December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

A Disservice to Mr. Bell
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:32 PM 11/8/1996, jim bell wrote: >At 09:12 PM 11/7/96 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >> ...His conviction was not reversed until 1983 in the court of one >> Judge Patel... > However, the fact that it took 40 years to reverse (and didn't, presumably, > reverse the convictions of others, and didn't compensate people for lost > property) is yet another reason to take a few pieces out of the hide of the > SC, as well as a few pounds of flesh nearest the heart. Many of us are guilty of a grave disservice to Mr. Bell. I'm sure that just about every reader of this list can only cringe when messages such as the one above cross our screens. ("He can't be a paid provocateur - it would be too obvious!") Not only is Mr. Bell apparently calling for the murder of a judge, he is apparently calling for the murder of every justice on the Supreme Court of the United States! Now lots of folks are afraid that Mr. Bell's messages will be cited as evidence that the Cypherpunks are a terrorist organization. This does a grave disservice to Mr. Bell. What Mr. Bell is really doing, I think, is intentionally pushing the envelope of what is considered to be free speech and nobly placing himself in the front lines of cryptoanarchy. So long as Mr. Bell can continue to threaten the lives of our officials in the most public way without molestation, it is safe to say that the rest of us are not going to FBI summercamp. (Canaries play a similar role for miners.) Not only should we applaud his courage, but Mr. Bell's brilliance in inventing and executing this strategy cannot go unnoticed. Now, many of you have had some awfully hard words for Mr. Bell. I am sure we all regret them now that we fully understand Mr. Bell's formerly puzzling actions. I am going to have to ask you all to do something very hard - apologize. I will start: Thank you Jim Bell for your brilliant and courageous contribution to the Cypherpunks list! I am sorry I ever claimed it was otherwise. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com "Stop and grieve at the tomb of the dead Kroisos, slain by wild Ares in the front rank of battle." - Attican cemetary monument, c. 540 B.C.

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Free software could not threaten purpose of ITAR ...
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It never ceases to amaze me how inconsistent the anti-crypto people are on this issue ... I just took a look at VADM McConnell's answers during a Senate hearing on May 3, 1994 ... http://csrc.nist.gov/keyrecovery/ees_q-a.txt Questions from Senator Murray: Q: In my office in the Hart building this February, I downloaded from the Internet an Austrian program that uses DES encryption. This was on a laptop computer, using a modem over a phone line. The Software Publishers' Association says there are at least 120 DES or comparable programs world wide. However, U.S. export control laws prohibit American exporters from selling comparable DES programs abroad. With at least 20 million people hooked up to the Internet, how do U.S. export controls actually prevent criminals, terrorists, or whoever from obtaining DES encryption software? A: Serious users of encryption do not entrust their security to software distributed via networks o bulletin boards. There is simply too much risk that viruses, Trojan Horses, programming errors, and other security flaws may exist in such software which could not be detected by the user. Serious users of encryption, those who depend on encryption to protect valuable data and cannot afford to take such chances, instead turn to other sources in which they can have greater confidence. Such serious users include not only entitles which may threaten U.S. national security interests, but also businesses and other major consumers of encryption products. Encryption software distribution via Internet, bulletin board, or modem does not undermine the effectiveness of encryption export controls. Why is it, then, that we don't just allow non-commercial software to be exported? 1. I don't believe, for a moment that "serious users" of cryptography cannot entrust their security to "software distributed via networks o bulletin boards". Those are precisely the mediums through which PGP became popular. 2. Phil Z was being harassed precisely because PGP is most definitely a serious threat in the trend toward undermining ITAR. 3. Phil K's export request was rejected, and MIT was harassed over the PGP source book, precisely because source code is source code. It does not matter if it came on a disk or through a network or through a bulletin board or on a book. The point is that the NSA DOES view this as a serious threat, so they are fighting this tooth and nail. Ern

