspect that one of the following will take place: A. Libraries will not wind up getting Internet access subsidized to any great extent, since they can't afford to pay for the rest of it. B. Libraries will get Internet access subsidized, but won't be able to use it a lot so the subsidy may eventually go by the wayside due to lack of political support. C. Libraries will get everything subsidized. -Allen >Edupage is written by John Gehl <gehl(a)educom.edu> & Suzanne Douglas ><douglas(a)educom.edu>. Voice: 404-371-1853, Fax: 404-371-8057. >Technical support is provided by Information Technology Services at the >University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. >************************************************************ >Edupage ... is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to Edupage: >send mail to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu with the message: subscribe edupage >John McCarthy (if your name is John McCarthy; otherwise, substitute your >own name). ... To cancel, send a message to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu with >the message: unsubscribe edupage. (If you have subscription problems, send >mail to manager(a)educom.unc.edu.)

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XPA_nix
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

WSJ and WaPo have reports on Panix-jamming by info-request bombardment, and Bell Labs security expert Bill Cheswick's attempt to solve it. Cheswick opines,"This is the first major attack of a kind that I believe to be the final Internet security problem." ----- http://jya.com/xpanix.txt XPA_nix

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(fwd) Global Alert: GERMAN GOVERNMENT PUSHES BLOCKAGE OF NETHERLANDS WEB SITE
by Alex Le Heux 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Path: xs4all!felipe From: felipe(a)xs4all.nl () Newsgroups: xs4all.announce Subject: Global Alert: GERMAN GOVERNMENT PUSHES BLOCKAGE OF NETHERLANDS WEB SITE Date: 18 Sep 1996 17:28:31 GMT Organization: XS4ALL, networking for the masses Lines: 118 Approved: the boss Message-ID: <51pbfv$anu(a)news.xs4all.nl> NNTP-Posting-Host: xs1.xs4all.nl X-XS4ALL-Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 19:28:31 MET DST X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #4 *** GLOBAL ALERT *** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE SEPT. 18, 1996 - Please redistribute this document widely with this banner intact - Redistribute only in appropriate places & only until 15 October 1996 GERMAN GOVERNMENT PUSHES BLOCKAGE OF NETHERLANDS WEB SITES. At the behest of, and in response to legal threats from, the German government, internet providers in Germany have blocked the Dutch Web site Access For All (www.xs4all.nl) removing German users' access to the entire xs4all system. The German government demanded this action because xs4all hosts a Web "home page" with so-called left-wing political content that, though fully legal in the Netherlands, is allegedly illegal in Germany. (see: http://www.anwalt.de/ictf/p960901e.htm) As a result of this action, *all* xs4all web sites, including several thousand that have nothing to do with the offending home page, are unavailable to readers in Germany. Please send a letter of protest to the German ambassador in your country, ask your foreign minister to protest officially to the German government, and distribute this alert as widely as possible online and to the press. Referring to article 19(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights, which Germany ratified in 1973, we, the undersigned organizations, consider this censorship an illegal act. Additionally, the value of attempting to ban content the German government finds offensive is highly questionable. The proper response to offensive expression is more and better expression, and prosecution of offending criminals, not censorship. As a result of the overly broad censorship measure which targets an entire