December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Unix Review - letter to editor
by peter.allan＠aeat.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[ I refer to the article starting on p55 of the Nov 1996 Unix Review. ] -----letter to Ed start here------ Andrew, Congratulations on a welcome crypto article in UR. This is an important topic for security, networks, web-based commerce etc and is only going to increase in importance as people realise data is money. The article did raise my eyebrows a few times though with some wild statements - about the speed of brute-force attacks on DES, and about USG 'key escrow' proposals, patents and key certification. Also there are absolutely crucial issues not touched on, probably for lack of space. Details matter, and if you're contemplating another article on the subject I'd be happy to write it [subject to my boss' approval] or review it before publication. The field moves fast at times, and it would be good to keep an eye on the subject in a fairly regular column. Strangely, your author didn't mention ftp.ox.ac.uk, an ftp site for many good crypto tools, which (as a UK site) is not subject to US export restrictions. -- Peter Allan peter.allan(a)aeat.co.uk

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Re: Censorship on cypherpunks
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Geez, the traffic has quadrupled, with most of it about Vulis. Get over it already! And so, just to add to the garbage, here's my two cents. :-) Declan McCullagh wrote: > > Libertarianism is not incompatible with strict regulations, as long as > the rules violate nobody's rights. Now, there's an Orwellian statement if ever there was one. OF COURSE Vulis's "rights" were violated. The question is, so what? The decision was neither arbitrary nor capricious. I find the rational balancing of rights and responsibilities to be less wrong than defining away your opponent's rights. Since AFAIK there was no precedent for kicking Vulis off, and in fact cpunks has long prided itself on absolute anarchy (especially after the victory of the Tim May [neutral term for rant] factions over the Perrygram faction), there is a "rights" issue. I think cpunks broke an implied contract guaranteeing Vulis absolute rant rights. But I also think that that's OK. It's ironic that you're making this argument while a piece from you making the opposite argument is still on the news stands. My response to your half of the Internet Underground article can be found on Usenet, but I think the best summary of my position came in my response to the contrary point of view -- concurring in your judgement, but disagreeing with your reasoning. - From <53i4d5$skm(a)Networking.Stanford.EDU>: |>FLAMETHROWER |>By Solveig Bernstein (sberns(a)cato.org) |> |>The decision to remain silent is an act of conscience, just like the |>decision to speak. So the view that acts of "private censorship" |>violate rights of free speech is incoherent. If an online service |>provider ousts a Web site that posts explicit messages about sex, in |>violation of the terms of their service contract, or a non-profit |>organization persuades some Internet Service Providers to refuse to |>host "Holocaust Revisionist" web sites, these decisions do not violate |>rights of free speech. | |I agree, up to a point. The only "right" of free speech is the right to |be free from force and threats of force based on the content of speech. |As publishers, librarians, archivists, and access providers, though, we |have a *duty* to society to tolerate ideas we despise. But this duty |comes from the public's right to know and from the kind of people we |are, not from the "rights" of the speakers. | |Anyone who claims to be a content-neutral ISP, a librarian, or an |unbiased source of news who suppresses things she doesn't like is a |*LIAR AND A FRAUD* because she is giving her audience a dishonest, |distorted view of the world. Protests against such capricious exercises |of editorial power are appropriate and are necessary, but they should |be viewed as attacks on the character of the editor, not defenses of |the human rights of the suppressed. In this case, I think any fair investigation of the facts of the matter would clearly demonstrate that Gilmore was right to kick Vulis off, and that he was neither acting capriciously nor removing any substantive content. I do believe, though, that that's an investigation we must be prepared to accept (not that I think anyone's seriously going to ask for one, given the relative reputations of the parties involved). Granting the cpunks owner absolute property rights over the content of messages on the list, though, as you do, while strictly correct, is extremely dangerous because it gives license to all kinds of distoritions, lies, and fraud. The right of "the public" to inquire and respond must be respected. And it has been, as all these useless threads show. - -rich owner-fight-censorship-discuss(a)c2.net - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMn5xRioZzwIn1bdtAQH7JwGAhI91c5/AkamPaUUlfkC95sRzmHn6uUx9 j/AGAZQ4QTw6SHdgl5rBu9SkpncTh43b =Q7O4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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just what we #$%^&* needed from big brother....