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research help
by Jim Garvey 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all. I'm writing a paper for a class I'm in. It has to answer the question "What evidence is there that new information technology poses a threat to out privacy?" I was wondering if anyone knew of some really good online sources I could access and use. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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No Subject
by brazie＠ipa.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

UNSCRIBE

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Re: WebTV a "munition"
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:12 PM 11/8/96 -0800, Rich Graves wrote: >Eric Murray wrote: >> >> Page 3 of the San Jose Mercury News has a small blurb >> about WebTV's browser/set-top box that "uses >> computer-security technology so powerful that the >> government is classifying it as a weapon >> that will require a special export license before >> it can be sold overseas".[...] >> shouldn't be too difficult. If they didn't use the "export" >> level SSL CipherTypes, then what're they up to? Are they >> fighting crypto export laws (for which they should be congratulated >> and supported) or are they just looking for free publicity? > >Based on the lack of public policy pronouncements from the WebTV folks, >I would answer C) They're clueless. I'm not sure that management even >understood, or wanted to understand, that they'd have an export problem. >See http://www.webtv.net/ However, I estimate that the "investment" of probably under $1 million, and certainly under $10 million dollars, would easily sweep away any legal obstacle to the export of these devices. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: [rant] Race
by Lynne L. Harrison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Fri Nov 08 21:16:34 1996 > ObCrypto: Is it true that "Kemo Sabe" is Abanake for "Horse's Ass"? The author had some fun with their names. Kemo Sabe is a play on words and actually stands for "que no sabe" which, translated from Spanish, means "he who knows nothing." Tonto in Spanish means stupid. ************************************************************ Lynne L. Harrison, Esq. | "The key to life: Poughkeepsie, New York | - Get up; lharrison(a)mhv.net | - Survive; http://www.dueprocess.com | - Go to bed." ************************************************************ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMoPpgj5A4+Z4Wnt9AQFHsgP5AVSS0pG5Sp2VqtTm+BefXkA9IcA//LvQ IXISs4RaLUrUmPjMkggFbyoMEEmIIz2TjdUr2Rjn+0+T/8cmSSXTrUqofroOu8rC G00MlCPGzLWuQ5g3iuxGfxZMszWuYWEkb7m37nP0ozdPgR3xG6sYkAeuTPiny27x ZXXPgmMbidU= =m/jZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Source blocking Vulis is futile
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

John Anonymous MacDonald wrote: > > Please, remailers, source block Vulis for a week. > Remailer Fan > % telnet smail.based.host.edu smtp 250 Smail Ready ... ... mail from: someone(a)someplace.gov rcpt to: remailer(a)blacknet.org data Subject: Insert your favorite subject(spit) here Request-Remailing-To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com :: Insert your favorite message body (fart) here .. 250 Message Accepted quit Connection closed by foreign host. %

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Alongside Night on the WWW [long]
by J. Kent Hastings 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The following article is the foreword to the new edition of _Alongside Night_ by J. Neil Schulman, available for download in HTML format from http://www.pulpless.com/nite.html . Permission to cross-post in appropriate newsgroups, mail lists, and file bases granted. Copyright (c) 1996 by J. Neil Schulman. All other rights reserved. Pulling Alongside Night The Enabling Technology is Here by J. Kent Hastings (jkenth(a)c2.net) J. Neil Schulman is a prophet. Two weeks after his twenty-third birthday, on May 1, 1976, J. Neil Schulman finished the first draft of _Alongside Night_, a novel that accurately discerned the outline of 1996 reality. He finished the final draft in 1978, for publication on October 16, 1979. _Alongside Night_ describes things that weren't around in the '70s but arrived later, or are becoming commonplace now. "Citizens for a Free Society" could be the populist/libertarian source group for today's Patriot movement. The "TacStrike" division of the novel's Revolutionary Agorist Cadre could be recruited from today's militias, revolutionaries, and mercenaries, while today's cypherpunks could form the basis for the novel's "IntelSec." In the future of _Alongside Night_ as in our own 1996 -- but not in the 1970's when it was written -- panhandlers and the homeless are omnipresent due to economic hardship, professional youth gangs