December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

[NOISE] Re: Thank you, John Gilmore, for protecting freedom of speech against Dr. Dmitri Vulius
by darius＠hotliquid.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sat, 2 Nov 1996 06:45:54 -0800 John Anonymous MacDonald <nobody(a)cypherpunks.ca> wrote: > Thank you, John, for being so brave and protecting our freedom of > on-topic speech. You are a true cypherpunk. > > Thank you, Timothy C May, for advancing cryptography by posting 100% > crypto-relevant messages about loans to other countries and your > collection of assault weapons. > > John and Timothy just made the cypherpunks list better. ---------------------- Well, here's the wonderful thing about cypherpunks. It's a privately run list. There isn't freedom to flame wantonly, there isn't a 'right to insult' Vulius has plagued this list for quite some time. I'm glad he's been removed. We return you to your regularly scheduled on-topic posts. darius(a)hotliquid.com

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[NOISE] Vulis, Censorship on cypherpunks & all this b.s.
by Tim Scanlon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

After reading about the great moral indignation & general dispeptitude people seem to be finding over Dimitri's removal, I basicly have one response. Get a life. I mean really, the guy was (and is) freakin intolerable. He just caused major noise on the list and that's about all. The bottom line is that his removal just makes the list a more sane, less crap filled place. As for all the upset & indignation, well jesus, like you people can't find better things to get indignant about? How bout spending the same amount of time writing to your congressman about the bletcherous crypto policies being promoted by government facists? Or the same amount of time on sticking an html interface to an anon remailer in your web page... etc. It just comes across as sanctimonious and incredibly irrelivant b.s. for people to be "upset" in any way over some nitwit being jerked off the list after he's been given far, far, more reasonable alternatives than to act the way he had been. Tim

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No - Re: www.anonymizer.com down?
by stewarts＠ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:02 PM 11/2/96 -0800, iang(a)cs.berkeley.edu (Ian Goldberg) wrote: >I would, but it seems to be unavailable. There is currently no response >on www.anonymizer.com:8080. I just tried it, and it's very slow, and asks for cookies, but it works. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk Imagine if three million people voted for somebody they _knew_, and the politicians had to count them all.

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Re: Unix User Password File Encryption
by Three Blind Mice 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sat, 2 Nov 1996, Erp wrote: > Compare the outcomed encryptions -- And find a pattern in them.. Now in There is the flaw in this logic. If you do find a pattern, then this means that the algorithm is *BROKEN*. --3bmice

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Re: Dr. Vulis is not on cypherpunks any more
by Computer Virus Help Desk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:34 AM 11/2/96 -0800, you wrote: >At 02:13 AM 11/2/96 -0800, John Gilmore <gnu(a)toad.com> wrote: >>As stated by Dr. Vulis, he is no longer on the cypherpunks mailing >>list, and indeed majordomo(a)toad.com HAS been instructed to ignore his >>requests to resubscribe. >>I removed him, on my own initiative. I got tired of asking him to >>stop stirring up flames. When he posted a message saying that we'd >>have to use technical means to stop him from flaming the list, I said, >>"OK". >[snip] >This all seems really silly to me. >Are people on this list not sophisticated enough to be capable of filtering >his posts if they don't like to read them? > >What's to stop him from using reailers or nymservers? Are you going to >block them, too? > >By doing something like this you give him far more attention and >encouragement than he deserves. It's a big mistake, IMHO. >Rich Well put! I tired a long time ago of Dr. Vulis and several others on this list. Rather than bitch about it or resort to the same big brother gestapo-censor bullshit we profess to abhor I simply utilized the extensive filtering capability of Eudora. I don't need "big brother" or big "cypherpunk" censoring my mail for me. We have become what we fear the most. How prophetic and pathetic. I agree.... a very BIG mistake, indeed....

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Re: Censorship on cypherpunks
by Will French 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> It's only authoritarianism if the government is involved. > Clearly, the government isn't involved in this matter. Until now, I'd considered the list as a model of a libertarian society, with the listowner as the government. My point is that if a mailing list (where physical force is generally not a factor) can't be run without arbitrary sanctions against members, how could anyone ever hope for a whole society, with a real, gun-toting government, to run that way? Will French <wfrench(a)interport.net>