Internet access provider instead of a specific user, all 3000 and more Web site hosted by xs4all are virtually inaccessible in Germany. The loss of clients who market in Germany has resulted in economic damage to xs4all. The immeasurable harm of censoring thousands of other users for the speech of one is even greater. Access for All, though it has expressed willingness to assist the Dutch police in identifying online criminals abusing the xs4all system, has a policy against censoring its clients. Mirroring this position, at least one German Net provider has responded to the government demands with skepticism, pointing out that their compliance with the censorship request may cause them to violate contracts with their own German users, and that the government's liability threats are tantamount to holding a phone company liable for what users say on the telephone. Instead of the futile act of censorship that has simply drawn increased attention to the offending material and resulted in its widespread availability on other sites throughout the world, the German government should have acted through legal channels and asked the authorities in the Netherlands to cooperate in determining what legal action, if any, was appropriate. We are concerned that German internet providers have cooperated so easily with government censorship efforts. Some level of cooperation was probably assured by underhanded and rather questionable police threats of system operator liability for user content, but we must urge more resistance on that part of Net access providers to such online censorship schemes. As with libraries, there are many who would censor, but there is a responsibility on the part of providers of access to information, to work to protect that access, else libraries, and Internet service providers, lose the reason for their existence. We ask that the German government refrain from further restrictive measures and intimidation of internet providers and recognize the free, democratic, world wide communications represented by the Internet. All governments should recognize that the Internet is not a local, or even national, medium, but a global medium in which regional laws have little useful effect. "Top-down" censorship efforts not only fail to prevent the distribution of material to users in the local jurisdiction (material attacked in this manner can simply be relocated to any other country), but constitutes a direct assault on the rights and other interests of Internet users and service providers in other jurisdictions, not subject to the censorship law in question. For press contacts, and for more information about the Internet, see the homepages for the signatories to this message: DB-NL (Digital Citizens Foundation in the Netherlands) * http://www.xs4all.nl/~db.nl ALCEI - Electronic Frontiers Italy * http://www.nexus.it/alcei CITADEL-E F France *http://www.imaginet.fr/~mose/citadel CommUnity (UK) * http://www.community.org.uk Electronic Frontier Canada * http://www.efc.ca/ Electronic Frontier Foundation (USA) * http://www.eff.org Electronic Frontiers Australia * http://www.efa.org.au/ Other signatures: NLIP, Dutch Foundation for Internet Providers * http://www.nlip.nl Internet Providers Rotterdam * http://www.ipr.nl Digitaal Werknet Nederland * http://www.dwn.nl Foebud e.V, foundation to promote free datatraffic, * http://www.zerberus.de National Writers Union (UAW LOCAL 1981 AFL-CIO) * http://www.nwu.org/nwu/ Nizkor Project * http://www.nizkor.org/ Internet Access Foundation (NL) * http://www.iaf.nl/ Digitale Stad Venlo * http://www.dsvenlo.nl CSO * http://www.canucksoup.net/ -- Felipe Rodriquez - XS4ALL Internet - finger felipe(a)xs4all.nl for http://xs4all.nl/~felipe/ - Managing Director - pub pgp-key 1024/A07C02F9 pgp Key fingerprint = 32 36 C3 D9 02 42 79 C6 D1 9F 63 EB A7 30 8B 1A -- /// I dabble in techno-house and sometimes, /// I do that badass hip-hop thang... /// But the F U N K gets me every time!