roam the streets of New York freely while big-time drug and people smuggling are ubiquitous; videophones are hitting the consumer market and computers are in use everywhere. Schulman's "First Anarchist Bank and Trust Company," a Swiss bank subsidiary, uses accounts denominated in gold, linked offshore -- a dream of today's cypherpunks. He predicts re- prohibition of gold, with TV actors warning "that just one little ounce of gold bullion can put you away in a federal penitentiary for up to twenty years." Transportation to one of Schulman's "Agorist Undergrounds" shields against all transmissions to prevent discovery of location aboveground, including heartbeat detectors being put into use in 1996 by the Immigration and Naturalization Service at the Mexican border. Weapons, cameras, recorders, transmitters, and radioactive materials are checked in transit. Security at the A.U. uses non-lethal weapons. Guards disarm guests upon arrival, then return their guns on their way to the trading floor. One shop is called "The Gun Nut," and "Lowell- Pierre Engineering" sells nukes. Rental per-square-foot calculates any risk of a government "G-Raid" against the costs of security measures. Cadre General Jack Guerdon, also the builder of some A.U.s including "Aurora," explains how the location of a large complex could be kept secret from the construction workers: "They were recruited from construction sites all over the world, were transported here secretly, worked only inside, and never knew where they were. If you think security is tight now, you should have been here during construction; a mosquito couldn't have gotten in or out." Thinking about it now, robots with telepresence may achieve the same security, with even less risk, since only Cadre equipment would be inside. TransComm's smuggling of contraband predicted marijuana traffic expanding into the sort of operation done in the 1980s by the cocaine cartels, small airports and all. Aurora's trading floor offers non-prescription drugs, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and LSD sold in defiance of DEA and FDA regulations, but with voluntary warning labels. Dialogue in _Alongside Night_ decries smoking prohibition at the time of the story. In California today, you aren't allowed to smoke in restaurants, workplaces, airports or other public buildings. The U.S. FDA classified nicotine a drug this year, so it's just a formality to prohibit delivery systems (cigarettes, cigars, and pipes) nationwide as well. Classroom video intercoms exist in the novel, even before consumer VCRs were a hot item. One of _Alongside Night_'s characters, Chin, uses a video capable laptop in a sequence written years before IBM introduced the first PC, and more years before anything you could call a laptop. Consumer electronics? "Aurora's library had a fair collection of books, videodiscs, and holosonic music cassettes" -- years before DAT was introduced. All trading and billing is done by computer with access controls, a projection made before most banks even had ATMs, much less telephone bill-paying.. Elliot chooses a pass phrase like today's PGP requires, and the Cadre contract assures authorized disclosure only. Aurora's hotel room keys are computerized in the novel, but it wasn't like that at hotels in the 1970s. Also in Aurora, computer terminals are in each hotel room. The electronic contract used by the Cadre in _Alongside Night_ is imitated today by digital forms used millions of times daily on the World Wide Web, including Schulman's own site http://www.pulpless.com/. Schulman wrote the first chapters of the book in 1974, describing his fictional economist "Martin Vreeland," winner of the Nobel prize for economics -- two years before Milton Friedman actually won his in 1976. And while Schulman did fail to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union, his description of the almost casual fall of the United States government over the two week timespan in his novel parallels the bloodless coup attempt against Gorbachev in 1992, which completed the fall of the Soviet Union. Neil predicted Chinese Norinco handguns and rifles being imported into the United States: Elliot Vreeland carries a ".38 caliber Peking revolver." Such imports were legalized after Alongside Night was written and, after becoming popular items, imports of Chinese firearms into the U.S. are now banned again. The Cadre are armed, but not on an aggressive revenge mission against the feds, as a "drive-by" with a non-lethal, temporarily-blinding magnesium flash, used to evade a FBI sedan, demonstrates. Foreigners with hard currency buy relatively cheap U.S. assets in_ Alongside Night_, before Rockefeller Center or major portions of the entertainment industry were bought by Japanese conglomerates. Schulman predicts the "mall-ization" of America because of fear of crime on