December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Remailer Abuse Solutions
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:32 PM 11/13/96 -0800, Lucky Green wrote: >On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, Peter Hendrickson wrote: > >> At 10:34 AM 11/13/1996, Mullen Patrick wrote: >> > Also, >> > what happens when your long-lost friend comes across your addy and tries to >> > email you? Surely you don't want to charge postage for an otherwise free >> > service to him/er. Maintaining a list of "accepted sources" would be a hassle >> > not many people would accept. >> >> Absent highly intrusive global net monitoring techniques, that's what they >> are going to have to do anyway. E-mail is inexpensive. The advertiser >> can justify the expense even if generates a small number of leads. Expect >> more spam. > >There is a very simple way of dealing with your long lost friend. And any >other person not on your "free" list. If you find their email worth your >while, you can always give them their money back. For future contact, you >can move your friend on the "free" list. > >Frankly, I don't think there is anybody new that I care to communicate with >who wouln't be willing to make a small deposit for initiating communications. > >-- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred > Member JPFO. "America's Aggressive Civil Rights Organization" You might want to consider making that a price on message size, otherwise I'll just send you the contents of the Sears catalog, the Damark catalog, the full collection of the clearing house sweepstakes, and an Amway catalog at one low price. (My backers could get in on a great cut, at $1.00 a message they would each pay $.25) I would say $.50 per Kilobyte, including attachments.

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Re: Computer Security Training
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:44 PM 11/13/96 -0500, Paul George wrote: ... >I'd like to ask very poignant questions since this will be my second to >the last day working for Uncle Sam. (I'm going Private Industry, yeeaa!!) > >And I really don't care what my boss thinks of my questions. ;) > >Paul. > >Oh, I unsubscribed to the list, 500 emails over a long weekend is too >much. So please CC: questions to george(a)justice.usdoj.gov and I will >forward all answers to the list. Thanks a bunch.... ... First of all, do you need references? Your boss would probably be the best one, unless you destroy h[is,er] faith in you. Second, when would they fire you anyway? Two th three weeks later? After your grace period expired? By then you should already be out of your office. Unless you need the course for your free enterprize work. If not, you could impress your boss, (and possibly get a few extra government contracts down the line), by volunteering to stay at your desk as you won't need the material for your employment. The above was made under the assumption that your branch occasionaly "outsources" projects or calls on private consultants when it needs extra hands (minds).

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RE: Remailer Abuse Solutions
by Mullen Patrick 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

First of all, I would like to apologize if it looked like I accused Peter of being involved with a conspiracy. I have communicated with him privately concerning this matter, and am now making my public apology. Thanks! Concerning my other statements, I think I was a little confused on the implementation of this idea, but now that I've re-read the posts, I'm confused in another way. It seems this feature only applies to mail forwarded through a remailer. As mentioned on several posts, which may be the main idea, this would reduce the amount of noise submitted to lists. This would be a good thing, for sure. Knowing that your useless messages are costing even $.25 would be enough to cut down drastically on spam. However, I still don't see how this is to be implemented for direct email. How would this work for an entity sending email directly to your account, rather than through a remailer? The solutions that come to mind are 1) get new mail software which performs this filtering/charging and 2) have an autoreply that sends mail not sent through your "post office" back to the sender with a note saying to route it through the "post office." This "post office" would be much like with snail mail. All it does is collect and redistribute mail (for a small fee, of course... :-) This would be a good business proposition, indeed. However, I don't know how widely accepted it would be. Comments? Am I missing the point? PM USER ERROR: REPLACE AND STRIKE ANY KEY WHEN READY