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FCC Licensed Cypherpunks
by Thumbnail 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- As someone pointed out recently, there's a lot of similarity between the as-yet-unregulated Internet and the pre-FCC airwaves. There were even cypherpunk-analogs back then, who called themselves amateur radio operators. Where are they now? Corralled into tiny slices of FCC-approved bandwidth. Granted titles of nobility by the government in recognition of their Morse code prowess. Eager to report pirate operators who don't play by the rules, at least back when the FCC still investigated such complaints. There lies the future: all those newbies wandering in with their "Unbrakable Random Number Generator Encription Systemz" are going to come back as Master Class Amateur Cryptography Operators, and by God you'd better not laugh at their Internet Key Recovery Authority certificates, if you know what's good for you. Have a nice day. - --Thumbnail ~~~ The PGP signature on this message is to certify that it was sent by thumbnail(a)nym.alias.net on or before Wed Sep 18 18:00:48 1996 GMT. The administrators of nym.alias.net and the nym.alias.net PGP key in no way endorse, approve of, or claim authorship of this message. Report any abuse of this pseudonym service to admin(a)nym.alias.net. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMkA40U5NDhYLYPHNAQGKZAf+ImZZXEAXdWdv1v30GFfguJ+1KWJRMsDD uhDjuwyHfFVvKpJSyYr5nmBJLm41vvSXOIJnCtjzS7Ai+Y9tEnMUsY5Mg0Qp76LB qvxDIgSB+S87xjSzWAx9Kur0SqRkyu3UZPqBniSKzUWIf9/dzu2ttnC0d+eCoBHZ Vk8z8h6JsSU3G35djG7jrvVv4+Jg7VSIjFHvvfaJ528vcM+iUxiLWidIz1PPKmN4 r3dnjCsJql9akc2U013pFXzQV890bc2VEha5NQwxCPYS9L1oCZJfc5as5c6t0Xb7 AwoaZEhCt352TBQdeoLSE+5t+l3YvDSnmPr/HUWI+/bk27/XGhugTA== =hmdh -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: The GAK Momentum is Building...
by Jim Ray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: shamrock(a)netcom.com, liberty(a)gate.net, cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Wed Sep 18 11:57:32 1996 Lucky wrote: > On Wed, 18 Sep 1996, Jim Ray wrote: [my stuff about a small "victory" elided.] > Nope. It is a Cypherpunk loss. The use of the term "key recovery" for GAK > now fully obfuscates the distinction between accessing a > backup copy by the legitimate owner (or his estate, employer, etc.) and > GAK. Many PKIs will support the former type of key recovery. And for good > reasons. Thanks to the brainwashers using the same term for GAK, it will > now become impossible to tell from a basic description of a PKI if it > supports GAK or not. Furthermore, those who oppose the latter type of key > recovery (us!), will be pushed further into the fringe by the media > now being able to mix up our arguments against GAK with arguing against > true key recovery. [Do you notice the weird constructs I have to use to > distinguish the two meanings? One of them being new...] Upon further reflection, I agree with Lucky. I will say that the _really_ bad news is that our opponents seem to be getting smarter. <sigh> Or else I'm just getting dumber. :( Also: If any more of you have comments for Judge Kozinski, please send them to me soon. Comments from stable nyms (such as you, Lucky) are especially appreciated, and with your permission I will include this message. Please tell me if you want me to include your e-mail address in the message to Judge Kozinski. TIA. JMR Regards, Jim Ray -- DNRC Minister of Encryption Advocacy "As govt.s grow arithmetically, corruption grows exponentially." -- Ray's Law of official corruption. Defeat the Duopoly! Stop the Browne out. Harry Browne for President. Jo Jorgensen for Vice-president. http://www.HarryBrowne96.org/ http://www.twr.com/stbo ___________________________________________________________________ PGP id.E9BD6D35 51 5D A2 C3 92 2C 56 BE 53 2D 9C A1 B3 50 C9 C8 I will generate a new (and bigger) PGP key-pair on election night. <mailto:liberty@gate.net> http://www.shopmiami.com/prs/jimray ___________________________________________________________________ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMkAb8m1lp8bpvW01AQGwDQP/Wz8Bw27oXVzNt4gusljym5ardHFgCNDR A3N8kXcL7rGRs2SFDBNYlodcTSh60d1FJTvLQ77oolMPWp3oQygZ+HLFEhwHK/GG tt1VPavPhvpdPiXoDOcZKUm/vRobAJrvkfUEaeqI8hmzCVBq5YS/4m4KaD3XquWO w0IyCViMVmw= =ntqD -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: 56 kbps modems
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 15 Sep 1996 23:35:38 -0700 (PDT), Lucky Green wrote: >Seriously, how may of the 28.8 modem users get connections at 28.8? >Twenty percent? Fifty percent? Today's modems are already faster than >most analog lines can support. More likely than not, a 56k modem won't >link up at 56k. If you want speed, use the clean solution. Get ISDN. >[And don't buy the Motorola BitSurfer PRO. It won't work with two line >phones. The sound is so bad, you can't use the POTS you pull out for >business. Motorola: "We are aware of the problem". Well, they have been >aware of it since at least February.] Interesting. . . Oh well, I bet their competition doesn't mind. >But for data, home ISDN is the way to go. Of course, we'll be getting the cable modems around here by early next year, so I might just wait for that 15MB/s. . . # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell

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Re: Workers Paradise. /Political rant.
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 16 Sep 1996 07:37:17 +0200 (MET DST), Anonymous wrote: >> The thing about _traditional_ charity, of the religious or community sort, >> was that it was not treated as an "entitlement," as something the resentful >> masses could "demand" as part of their "human rights." > There's no substantial difference between their resentful whining about >their rights and your resentful whining about your rights - except maybe >that you whine more. Last time I checked, tcmay has never insisted that it is his right to have something I worked for. . . # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell

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