by attila＠primenet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Welcome to 1984+ what else with useless and illegally constituted bureaucrats add to their total infringement of every facet of our life. .NEW SYSTEM LINKS LENDERS, IRS .The Internal Revenue Service is developing an electronic program to link .mortgage lenders with the IRS, allowing them to exchange e-mail comparing .stated earnings on the mortgage application with actual tax return .information for the previous couple of years. If the cross-check turns up a .more than $10,000 discrepancy between the earnings claimed on the application .and those declared for tax purposes, the IRS has the option of pursuing the .loan applicant via an audit. IRS has targeted the system at self-employed .borrowers, who often declare high earnings in order to qualify for a larger .loan, but lower earnings when it comes to paying taxes. "Who knows what .their real incomes are?" asks one mortgage broker. (St. Petersburg Times 2 Nov 96 D5 courtesy of Edupage) -- one of the few things we all share: the utter, corrosive contempt for our elected officials. Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly, and for the same reason.

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Telling quote from Bernstein hearing
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In the recent hearing of the Bernstein case, Anthony Coppolino for the Justice Department said: "We don't care about the theory; we don't care about the idea Mr. Bernstein has, which was to take a particular type of algorithm and use it to allow for an encrypted interactive conversation. That's his idea. We don't care about his idea; we care about the result of what it can do." http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/ITAR_export/Bernstein_case/Legal/ 960920.transcript Encrypted interactive conversations seem to be something to be concerned about...They are afraid of us. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November. Vote Harry Browne for President.

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[Noise] Re: Censorship on cypherpunks
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:36 PM 11/4/96 -0600, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: >I would appreciate an example of "strict regulations" which do not violate >anybody's rights. Obviously you have not known any good Dominatrixes. "Whip me, beat me, make me write bad crypto!" --- | "Remember: You can't have BSDM without BSD." - alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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Re: Thank you, John Gilmore, for protecting freedom of spee
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Ironic how the list championed flooding Germany(?) with material in response to their > suppression of certain "objectionable" material, then gets into this sticky wicket. Absolutely, As much as I might hate Vulis`s stuff (and believe me I do). It is no justification for removing him from the list. We are supposed to be a platform for the discussion of cryptography but as the list has become more and more a libertarian platform for ideas and discussion we cannot really justify censorship in this way. I very much wish I could say that I agreed with John but I cannot do so with a clear conscience. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re: New On WWW.Infowar.Com Vol I #4
by Betty G. O'Hearn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Telling quote from Bernstein hearing
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rich Burroughs wrote: > I did not find his arguments very persuasive -- he seemed stuck on the idea > that crypto is not speech, when that had already been ruled against by > Judge Patel. As I understand the government's argument, this is what they're trying to say: Even though code can be speech, if it is executable code it is speech and something else at the same time. The government is entitled to regulate or prohibit the export of the "something else" without regard to the speech component, as long as they are content-neutral with respect to the speech component. For example, a cruise missile is subject to export control. Painting words on the side of the missile won't change that. Executable crypto code is subject to export control, and the fact that it has an expressive component doesn't change that. The comments about "We don't know or care what Mr. Bernstein is doing and we're not trying to control his academic discourse" were intended to emphasize that the government is content-neutral with respect to the expressive content of his crypto code. Because the regulations are content-neutral with respect to the expressive content, they are subject to an "intermediate scrutiny" standard (not the "strict scrutiny" standard which would be applied if the restrictions were content-based). The government believes that the AECA and the ITARs can pass the "intermediate scrutiny" test. In a nutshell, the government thinks that the expressive content of code is the algorithm(s) expressed in it. For example, expressive content of PGP 2.x is RSA and IDEA and MD5 and some key management stuff. And they say that their regulations won't be interpreted to cover versions of that expressive content which don't take the form of machine-readable code. While I think that the entire export control scheme, as it is