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Re: Babble about universal service
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:43 AM 8/8/96 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote: >(My objections to universal service are perhaps not surprising. It >devolves more power into the hands of the DC bureaucrats such as the FCC, >and provides a slippery slope on which we can slide down towards more and >more government regulation. By concentrating regulatory authority in the >Federal government, it also makes decisions more subsceptible to >special-interest lobbying and political patronage. But I recall Ronda has >been arguing for universal service for some time now, including on the >netizens mailing list.) It also lets the Feds say, "You can't have something until everyone has it." Besides we have universal service right now (in America anyway). Much more universal service than the Feds would have provided with decades of bureaucratic futzing around. Anyone in the US who wants to get wired can do so for very little money. All it takes is desire. The government can't provide the desire. DCF

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No Subject
by attila＠primenet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Benjamin Grosman <bgrosman(a)healey.com.au> Subject: Re: Worrying... In-Reply-To: <199611140830.TAA26347(a)sydney.healey.com.au> X-Mailer: MR/2 Internet Cruiser Edition for OS/2 v1.16 In <199611140830.TAA26347(a)sydney.healey.com.au>, on 11/14/96 at 07:30 PM, Benjamin Grosman <bgrosman(a)healey.com.au> said: .Isn't it worrying that so many people can happily devote their time .to trying to annoy others? well, 40 years ago when I was still an innocent farm child... then today people are basically good. ...until money is involved. of course it's legal. ...but is it moral? ...things were only fattening. ...immorality: not getting in on the take no need for film ratings ...is it R, NC, or XXX? OK, until proven otherwise ...God gets credit, the rest pay cash then there are the the flaming liberals, the Better Red than Deads, the Sierra Club, the ADL, 'THE' Weisman, Arafat, whatever the hardline premier 'friend' of Arafat --and certainly we must include the absolute amorality of Bubba and Bitch. actually, I can handle a few of the obnoxious. if they are remote, who cares? if they get too close and persist --well, there are means and there are means. -- Cyberspace and Information are Freedom! FUCK your WIPO, too. -attila