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Re: Dr. Vulis is not on cypherpunks any more
by Rich Burroughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:52 PM 11/2/96 -0800, Sandy Sandfort <sandfort(a)crl.com> wrote: >On Sat, 2 Nov 1996, Rich Burroughs wrote: > >> Are people on this list not sophisticated enough to be capable >> of filtering his posts if they don't like to read them? > >The short answer is, No. More specifically, we constantly have >a stream of new readers sampling Cypherpunks. Some are >technically sophisticated; some are not. I am guessing that people who come to read cpunks are probably more likely to have a grasp of filtering technologies than the average Net newbie. I may be mistaken. >In either case, new >readers do not have the historical perspective not to fall for >Dimitri's big lies. Is telling the truth a requirement for participating on the list? ;) How about posting a mini-FAQ about Dimitri or something? Responding to speech you dislike with more speech? >Nor do they have any way of know what an >abberation his sort of behavior is on this list. I think you underestimate people's ability to evaluate the situation. You mean well, but this type of paternal, well-meaning censorship is censorship nonetheless. (I know this isn't censorship in the strictest definition of the term, as in government restriction of speech, but I'd like to see us err on the side of keeping the forum as open as possible. YMMV.) >"So this is >what Cypherpunks are like," would be a sad, but understandable >misinterpretation of what we're all about. Judging any Usenet newsgroup or mailing list based on it's kookiest member could produce the same result. I'm relying on people to be able to pick a kook out of a crowd. Would you prefer that the representation that people get of Cypherpunks be of a group that kicks people off the list who disturb them? Are Cypherpunks that thin-skinned? I have never been forced to read one of the KOTM's messages -- it has always been my choice to. After the last Bernstein hearing, Tim and I ended up at the same table for lunch, along with two other people. The four of us began discussing Scientology, and partway through the conversation I realized that the Tim I was talking with was Tim May, and that we had already covered some of the same ground on this list. Tim was very persuasive in his view that the Scientologists should be given the widest latitude to spread their views, and that their right to speak be guaranteed. While I consider myself a free speech advocate, I am not an absolutist, and I loathe the CoS leadership. I was much more equivocal about their rights. As the conversation went on, I found my self more and more drawn in by Tim's arguments, as they were very much in line with my feelings on other speech-related issues. I found his points very persuasive, and they have had a lasting impact on my view of the situation, and my posts to alt.religion.scientology. I find it ironic to see someone kicked off a list for bad-mouthing Tim, who I found to be a very eloquent defender of free speech. > What John did was >appropriate. I still think it's a big mistake. How can you really keep him off the list? Limit posting to subscribers? Ban remailers and nym accounts? Don't you think he'll try to make himself a martyr; a victim? Will that make Cypherpunks look better? Rich