city streets, and police replaced with private patrols such as "Fifth Avenue Merchant Alliance Security (FAMAS)." "Air Quebec" indicates Schulman's prediction of Quebec secession, which seems likely soon after a fifty-fifty split in the last election to test the issue. The secession of Texas doesn't seem as far-fetched these days as it did in 1976. Just think of the Montana legislators who introduced a bill to secede a couple of years ago. Schulman's novel is set during the final two weeks of a catastrophic "wheelbarrow" inflation. Confiscatory taxes have forced people out of aboveground jobs and into either working "off the books," or unemployed on the dole. Gresham's Law has Americans using blue "New Dollars": "More than anything else, it resembled _Monopoly_ money"; and fixed-value coins disappear so fast for their metallic value that vending-machine tokens fixed daily to the price of the "eurofranc" are just about the only real money in circulation. The President complains about the U.S. being treated like a banana republic by the "European Common Market Treaty Organization, a combination of the European Common Market and a U.S.-less NATO," the U.S. having been kicked out for no longer being able to afford keeping overseas troop commitments. The Chancellor of EUCOMTO informs the White House, "Mr. President, even bananas do not decay as quickly as the value of your currency these past few months." In the 1970's, the European Union was not yet negotiated and NATO was still almost entirely controlled by the United States. In _Alongside Night_, political dissidents are arrested on secret warrants, and the FBI gulag they're stuck in (codenamed "Utopia") is blown up by the feds as a cover-up. Of course, nothing like that could ever happen in real life, right? Schulman's account of a Federal Renovation Zone rebuilding Times Square in N.Y. predicts today's sweeping federalization of lands, opposed by the sagebrush rebellion. Future conflict between militias and the feds seems inevitable today since both sides see the other as a fatal threat and neither side is backing down. An Oracle headline in _Alongside Night_: "FBI Chief Powers attributes last night's firebombings of bureau offices to outlaw 'Revolutionary Agorist Cadre.'" The recent FBI raids in Colorado and West Virginia against militia groups supposedly planning terrorism -- not to mention Waco and Ruby Ridge -- demonstrates that anti-federal sentiment isn't laughed off as harmless anymore. The FBI chief in the novel keeps copies of "confidential" enemies lists at home, long before Filegate. In the 1970's when J. Neil Schulman wrote his novel, the general image of the FBI was Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., on _The FBI_. Today's FBI is better characterized by the paranoia of _The X-Files_, where higher-ups are usually in complicity with dark forces. The Emergency Broadcast System in _Alongside Night_ extends even to telephones -- using the phone system during the crackdown requires authorized beepers -- while radio and TV programming simulates normality while the government collapses. Today's FBI digital wiretap law will provide capability for millions of simultaneous wiretaps and the major broadcast networks have accepted official explanations uncritically of everything from who started the fire at Waco to the cause of the explosion that destroyed TWA Flight 800. In _Alongside Night_, we learn that a _New York Times_ front-page story headlined "Vreeland Widow Assures Public Husband Died Naturally" is disinformation. Echoes of Vince Foster and the Arkancides? An "Oracle" headline in _Alongside Night_ predicts military dissent: "TEAMSTER PRESIDENT WARNS POSSIBILITY OF ARMED FORCES WILDCAT STRIKES IF PENTAGON DOES NOT MEET DEMANDS..." And when -- due to a busted budget -- an absence of government paychecks combines with the latest government scandal, a two-century-old superpower collapses like a house of cards. Where did a prediction of revolution in the U.S. come from, if not the fevered dreams of a militant paranoid? Young Schulman, a student of Austrian economics, just "followed the money," determining who would earn it and who would control it. During the 1970s, hippies dropped out and moved to communes, while tax and sagebrush rebels fought to keep the government out of their pockets and off their lands. California's Proposition 13 and the election of U.S. President Ronald Reagan were the results of the establishment co-opting anti-government positions. Despite this, the current political situation in the U.S. is more volatile than ever. Job security doesn't exist for anybody, so leftists are forming new parties out of disgust with the Democrats, while right-wingers who believe Republicans indistinguishable join militias. But perhaps the most revolutionary development is the Internet and the World Wide