December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: In reference to comments made to me and to the Group
by Remo Pini 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com, whgiii(a)amaranth.com Date: Thu Aug 29 11:53:46 1996 I kind of like this valid discussion going on. PERIOD. But I believe that although there's something (maybe, maybe not) politicians (be they Protestant, Palestinians or from Dresden) might find a misdemeanor, one shouldn't boast with possible unwarranted encryption. No, seriously, your arguments tend to be belittled by your spelling. (Maybe you should get Pronto Secure, it has a spellchecker included) BTW, I don't get paid by Commtouch for writing that (SNIF!). A quick overview: beleive, politions, disscusion, orginised, sponcered, orginization, wekness, vailid, Dresdin, durring, expantion, Prodistant, Palisinians, unwarrented, PEROID, somthing, mistamener, mabye, mabye not, possiable, encyrption, disscussing, bost I hate teachers and people who show of with their spelling (and I'm a split personality). Yeah, me too. - ------< fate favors the prepared mind >------ Remo Pini rp(a)rpini.com PGP: http://www.rpini.com/crypto/crypto.html - ----< words are what reality is made of >---- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMiVoqxFhy5sz+bTpAQFYUgf/eu+dQvQALz7Of3DCWLoBWVICY2fmnDJB tQcHTNbuPXybjACVq8+LxdKT2wjXzuU401/rv4dW5+LgrMRlKMIhjx8xAIKSKBOg VBb2ruV9SG2/+sY0iYzJY1Dz4opf5c9aCLgN5ptM2LeWyWOtK71VtV8ASDaoGBP7 HIs9jVJ3sbyQaf8CPfR+pEQSjGLHCm8QshazSjPvuUdIRxB5f9Etpy+45vK4FVPP EXWYaN3jTBOPC24Qe8qGs+Dn/9C5ZR9y0Y2edv/XzWDZrdg951lSdQKxca4wtCbD nyKQ/R86wvfy65uwrBDzUSFupuA1M8TcF63ncybQ/316cHl8x/z0rA== =musf -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Desubscribe
by MrAdvent＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I would like you to desubscribe me from you mailing list

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Re: There is no Agent Toby Tyler at the FBI [UK Observer St
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Duncan Frissell <frissell(a)panix.com> writes: > At 03:17 PM 8/28/96 -0700, Richard Charles Graves wrote: > >...two different sources, both of whom are anonymous because they work for > >competing newspapers, tell me. > > > >Could someone else with contacts/time to kill/attributability please confirm > >this? > > When I first saw the name, I remembered my misspent youth: > Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus (1960) > USA 1960 Color > Produced by Walt Disney Productions Which proves little (though it is suggestive). People get names for a variety of reasons, and before 1960, there would have been little reason *not* to use the name. Back in the 70's I remember hearing many reports from a news announcer at the BBC World Service named Dick Tracy. Peter Trei trei(a)process.com