applied to crypto today, is an exercise in dishonesty and futility*, I think that the questions this case presents are difficult questions. I don't think it's really comprehensible to separate the "expressive content" of source code from its "functional content", because one dictates the other. Either the government is able to control the functional content (in which case it controls the expressive content), and the First Amendment is seriously curtailed; or the government is unable to control the functional content, and its ability to control the production and import/export of items of politico/military significance is seriously curtailed. Historically, courts have been deferential to the executive branch's ability to control military and political/diplomatic matters. Either way, someone's pissed off, and someone thinks the court is sending the country to hell in a handbasket. The "crypto is central to national security" argument shouldn't be dismissed summarily - at least not if you think Tim's predictions about cryptoanarchy are accurate. Crypto _is_ important. Crypto _is_ significant in the political and military venues. (* It's dishonest and futile because it is insufficient to reach its stated goals - if the purpose is to prevent the spread of strong crypto worldwide, the government must control the expression of strong crypto algorithms and techniques in all media and all forms. Such regulation would be incompatible with the First Amendment and freedom generally. The present regulations are so poorly matched to the apparent goal that I suspect they have another purpose; and I suspect that purpose is to control the domestic development of strong crypto. And attempting to do so while claiming to do something else is dishonest. (That result is also incompatible with the First Amendment and freedom generally.) And that's what I think of crypto regulations, whether or not I appear to be agreeing with the government.) -- Greg Broiles | "We pretend to be their friends, gbroiles(a)netbox.com | but they fuck with our heads." http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | |

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Re: Dr. Vulis
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Frantz wrote: > > As I put on my flame resistant suit... > > IMHO, most of the posts about John Gilmore's action re: Dr. Vulis are > seriously miss-analyzing what has happened. As far as I can tell, John > instructed his Majordomo to refuse subscription requests to cypherpunks > from Dr. Vulis. That is all that John has done. What John has not done > is: Of course John was right to give Vilus the boot. Cypherpunks is a club and like many private clubs occasionaly finds it necessary to give some oik the boot. And of course this is not an action that can be strictly justified in terms of absolute rights which many are fond of prating on about. Rights are limited, as Mills observes they are a product of law. Society finds it necessary to enact laws to protect rights. Dmitri's posts were affecting other people's right to speak. There is thus the traditional liberal conflict, that of having to infringe rights to protect them. If libertarians would read "on Liberty" rather than using it like a magic charm they would know that the main theory it advances is of the *balance* between the rights of communities and the rights of individuals. The genius of Mills is that he shows that the "rights" of government stem from its duty to protect the "rights" of the citizens. Its an imperfect answer because the notiopn of "citizenship" it advances fails to take any account of foreign relations. Mill's rationale for obeying laws breaks down when one crosses national borders for example. > The best paradigm I can come up with to analyze John's action is my quite > imperfect understanding of communitarian theory. In essence, > communitarians say that there should be a level of social control between > individual rights and the forceful coercion of the state. What John has > done is step forward and excommunicate Dr. Vulis. He has said to Dr. > Vulis, "You are no longer a member of the cypherpunks community." Rather than "should", try the word "is". One of the things the Web demonstrates is that there are such communities. I would not state the action in terms of "excommunication", rather consider that John took the action on behalf of the community for the good of the community as a whole. > I would love to hear how people feel this action fits in to the > cryptoanarchy, libertarian utopias we frequently discuss. E.g. Why is it > not a perfectly reasonable action for some one to take in an anarchy? If we could get away from the bleating denials of the need for government and instead consider them as a positive force, preventing a power vacum that others would fill a synthesis can be reached. The founders of the US realised that to pervent tyranny it was necessary to have different branches and levels of government. The essential point being however to prevent power being used. When a community of people get together they can exercise far more power than individuals acting alone. Sometimes this power can be for the common good, other times it can be the sectarian persuit of one minorities interests against another. Phill