Web, which threaten government currency controls, tax collection, and media restrictions. _Alongside Night_ predicted revolutionary cadres organizing to resist and replace the State with an "agorist" society. Agorism, according to Samuel Edward Konkin III, who coined the term, is the integration of both libertarian theory and counter- economic practice, neither inactive "library libertarians" prattling on with their idle complaints, nor simple criminals preying on society. Agorists insist on both civil and economic liberties for all individuals, encourage efficient restitution for contract and rights violations, yet oppose a monopoly of coercion from even a limited "minarchist" State. From Konkin's _New Libertarian Manifesto_: "Coercion is immoral, inefficient and unnecessary for human life and fulfilment." This is not pacifism because defensive violence is not coercion. Coercion is the _initiation_ of violence or its threat. You can't morally start a fight, but you can finish one. ... "When the State unleashes its final wave of supression--and is successfully resisted--this is the definition of _Revolution_." Most citizens go along with the government, whether "right or wrong," to preserve order, defend freedom, and more recently to assist the poor and protect the environment. When it becomes obvious that the government is hostile to these purposes, many of its subjects will no longer feel guilty about joining the radical opposition. A rich, slave-owning, dead European white male cracker named Thomas Jefferson (sorry, he's not "the Sage of Monticello" anymore), wrote similar things about King George III in the _Declaration of Independence_. I'm sure T.J.'s writings would be found in Aurora's library, along with the following titles, most of which are specified in _Alongside Night_. Productive workers will "withdraw their sanction," according to Ayn Rand's 1957 _magnum opus_, _Atlas Shrugged,_ and this will lead to "the collapse of the Looter's State." Rand also described an underground "Galt's Gulch" of black market revolutionaries in her classic novel. Murray Rothbard hinted at stateless defense in _Man, Economy, and State_ (1962). Robert Heinlein portrayed a stateless legal system and revolution in _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_ (1966). Rothbard describes stateless defense services fully in _Power and Market_ (1970), echoing Gustavus De Molinari's 1849 essay "The Production of Security." Molinari was an economist in the original French _laissez- faire_ school of Frederick Bastiat. Molinari concluded that justice and defense were goods like any other, best provided in a competitive market rather than political monopoly. Konkin's _New Libertarian Manifesto_ (published in 1980, based on a talk given in February 1974 which influenced _Alongside Night_) inspired the creation of The Agorist Institute, "symbolically founded on the last day of 1984," now with a web site at http://www.agorist.org/. That's all fine for free-market supporters, but wouldn't "progressive" groups try to impose their own one-party dictatorships? What's in it for the masses? Despite their famous friendship with Newt Gingrich, Alvin and Heidi Toffler are active in labor and ecology circles. They point out that telecommuting is 29 times more efficient than physical commuting in private cars. If 12% telecommuted, the 75 million barrels of gasoline saved would completely eliminate the need for foreign oil and future Gulf Wars. Real estate now used for office space could be used for local housing. The Tofflers believe traditional factors of production such as land, labor, and capital are being dwarfed by the growing importance of information. Information is inexhaustible, it can be shared but still kept. Widely copied software brings more user suggestions and faster improvements. It puts scarcity economics on its ear. Expensive bulky production methods are being "ephemeralized" (to use a term coined by Bucky Fuller), replaced by flexible cheap computers to satisfy local consumer tastes. More people can afford access to computerresources, with less damage to the environment. Telecommuting is safer than driving, which currently kills a Vietnam War's worth of fatalities each year, without requiring "strategic" resources to fight over. Silicon comes from sand, which is plentiful. Because programs like PGP protect users from both evil hackers and a fascist global police state, traditional leftists embrace the new technology, and even build their own web sites. Karl Marx wrote of objective and subjective conditions being necessary for Revolution. "Objective" in this case means the physical ability to overthrow the current regime. "Subjective" means the desire and mass support to do it. The 1960s arguably provided the subjective conditions: an unpopular war, a vicious police crackdown on agitators, and