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RE: Remailer Abuse Solutions
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:10 AM 11/14/1996, Mullen Patrick wrote: > First of all, I would like to apologize if it looked like I accused Peter of > being involved with a conspiracy. I have communicated with him privately > concerning this matter, and am now making my public apology. Thanks! "Business you can do with anyone. Yachting you can only do with gentlemen." (roughly) -- J.P. Morgan A public apology was hardly necessary, but it is certainly accepted! ;-) > Concerning my other statements, I think I was a little confused on the > implementation of this idea, but now that I've re-read the posts, I'm confused > in another way. It seems this feature only applies to mail forwarded through > a remailer. While at first this may seem awkward, it's actually a feature because the remailer operator handles the e-cash and cuts a check once in awhile. This has the effect of converting a "victim" who hates remailers into a person who loves spam and loves remailers. This makes it harder to outlaw anonymity or impose Dyson-style "limited" anonymity. Plus, it's just a good business practice. > As mentioned on several posts, which may be the main idea, this > would reduce the amount of noise submitted to lists. This would be a good > thing, for sure. Knowing that your useless messages are costing even $.25 > would be enough to cut down drastically on spam. And, for people who get their kicks out of spamming people they don't like it must be galling to have to pay their "victim" money for the privilege! > However, I still don't see how this is to be implemented for direct email. Once again, I seem to have combined several ideas in a confusing way. Initially, I was talking about how a remailer operator would solve his problem of people abusing the remailer and creating enemies for him and for remailers in general. I think it is clear that this solves the problem. Once such a feature is in existence, how else could it be used? That's what the rest of my message was really about. > How would this work for an entity sending email directly to your account, > rather than through a remailer? This assumes that spam has gotten so bad that everybody filters their mail and only accepts mail on the "accept" list. People sending mail directly to your account would get a message back saying that they had to get on the "free" list or send their mail through one of the approved remailers. > The solutions that come to mind are 1) get new mail software which performs > this filtering/charging... It is much easier to let the remailer operator hassle with the cash. Mail software which handles e-cash well is going to take awhile and it introduces a lot of very real security issues. Filtering is already widely available in mail programs. And, it can be front ended to anything with procmail. > and 2) have an autoreply that sends mail not sent > through your "post office" back to the sender with a note saying to route > it through the "post office." This "post office" would be much like with > snail mail. All it does is collect and redistribute mail (for a small fee, > of course... :-) This would be a good business proposition, indeed. However, > I don't know how widely accepted it would be. I don't think you'd necessarily want to route all of your mail through the post office, just mail which isn't on your "free" list. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Re: [REBUTTAL] Censorship on cypherpunks?, from The Netly News
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mark M. writes: > On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, Dave Hayes wrote: > > Logically, we must conclude that those who frequently and repeatedly > > cry for the censorship or removal of any source of input from > > cyberspace are either: > > > > -quite clueless about the tools at their disposal > > -ideologically or personally opposed to the source of input > > or -in need of large amounts of attention from others > You are misinformed. Vulis was _not_ prevented from posting to cpunks, thus > no source of input was removed. He was simply removed from the distribution > list. He can still read and post to the list. Go back and reread at this time. Notice that I didn't mention *who* was censored. The error of interpretation was the initial story's slant on censorship. I merely expounded on the *story's* slant. > The messages were, in addition to being "nasty", extremely off-topic. > "Off-topic" is much less subjective than "nasty". But still subjective, and hence still subject to political availability should the need to criticize Vulis arise. > > Just as suddenly, the classic anti-free-speech arguments of "if you > > don't like it, start yer own" begin to surface. (Anyone ever notice > > how this resembles the "love it or leave it" mentality of certain > > American patriotic organizations?) > Governments maintain a monopoly on land, so the "love it or leave it" mentality > is flawed. Virtual space does not have the same limitations as physical > space. Starting your own mailing list is relatively easy. For me, yes. Not for most people. I take it you expect *everyone* to have a UNIX machine connected to the net to ensure free speech? > > Notice that the net is compared to a home or private club. Actually > > the net is neither, however that would not serve the purposes of this > > analogy, so this fact is convienently forgotton. > Is the net analogous to a country? If not, then why did you compare starting > a mailing list to moving to a different country? I didn't. (and here we go...) > > Mr. Gilmore, and other like minded parties, might want to consider > > what would happen if one parent company owned *all* communications > > media. Would they they be so supportive of the ideology of ownership > > and communciation they espouse? > And just how plausible do you think this is? The plausibility is not in question, the example is meant to illustrate the ludicrousness of the "ownership" concept when applied to public mailing lists (and by extension *any* public media). Are you saying "since this is implausible, the point is invalid"? We'll both have fun with that one. > I believe it is next to impossible, unless it is the result of > government regulation. AT&T tried it. They were just unlucky. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet Self justification is worse than the the original transgression.