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Cypherpunk Inquest?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Return-Path: lzkoch(a)mcs.net X-Sender: lzkoch(a)popmail.mcs.net Date: Mon, 04 Nov 1996 12:28:29 -0600 To: jya(a)pipeline.com From: Lewis Koch <lzkoch(a)mcs.net> Subject: Regarding a story for Upside Magazine John Young: This is an identical letter to a limited number of contributors to Cypherpunks regarding an article I will be writing for Upside Magazine about the Cypherpunks List -- its history and the current controversies it now seems to be facing. (I'm the person who uncovered the Gorelick/"Manhattan project" story. A more recent "Cybersense" column dealt with Chicago Police Superintendent Matt Rodriguez wanting to escape from a 1974 Federal Court injunction against police department spying on "radicals" so that he could now join in on investigating Cyberterrorists. See http://www.upside.com/ ) I will be writing a number of articles for the magazine itself. I have been "lurking" on Cypherpunks for about nine months with only one communications to the list regarding a request for leads on "Snake Oil" stories.) I would like to better understand and be able to explain to Upside readers why several members have chose to "leave" the List. Perry Metzger and others have argued that flaming and extraneous personal attacks have negatively impacted serious discussions of encryption, hacking and public policy and thus they have chosen to end their relationship and their writings on Cypherpunks, with Metzger forming his own, moderated list. Others contributors to Cypherpunks have argued that there have been "distractions" rants about religion, assassination politics, and language which are inappropriate for the List membership. Late last week John Gilmore wrote and said he had taken steps to remove Dr. Vulis from the list which has prompted differing responses. Some have responded positively to Gilmore's actions while others have said that it was an affront to freedom of speech and individual decision-making. (I have very deliberately chosen _not_ to make this an open letter to the list, nor will I engage in any open List-dialogue about the people I am interviewing or what I expect to write. Naturally I will respond to individuals once the article is published.) I do not expect to be able to publish your responses in their entirety. They will be edited with honesty and clarity. I have no agenda here. I will consider all your written and/or phone communications to be "on the record" unless you specifically wish prior selected and/or identified parts of your communications to be "off the record" or "for background purposes only." I will _not_ publicly announce a full list of those I have contacted. While you are of course free to share this letter with others, I have already made fairly firm decisions as to who I will contact. I would ask that your circulation be highly limited, if circulate you must. On the other hand, I will seriously consider suggestions you might offer me regarding other people who you believe I should contacted regarding this article. The article will be lengthy but I do not entertain the idea -- at this point -- about expanding the article into a book length manuscript. That doesn't mean that if thousands upon thousands gather outside by home demanding more information, that sometime in the future... I would prefer to communicate in the open, mainly because I am just now somewhat tenuously managing PGP through Private Idaho. Those of you who insist your communications be encrypted, well, it's probably good for my soul that I honor your request. Here are the questions I would like you to consider. Please do not consider them "definitive" or limiting. If you believe I have missed out on pursing certain avenues of thought and argument, please do not hesitate to point them out to me. I will note that I will be looking at the history of the list and I have noted the letter from Hal Finney regarding http://chaos.taylored.com:1000 I do not expect to write a general follow-up question to this entire list but I may wish to seek further clarification from individuals from their answers to this letter. Thank you, in advance, for what I know will be thoughtful and considered responses. * * * * * * 1. What was the original purpose of the Cypherpunks list and has it changed? For the better? Worse? 2. Does the apparent breakup reveal anything in general about unregulated, unmoderated lists? Can one make a link to the breakup to an inherent failure in the concept of anarchism? Can one make a link from this breakup to any insight in the nature of the Net itself -- both now and in the future. 3. What do you think led to the growing number of highly personal, highly inflammatory attacks made on various contributors to the list -- Tim May most especially. 4. Do you consider discussions about religion, assassination politics, and other non- cryptographic/encryption subjects to be "distractions" or substantive additions to intellectual inquiry? Are some threads more valuable than others? 5. Has the list imploded or veered off in a new, positive direction? I would ask that you use the header "Cypherstory" in your response and Cypherstory 1, 2 etc. for further communications, additions, changes. ********************************************************** Thank you Lewis Z Koch lzkoch(a)mcs.net http:www.upside.com/ "Cybersense" column

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