hundreds of thousands of protesters marching in the streets. But these subjective conditions weren't perfect. The economy was still robust, not yet weighed down with the debts racked up in the 1970's by the Wars On Poverty and Vietnam, and no stagflation and oil crisis yet. The objective conditions were bad. Individuals and small groups could not do much mischief without being overwhelmed by Chicago police or National Guard troops thrown against them. Today, a single troublemaker can afford to sign up for Internet service under a pseudonym and use anonymous remailers to post messages in widely read "newsgroup" conferences, distributed to more than 135 countries without identification. The Rulers and the Court Opinion Makers won't let their ill- gotten monopolies collapse without a fight. Every day we hear about the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: Terrorists, Pedophiles, Money-Launderers, and Drug Smugglers. Defenders of privacy and free speech on the Internet get smeared for "fighting law enforcement" just like the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre in _Alongside Night_. Restrictions on the Internet are likely to be passed for "crime and security" reasons and to hold users "accountable." Civil libertarians complain that such pornographically-explicit words as "breast" are being filtered by online services fearing prosecution, with the "unintended consequence" of forcing breast cancer survivors to choose euphemisms like "tit". Critics of data censorship say these restrictions are like trying to stop the wind from crossing a border. For example, when France (in anti-_laissez-faire_ fashion) blocked some newsgroups, an ISP in the United States, http://www.c2.net/, made them available to French users via the World Wide Web. Next there's the problem of how to make a living underground. Schulman watched Anthony L. Hargis found a "bank that isn't a bank" in 1975, with "transfer orders" instead of checks, denominated in mass units of gold. ALH&Co. survives to this day, despite IRS inspections, hassles with the Post Office and local authorities, and ever-tighter banking restrictions against "money-laundering." Hargis explicitly forbids (by voluntary contract) his account holders from selling drugs, which suggests how proprietary communities can choose to be drug-free within a future agorist society. Hargis is sincere in this restriction, not just playing clean to fool the authorities. Unfortunately, Hargis is not enthusiastic about encryption or the Internet. "Honest Citizens have nothing to hide." Rarely does the weed of government research bear anything but the bitter fruits of mass destruction, disinformation, and bureaucratic disruption of innocent people's lives. Exceptions may include public-key cryptography, spread-spectrum radio and the Internet Protocol. Programmers such as Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)'s Philip R. Zimmermann are using the government sponsored RSA algorithm to thwart the efforts of every State's security agent. In Myanmar (formerly Burma), where PGP is used by rebels fighting dictatorship, the mere possession of a network-capable computer will bring a lengthy prison sentence. In 1995, David Chaum announced the availability of untraceable digital cash ("Ecash"), denominated in U.S. Dollars (Federal Reserve Units, or "frauds" as Hargis would call them) from Mark Twain Bank in St. Louis, MO. Ecash can be withdrawn, deposited, and spent without fee anywhere on the Internet. The only charge is when exchanging Ecash for a particular currency. Chaum lives in Amsterdam, the location of the "secret annex" in _The Diary of Anne Frank_. During World War II, the Nazis seized the government records in Amsterdam before partisans could burn them, and used them to track down and kill Jews, including members of Chaum's own family. Perhaps this explains his desire for computer privacy. In 1985, David Chaum described his invention in an article as "Security Without Identification: Transaction Systems To Make 'Big Brother' Obsolete." Ecash protects privacy yet thwarts deadbeat counterfeiters. Similarly, software filters against "spam" and other unwanted messages obviate a State crackdown against anonymity. Chaum's Digicash company now serves a number of banks in different countries, and provides the "electronic wallet" software for use by their account holders. With Ecash, items may be purchased without identifying the buyer, even if the banks and merchants exchange information, but the seller may be disclosed if the buyer wishes to publicly dispute a purchase. As it exists, privacy is compromised because of bank disclosure requirements, but it isn't hard to imagine underground banks with unofficial ecash (as opposed to proprietary Ecash), using their own currency or gold. Respecting your right to be secure in the privacy of your