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Re: Censor John Gilmore -- EFF is a disgrace!
by George A. Stathis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:30 ðì 14/11/1996 -0500, aga wrote: >> * Dave says "Notice that the net is compared to a home or private club." >> Wrong. I never compared the Net to such. However, a mailing list run on a >> computer in someone's home with his own cash is very similar to a private >> club. There are private speech restrictions on the Net. Gated communities >> exist. Try to join the "lawprofs" mailing list. You can't; you're not >> (and quite obviously anything but) a law professor. Censorship? Not quite. >> >None of that analogy is applicable to the cyberpunks list. >When a list gets as big as that, it it no longer to be considered >a "mailing-list" but it is a _public_ forum. The whole problem >here is the abuse of power by both the EFF and John Gilmore. Indeed. But it's not only a question of 'size'. Perhaps less people might take part, but it would still be a _public_ list, just as an "open meeting" announced to take place in a _private_ house, is still an open meeting. Does the fact that the _building_ used by the meeting is private and possibly donated for this purpose make the meeting less public (than explicitly announced)? This analogy (meeting = mailing-list, building-owner=list-owner) is _quite_ exact, as a matter of fact, and it's not at all a 'party'. >> By the way, if you haven't figured it out yet, Mr. "Freedom Knight of >> Usenet," a private mailing list is NOT Usenet. Get a clue. > >Wrong! The cyberpunks mailing list is PUBLIC property and should >NOT be controlled by John Gilmore! This just goes to show the real >facist censorship motives that the EFF has behind it. Yep. Morevover, ANOTHER _sense_ in which the cypherpunks list is PUBLIC is the following: Posters are the _owners_ of their _ideas_. So the messages in the list are the (intellectual) property of the people who wrote them; not the list-owner's. The false analogy here is between a mailing list and a newspaper; But the newspaper (1) is sold in ALL public places (2) is dependent on money and works (in the end) for the financial best interests of its owner, and (3) is not interactive, i.e. the readers are not at all _also_ writers in it. We have to clear these things up, dear aga, and no longer misunderstand each other. Perhaps when I burst out (one of the first) against Dimitri's expulsion I shouldn't have used the adjective 'Yankee', in denouncing the mentality you also denounce. The reason I said 'Yankee' is because it seems to be _very_ common in your part of the world. It's not because I 'hate' or 'envy' Yanks! But I strongly believe that there are quite common _assumptions_ appearing again and again throughout the Net, which _do_ originate in the States, among the people you _also_ oppose. In my part of the world, NOBODY would EVER, seriously claim that an "open meeting" held in his house is subject to his "censorship". Then the meeting would by definition NOT be public... Other than these (serious points) we both seem to love our countries and this has nothing to do with nationalism or petty patriotism (IMO). >Time to kill the EFF, and let it rot in hell. They are disgrace >to the entire InterNet community. I run 6 different mailing lists, >and have NEVER puled the plug on anyone, even when they criticize me. > >The first time is the time when you lose all credibility, and there >is never any forgiveness for a plug-puller. THIS is a very SERIOUS point: Censorship is like... prostitution. The first time a person accepts money to offer a... blow-job, is sufficient for the loss of all sexual credibility. Similarly, people who ban someone from some medium of expression become _PIMPS_, which is far worse than whores (whose therapeutic role has been grossly underestimated by the world's cultures)... ROTFL!!!! Indeed, in my country, we use the word "pimp" for an editor who sacks journalists because of disagreeing with their opinions. (even though as I said the 'journalism' analogy is irrelevant here). Finally, only a fool or a bigot would fail to realize the seriousness and the correctness of what aga has said. So I shake your hand, Yankee rascal! :-) Peace George

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Re: [REBUTTAL] Censorship on cypherpunks?, from The Netly News
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Igor "Gadzooks" Chudov writes: > Dave Hayes wrote: > > You won't do this, because I won't let you on the list. I, unlike you > > or Mr. Gilmore, have the judgement on whom to invite to my list. > So what's the difference between yours and gilmore's position? Simple. I choose whom to invite to my parties. Gilmore provides an open door. > Long live USENET Cabal! Neither life nor death, neither good nor bad, neither left nor right, none of these things to the USENET Cabal. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet Real charity doesn't care if it's tax-deductible or not.

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Re: "Freedom Knights" are closet censors
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> On Thu, 14 Nov 1996, Dave Hayes wrote: > > Sorry, that *is* the point. If you tell me you are going to disrupt > > the list, I am not going to let you on the list...even though you > > are easily ignored. > And if Vulis shows Gilmore, though his actions, that he is going to > disrupt cypherpunks, Vulis can be prevented from being on the list...even > though he is easily ignored. Ah, but that's after the fact of the invite. > That's why neither of your actions is, in truth, "censorship." Now you are starting to make some sense. So why did you write an editor..er...article that focused on his "censorship"? ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet Nasrudin loaded his donkey with wood for the fire and instead of sitting in its saddle, sat astride one of the logs. "Why don't you sit in the saddle?" someone asked. "What? And add my weight to what the poor animal has to carry? My weight is on the _wood_ and it is going to stay there."

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