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Re: MUD anyone?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:47 AM 8/27/96 -0700, Jon Leonard wrote: >> Would anyone out there be interested in helping set up a >> crypto-anarcho-capitalist MUD to play around with some of the social >> aspects of crypto-anarchy and anarcho-capitalism? I can probably hack >> together a basic lpmud in a month or two if someone has a machine which >> it could run on and which could run a mailing list for those involved. > >I've been planning to run a MUD like that, at mud.umop-ap.com port 2121. >I just don't have enough coded to be worth announcing yet. >Which cryptographic primitives should be coded in initially? >Obvious choices are: >Pseudonyms >Anonymous digital cash (issued by any pseudonym, not just "banks") >Public and private keys >Secret sharing >Anonymous broadcast & message pools >Anonymous markets > >What am I missing? Should there be direct support for Jim Bell's >assasination markets? It'd provide a means of demonstrating its >ineffectiveness as a means of social control. Aren't you writing up the results of the experiment before you even take the data? That's called "dry-labbing." In any case, I'd welcome such a simulation, but there are a number of caveats. To me, the most obvious one is GIGO: Simulations, especially political/social ones, might depend heavily on assumptions that are programmed into them. A trivial, yet interesting example is the computer game "Sim City" which allowed you to adjust the "tax rate" but problems always cropped up the further away you were from 7%. The libertarians were frustrated that we were unable to drop the tax rate and still get a well-functioning, happy society. It is unlikely, obviously, that there is anything magical to a society about a tax rate of 7% The answer is likely that the people who wrote the program simply hard-coded it into the game, either directly or as a consequence of various political/social assumptions that they didn't realize they were making. Another problem was demonstrated a few weeks ago when a "game theory"-type problem was proposed on CP, the one where 20 thieves sequentially are given the task to propose the disbursement of $20 million in loot, with a vote on the proposal and death for the proposer of a rejected proposal. I pointed out that the difficulty with an _exact_ (game-theoretical) solution to such a problem is that the "cost" of death in this problem is undefined. A person might be willing to take a risk of death for $20 million that he's unwilling to take for $20 THOUSAND, and certainly not $20 DOLLARS. AP (Assassination Politics), at least the initial "government-eliminating" function of it, should work on a financially-sound principle: Actuarially, the value of a continuing $1/year obligation is $20 if the real interest rate is 5%. This means that if a randomly-selected government employee is paid $40K per year including benefits (money which is stolen from taxpayers), it would be worth a one-time cost (actuarially speaking) of 20x40K, or $800,000 to see him dead and not replaced. Assuming his death can be purchased for less than this, you are dollars ahead to buy it. If you can buy his death for, say, $20,000 (half his yearly salary) you have, in effect, profited by $800,000-$20,000 or $780,000 to do this. (Technically, the amount _society_ would benefit is actually the amount of salary cost eliminated, minus the ordinary benefit of that government employee doing his usual job. A person (statist?) might try to conclude from this that getting rid of them won't save much. That's the collectivist point of view. However, the people who (unwillingly) finance these salaries with their tax dollars, and the people who arguably benefit from these employees are, in my estimation, two separate and distinct groups of individuals, so my analysis is still valid for the former group.) It gets even better. If most of these employees decide that discretion is the better part of valor, and 90% of them resign rather than (almost literally!) get the ax then the average cost of getting rid of a given employee is reduced by another factor of 10, perhaps to $2,000. And obviously, the system feeds on itself: Once the average cost of getting rid of them drops to $2,000, their fate is so certain that the resignation rate would probably skyrocket to well over 99%, which would further reduce the average cost to perhaps $200, and so on. The overall effect is somewhat akin of "falling off a cliff," or perhaps the collapse of a star destined to become a black hole: Once a certain point it reached return is impossible or impractical. Now you should understand why I'd be quite pleased to see such a system modelled: It would be great to be able to vary the initial conditions, and see that the outcome turns out almost identically each time. Such an outcome would make you very nervous: It would show that I am correct! (BTW, a similar analysis will probably suggest that the amount of money traditionally spent on US national defense would drop from the current figure of about $250 billion to no more than 1/1000th of this, or maybe even far less, and for similar reasons.) Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Annoucing LivePGP - content security for web (fwd)
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-- I hate lightning - finger for public key - Vote Monarchist unicorn(a)schloss.li ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From ssl-lists-owner(a)minbne.mincom.oz.au Thu Aug 29 01:00:59 1996 > Message-Id: <01BB9594.5E8FC740@minuet> > From: Ming-Ching Tiew <mctiew(a)csi.po.my> > Subject: Annoucing LivePGP - content security for web > Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 10:25:07 +-800 > Encoding: 54 TEXT > Sender: ssl-lists-owner(a)mincom.com > Precedence: bulk > > Inspired by Adam Cain's write-up ( and others ) on comparison on the using of PGP, > SSL/HTTPS, SHTTP and others on Web technologies, I have written a LivePGP > plugin for Navigator 3.x and is available for evaluation for anybody who cares to > send me a email ( as I don't have a leased line connection to internet ). > > See below for a summary. > > Thank you, > Regards, > Ming-Ching > mctiew(a)csi.po.my > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > As a summary, this is a plugin for Navigator 3.x which I developed it > myself, and which I called it LivePGP because it uses LiveConnect and > PGP. > > LivePGP is a plugin to be loaded on Navigator machine; it secures the > content before transmittion to the network. Therefore, it doesn't matter > what network or what's or ever. > > With absolutely no intention to compete with SSL and SHTTP, LivePGP > attempts to address some issues with existing security products :- > > 1. 1024-bit key length of PGP in comparison with 40-bit for SSL ( due to > international export limitation ). PGP is a well-known product which > has survived years to testing. > > 2. Extended security vs point-to-point security provided by SSL. Content > coming out of SSL client and server are plain text, which may > be subjected to system administrator's tempering with the data. Using > LivePGP, the decryption of data can be relayed as late as (operationally) possible. > > More important practical reason is that the signed content can be logged > on the client and server; it is very useful to addresss non-repudiation. > The client cannot argue that he didnot submit the transaction, because > the content which contains the client's signature can be logged and printed out. > > Similary, system administrator's tempering the data could be checked against > with. > > 3. Even thought the plugin is developed using C/C++ and Java, > deployment for any scenerio need only standard HTML/Javascript. > > 4. Client is Win95/NT. Server can be anything. Win3.11 is unknown. > > 5. Every part introduced by me is source code available. > > 6. Can use it together with SSL to make use of the high transparency > of SSL. > > 7. Can use it to upload ( signed and encrypted ) local files, in addition > to uploading ( signed and encrypted ) web content.