own home would let you advertise, send catalogs, take orders, send processed data or tele-operate machinery (in other words, do your _work_), then send invoices, collect ecash payments, and deposit your unreported earnings scot-free in offshore accounts. Using ecash and encrypted remailers, there would be no way for tax collectors to tell if you made $100 last year or $100,000,000. If measures such as mandatory internal passports and routine checkpoints can't restrict who can work or determine accurate income taxes due, they'll have to employ ubiquitous surveillance--a totalitarian system will be the only way to protect the privileges of the tax eaters. Although necessary for the future survival of the State, a crackdown will provoke resistance. Private communications bypass official propaganda, as the Committees of Correspondence did during the American Revolution. They'll be forced to bug your house. Don't worry, the automatic image-processing (exists today!) 24-hour cameras will be labeled "for your protection." Worse than Orwell's _1984_, they won't need humans to look through them, they'll identify everyone and trace their movements with blessed convenience. Couldn't they just tap the phones? Sure, but with encrypted data to and from an Internet Service Provider they wouldn't get much. Couldn't they require back-door "escrowed" keys and outlaw strong encryption? Not good enough, they need _constant_ monitoring (not just with a court order) to collect taxes. Scofflaws might send innocent looking images and sound files with steganographically hidden data using methods designed to thwart detection and disruption. In 1996, for real, any data collected about you can be shared with the FBI, U.S. Customs, DEA, IRS, Postal inspectors, and the Secret Service because the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), located down the street from the CIA in Vienna, Virginia pools the data. I guess anything goes to stop crime and protect the children, right? In _Alongside Night_, temporary relays and infrared modulation of engine heat disguises communication signals. With enhancement of spread-spectrum radios recently introduced, a channel wouldn't be defined by a single radio frequency, but by a "spreading code" of frequency hops with staggered dwell times, so that jammers and eavesdroppers won't be able to predict where, and for how long, the carrier will go next. A hybrid with the direct sequence technique would mix each bit of the message with several pseudo-random "chip" bits, to spread the signal at each hop. A transmitted reference in one band, of purely random thermal noise in a resistor for example, can be compared to the reference mixed with a message in another, so that the authorized receiver correlates the two to recover the message. Low-powered microwave, lasers, unreported underground cables, antennas disguised as flag poles and many other methods would insure that the email got through during a blackout. Today, when "rightsizing" has made a temporary placement firm the largest employer in the U.S., and the President's own budget projects a federal tax rate of 84%, not including state, county, city and other local taxes, we can count on greater numbers swelling the ranks of radical movements in the face of a hostile establishment. "Dr. Merce Rampart," the woman leading Schulman's Cadre, offers advice to dislocated personnel in the "New Dawn" of a proprietary anarchist revolution: "With the exception of those government workers who perform no marketable service--tax collectors, regulators, and so on--we are urging them to declare their agencies independent from the government, and to organize themselves into free workers' syndicates. Shares of stock could be issued to employees and pensioners by whatever method seems fair, and the resultant joint-stock companies could then hire professional managers to place the operation on a profitable footing. I can envision this for postal workers, municipal services, libraries, universities, and public schools, et cetera. As for those civil servants whose jobs are unmarketable, I suggest that most have skills in accounting, administration, computers, law, and so forth, that readily could be adapted to market demand. That's the idea. It's now up to those with the necessary interests to use it or come up with something better." In the 1980's, after _Alongside Night_ was published, this idea became popular among libertarian-leaning conservatives. It's called privatization. _Alongside Night_ shows us a world where such ideas aren't merely a smokescreen for greater efficiency in the service of an ever more encompassing State. ## J. Kent. Hastings is co-director of the Agorist Institute (http://www.agorist.org) a partner in the Pulpless.Com online publishing venture (http://www.pulpless.com) a long-time cypherpunk, and radical activist.