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Very Preliminary release of IPSEC code for Linux (fwd)
by Mark M. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 01:32:11 +0200 From: John Ioannidis <ji(a)hol.gr> To: ipsec(a)TIS.COM Subject: Very Preliminary release of IPSEC code for Linux -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Greetings! The Linux IPSP implementation I have been working on lately is finally at a stage where it can benefit from feedback, and also where other may also benefit from it. This is NOT an untar-and-play release; far from it. It is being made available so that it can reach the UnP stage faster than if only I work on it. The code compiles into a loadable module for the 2.0.xx (I'm running 2.0.24) kernel. Use at your own risk. I won't be held responsible even if it mails the contents of your filesystems to the NSA and the KGB (or whatever), and then proceeds to encrypt them :-) The gzip-ed tar file is in: http://prometheus.hol.gr/~ji/ipsec-0.2.tar.gz If you want to mirror it to your ftp site, please drop me a note. Enjoy! /ji -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQCVAgUBMnk2+c+A0YctPurVAQFSSAQAkt6e6a8TiYNcZ0rcLnxzIjm3uUTyYP3W sUaM9hkMYsDbePdc/O9GoA5Q/HnAg4/BNl+Tla1Os72NCq+uDZX2gDnlUFktnd9b q3S961FIL+ilmV0TepmQGGImjXPpThWMg4FKK7bhaiymcepJ7xs43sJoFEfkQ+uZ iUxTEo2j1Ro= =ztQp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Computer Security Risk Assessment Software?
by Frank Willoughby 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:44 PM 11/1/96 -0800, Dale Thorn <dthorn(a)gte.net> allegedly wrote: >Frank Willoughby wrote: >> The solutions to the above-mentioned problems are: >> Shop around. Find out which consultants are qualified and what they charge. >> Make sure the consultant caps his cost. You should know the maximum price tag >> associated with the consulting engagement BEFORE the consultant walks in the front >> door. This helps to avoid having the consultant camp on your doorstep at $XXX >> dollars per hour for days, weeks, or months on end. > >The above is a nice ideal. You should of course get a "really good" consultant, >and even better, get one who's "real honest". But my guess is those guys cost the >most of all, or at the very least, require the most research to find. Good point. To help establish the honesty, it wouldn't hurt to get personal and business references. It also wouldn't hurt to check the BBB (Better Business Bureau - a consumer rights group) to see if there are any complaints against the company. Ideally, the consultanting company would also be in the BBB's Care program which means that they will submit to binding arbitration in the event of a disagreement. (BTW, the BBB also investigates all claims to weed out claims made by one competitor against another, etc.). >The ideal of capping the cost is commendable as well, however, when the consultant >finds midway through the project that his initial estimate (made as carefully as he >possibly can) is way too low, he will now have an incentive to lie, cut corners,etc., >*particularly* if the customer looks like one of those antsy types who might withhold >payments and so on. Depends on the consulting company. It is also a good measure which can be used to separate the weasels from the good guys. The weasels will do exactly what you said. The good guys won't. Granted that once in a while, there will be a contract which will have some surprises in it and you - won't make as much money as you were supposed to. IMHO, this is a part of doing business. Usually, you will win, but once in a while you will lose. These things will happen. Learn what went wrong and take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again. Then go back to succeeding. BTW, I think it is the customer's right to withhold payments until the job has been performed to the customer's satisfaction. >My advice: Get a consultant to find a good IT consultant. Seriously. If you have the money to spend, this may be a good idea. Personally, I would tend to separate IT consultants from InfoSec consultants. InfoSec is a highly specialized field & seasoned InfoSec Officers don't exactly grow on trees (as companies who don't have one and are trying desparately to find one will testify). Seasoned InfoSec Officers who are consulting for customers are even rarer, but I would rather have that to have the security of my corporation depend on an IT consultant who has never had any experience working as an Information Security Officer (who has successfully implemented Information Security in a real business environment). There is no substitute for experience, IMHO. Food for thought. Best Regards, Frank Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. -- Rich Kulawiec <standard disclaimer> The opinions expressed above are of the author and may not necessarily be representative of Fortified Networks Inc. Fortified Networks Inc. - Information Security Consulting http://www.fortified.com Phone: (317) 573-0800 FAX: (317) 573-0817 Home of the Free Internet Firewall Evaluation Checklist

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Compromise proposal
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[this goes to cypherpunks(a)toad.com and freedom-knights(a)jetcafe.org. I am not reading f-k, but I am interested in Dave Hayes's opinion.] Hi, I am not normally considered an ally of Dimitri Vulis, so let this be an attempt at being impartial. Many members of cypherpunks list are right when they oppose the forced unsubscription of Dimitri Vulis from this list. The sorry state of this list is not the result of his flames alone, there is a large number of people who discuss things of no cryptographic relevance. We should remember that besides flames and scandals, Vulis has been posting things that are most relevant to this list's topic. We should also remember that individuals have the right and responsibility to define what content they want to see and what content they do not want to see. I am surprised at libertarians putting forward propositions that are intended to promote welfare of "new subscribers" and try to shield them from "lies". Similarly, individuals are free to create voluntary moderated associations as they see fit. As it was created, this mailing list was not a moderated association. At the same time, unfortunately, flames that Dimitri generated had rendered previously 80% unusable list to be 99% unusable. These flames had zero value for me personally. Since cypherpunks is a private list (although it used to be unmoderated), I can understand the list owner who wants to save his creature from total destruction. I propose the following: 1) The block on Dimitri Vulis's subscriptions should be removed 2) We should not impose any limitations on anyone's speech except 3) 3) Dimitri and everyone else should put prefix "[FLAME]" into all Subject: header fields of their flame-related messages. 4) The sole discretion of determining what is flame and what is not should be exercised by John Gilmore. His definition of "flame" can be as broad as reasonably necessary. 5) John Gilmore should have the right to forsibly unsubscribe, for a period not exceeding two months, anyone who posts flames and does not use the right prefix. 6) Cypherpunks list owner shall have the right to install any filters he considers necessary in order to catch and review any messages before they go to all subscribers, solely in order to verify their compliance with item 3). Messages that do not comply may be rejected and their authors can be unsubscribed, as defined in 5). This solution will allow anyone with a clue to use appropriate filtering and improve the signal-noise ratio, and at the same time will not in any way limit anyone's freedom of speech. I am also eagerly awaiting when Perry creates a moderated cypherpunks list. - Igor.

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