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Re: In reference to comments made to me and to the Group
by Institute for Security and Intelligence 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mr. Geiger: I do not have interest in nor time for a flame war. But I do appreciate your perspective, whether or not I agree. Rather than flaming, I propose that all interested readers post their *CONSTRUCTIVE* ideas on the CyberTerrorism issue. If you feel it is not an issue, then don't respond. I'm not looking for opinions on politicians, the government, etc., nor do I care what you think of me or my views. However, if you can put some _solid_ thoughts into bullet items, or any other format you deem useful, perhaps we can move forward. Ideas. Actions. No commentary, raves, rants, flames, or other bandwidth wasters. Let's see what we come up with. Barry C. Collin Institute for Security and Intelligence

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Re: In reference to comments made to me and to the Group
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sir, Please get a spell checker before you post any more thousand word flame-outs On Or About: 29 Aug 96, 0:05, William H. Geiger III wrote, jumping into a flame war before he learned how to spell polititions orginised, > campaines Prodistant Prodistant Palisinians > Unauthorised mistamener <sp?>. mabye, mabye possiable > obsecurity conserned . Ofcource experiance comprehention big bost These are just a few of the spelling errors in a huge rant!!!!! =========== 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: There is no Agent Toby Tyler at the FBI [UK Observer Story]
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:17 PM 8/28/96 -0700, Richard Charles Graves wrote: >...two different sources, both of whom are anonymous because they work for >competing newspapers, tell me. > >Could someone else with contacts/time to kill/attributability please confirm >this? When I first saw the name, I remembered my misspent youth: Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus (1960) USA 1960 Color Produced by: Walt Disney Productions Genre/keyword: Children's / Drama Language: English Runtime: 96 Also Known As: Toby Tyler (1960) Directed by Charles Barton Cast (in alphabetical order) Henry Calvin Kevin Corcoran .... Toby Tyler James Drury Gene Sheldon Bob Sweeney Written by Lillie Hayward James Otis Kaler (novel) Bill Walsh DCF

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Simulations
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:05 PM 8/28/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: >To me, the most obvious one is GIGO: Simulations, especially >political/social ones, might depend heavily on assumptions that are >programmed into them. A trivial, yet interesting example is the computer >game "Sim City" which allowed you to adjust the "tax rate" but problems >always cropped up the further away you were from 7%. The libertarians were >frustrated that we were unable to drop the tax rate and still get a >well-functioning, happy society. I was taking economics back in the Armonk Iron days and we played around with an economic simulation program written in Fortran. One was supposed to adjust government spending and taxes to find an optimum level. I set both taxes and spending to zero. We got a lot of economic growth and a lot of inflation (this was not a monetarist simulation). But we were happier. DCF

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MSIE cryptography
by John Hemming - CEO MarketNet 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just downloaded the most recent English Version 2.1 for Windows 3.1. This does appear to do the same in terms of no encryption at all after the server hello. To be fair to Microsoft the number of cycles performed for the private key echange is quite high. Therefore, not having any key and not doing the RSA calculations makes the access quite a bit faster. The older versions (and some Win95 versions) that we have found around seem to just crash our server. I am not really feeling like debugging that.

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