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Re: "Nightmare on Crypto Street, Part 1"
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:42 AM 11/8/1996, Timothy C. May wrote: > And whenever any of us raised issues of Constitutionality of the measures > Peter was predicting, such as random searches, conviction based on > possession of an illegal tool, forced escrow, etc., it seemed that Peter's > response was usually some variant of: > "Won't matter. The people will demand action." Yes, in a pogrom situation, the Constitution is not much protection. However, you can do quite a bit without straying far outside the bounds of the Constitution. Certainly without straying farther than the Supreme Court has already done. Random searches are probably not necessary and the procedure of issuing search warrants need not change. Instead of making the transmission of encrypted messages illegal, encrypted messages become just cause for a search of somebody's house for illegal cryptography software. There is no prior restraint of free speech in this legal scenario. What you make illegal is the possession and operation of cryptography software. Consider this analogy: I get up on a podium and announce "I shot the Sheriff." I have a legal right to do this. However, if somebody did recently shoot the sheriff, it is also likely that my house will be searched. The degree to which the Constitution needs to be eroded is slight if there is broad popular support for the measures. The reason for this is that the list of suspects will be short. If the list of suspects is short, you can go to some trouble to follow Constitutional procedures with each one. Witch hunts and random searches will occur if there is large minority devoted to pursuing cryptoanarchy and a majority which is just as strongly devoted to putting a stop to it. It is not one hundred percent clear to me that the operation of cryptographic software is speech. The software certainly does not add meaning to the messages you are sending. Unfortunately, the term "free speech" is vague and confusing. You can broadcast any number you like, unless it happens to be the number that corresponds to the Windows95 executable. You can say anything you like, but you can't say anything that is untrue about a private person. Where in the First Amendment is any distinction drawn between public and private people? Why am I allowed to say untrue things about public figures? And so on. There are any number of ways to make the possession of cryptographic software illegal. For instance, the government could change the patent laws to make cryptography patents have a 100 year term. (This will be done to promote cryptography. ;-) Then, after the evils of cryptography are "discovered" the government can nationalize the software patents and beef up the penalties for patent violations. > But I think this "nightmare scenario" is implausible. I agree. The reason we have to consider this "straw man" is that it is considered to be a legitimate policy discussion amongst people at the highest levels of our society. > And the points many of us have been making about digital commerce, the > central role of the Net in so many things, and the international > connections, mean that a pogrom launched against the Net just isn't going > to fly. Too many corporate interests are at stake. I agree with this, too. I think a lot of people have been sitting on the fence waiting to see which way the crypto ball is going to bounce. I think it's going to bounce towards cryptoanarchy. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Spam Hater: fight back the spammers
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From http://www.compulink.co.uk/~net-services/spam/ Hit back at the Spammers! Get lots of e-mail offering you get-rich-quick schemes? Want to hit back? "Spam Hater" is free Windows software that helps you respond effectively and makes it hot for these people. Analyses the Spam Extracts a list of addresses of relevant Postmasters, etc. Generates a "WHOIS" query to help track the perpetrator Prepares a reply Choice of legal threats, insults or your own message Appends a copy of the Spam if required Puts it in a mail window ready for sending Spam Hater works with lots of popular e-mail programs directly - there's no tedious cutting and pasting. Supported E-Mail Programs Ameol, AOL 2.5I, Eudora Light 1.5.2, 1.5.4, Eudora Pro 2.2, Free Agent 0.99, Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 (4.70.1155), Netscape 1.2N, 2.02, 3.0, Pegasus Mail V2.4X, Virtual Access V3.51. Download here.. If you already have VBRUN300.DLL, save some time with the "lite" version. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred Member JPFO. "America's Aggressive Civil Rights Organization"

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