December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Re: wealth and property rights
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In <199611281157.DAA12088(a)infomatch.com>, on 11/28/96 at 04:53 AM, "Murray Hayes" <mhayes(a)infomatch.com> said: >On Wed, 27 Nov 96 10:16:20 -0500, William H. Geiger III wrote: >>In <009ABBF7.ACB06A80.64(a)SPRUCE.HSU.EDU>, on 11/22/96 >> at 12:18 PM, jc105558(a)spruce.hsu.edu said: >> >> >>socialism uses FORCE to take what it wants while the capitilism you have a >>free & volintary exchange. >> >>why is this so hard to understand?? >> >Don't be an idiot. Socialism has nothing to do with force. It is an >economic system not a military stance. >Communisist belive: >>From each according to there abilities >To each according to there needs. >Socialist belive: >>From each according to there abilities >To each accoring to there contirbution. >They are very similar, BUT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH FORCE!!! >Some countries have very socialized systems with democracy. Those people >want socalized everything. The US is socialized to a very small degree. >The UK is socialized to a further degree. <sigh> socialism has EVERTHING to do with force. Socialism is based on the TAKING from one to give to another. Without FORCE or the threat of FORCE most people will not allow their hard earned property to be taken away from them. You look at any socialist program in the "democracies". Every one is a) Manditory b) Backed by FORCE. No socialist program has ever been implemented on a large scale without the use of FORCE. It just can't work without it. I do not wish to be part of the socialist programs in the U.S. Medicare, Medicaide, Welfaire, SS, WIC, FoodStamps, ...ect. It is only because of the threat of the use of FORCE against me that I continue to pay for such programs AGAINST MY WILL. This is the same everywhere. If these were programs that the majority were willing to participate volentary then why are they Manditory?? Why use the FORCE of government to implement them?? Because socialism is THEIFT and people naturally resist the theift of their property. -- ----------------------------------------------------------- "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii(a)amaranth.com> -----------------------------------------------------------

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Whitehouse Releases Blueprint...
by null＠void.gov 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Notably, the emphasis is on the needs of business, not "people." We are in an excellent position to observe and document the process whereby "business" -- that is, organizations motivated primarily, if not exclusively, by the desire for short-term profits accruing to vested interests -- comes to dominate and control a technology. The auto and television industries come to mind as two prior examples. We are about to see the net go the same way. Take notes. "I have to praise the administration and Ira for reaching out to the private sector for comments," Computers and Communication Industry Association President Ed Black said. "There's a great emphasis on the needs of business here." Even so, privacy activists remained disappointed with many of the document's features. "This isn't anything new," said David Banisar, counsel to the Electronic Privacy and Information Center. "The privacy stuff is terrible. They say it's market driven, but markets don't work with privacy. It's like what happened with P-Trak."

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Re: SAFEPASSAGE BRINGS STRONG CRYPTO TO WEB BROWSERS WORLDWIDE
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:12 AM 11/27/96 +0000, you wrote: .....etc Can you be more specific? What are the vulnerabilities you are aware of? >I've never seen a security review of SSLeay, and if anyone gave it a clean bill >of health, they didn't have their eye on the ball. Note, I'm not knocking >SSLeay here, it is a wonderful lump of code, but it hasn't been written with >security in mind (IMHO). > >Cheers, > >Ben. > >-- >Ben Laurie Phone: +44 (181) 994 6435 Email: ben(a)algroup.co.uk >Freelance Consultant and Fax: +44 (181) 994 6472 >Technical Director URL: http://www.algroup.co.uk/Apache-SSL >A.L. Digital Ltd, Apache Group member (http://www.apache.org) >London, England. Apache-SSL author > >

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RE: IQ and age
by jbugden＠smtplink.alis.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Clay Olbon II <olbon(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote: >Seriously, you ignore the correlation between performance in college and standardized test scores. There is a reason these are used in admissions - they are actually pretty good predictors of the ability to perform college level work. < This is a commonly held fiction that is not supported by the evidence. As stated in another message, the infomration given out by ETS, who administer the GMAT and SAT, indicate that there is a low correlation between GMAT scores and successful completion of even first year education programs. This also ignores the issue of why other, better, widely available predictors are not used instead. >Oh, I forgot. Only certain racial/ethnic groups are capable of understanding basic mathematical concepts. < There was a good Scientific American article on cultural influences on learning within the last year or two. It examined Asian groups noted achievements in tests and the parental and cultural support for scholastic achievement. Another anecdotal example is in the opening chapters of "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" by Richard Feynman, the late Caltech professor and general bon vivant. He describes how his mother introduced a doctor, a general and a professor with the same respectful tones indicating to him that a career in academia was as highly valued as any other high position in society. >I happen to feel better believing in the potential for any individual in this country to succeed through hard work. < I do to. But how good are your feelings as predictors of actual success? James

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RE: IQ and age
by Clay Olbon II 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:40 PM 11/28/96 EST, jbugden(a)smtplink.alis.ca wrote: >Clay Olbon II <olbon(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote: >>Seriously, you ignore the correlation between performance in college and >standardized test scores. There is a reason these are used in admissions - they >are actually pretty good predictors of the ability to perform college level >work. < > >This is a commonly held fiction that is not supported by the evidence. As stated >in another message, the infomration given out by ETS, who administer the GMAT >and SAT, indicate that there is a low correlation between GMAT scores and >successful completion of even first year education programs. This also ignores >the issue of why other, better, widely available predictors are not used >instead. Apples and oranges. I was referring to the correlation of college GPA to SAT scores (which is higher than the correlation between high school GPA and college GPA). GPA measures the ability to do college-level work. As such, SAT scores are very relevant. As you said, <completion> of college probably does involve lots of other factors. I would not expect a high correlation between standardized test scores and completion rates. > >>Oh, I forgot. Only certain racial/ethnic groups are capable of understanding >basic mathematical concepts. < > >There was a good Scientific American article on cultural influences on learning >within the last year or two. It examined Asian groups noted achievements in >tests and the parental and cultural support for scholastic achievement. My point exactly. It is these cultural factors, not the amount of money the parents make, that is really the important aspect. It does seem unfortunate however that in many lower income families, there is less of an emphasis on scholastic achievement. >Another anecdotal example is in the opening chapters of "Surely You're Joking, >Mr. Feynman" by Richard Feynman, the late Caltech professor and general bon >vivant. He describes how his mother introduced a doctor, a general and a >professor with the same respectful tones indicating to him that a career in >academia was as highly valued as any other high position in society. > >>I happen to feel better believing in the potential for any individual in this >country to succeed through hard work. < > >I do to. But how good are your feelings as predictors of actual success? Anecdotal evidence, but I have known people at many levels of society. I have never met anyone who "works hard" that is in dire straits. Some have struggled for a time (I know I did!), but eventually the hard work paid off. Clay

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Fwd: Re: wealth and property rights
by Murray Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 27 Nov 1996 10:54:51 -0800 (PST), Dave Kinchlea wrote: >On Wed, 27 Nov 1996, Clay Olbon II wrote: >> >> This is provably bullshit. Look at the HUGE numbers of people in this >> country who make the economic decision to do nothing and go on welfare vs. >> going to work. Examine carefully the economic performance of the US vs the > >I don't know how much people get on welfare in your country but I >suspect that it is even less than in this country (Canada). Anyone who >truly believes that people make the `economic decision to do nothing and >go on welfare vs. going to work' has, in my opinion, no &^%* idea what >they are talking about. Just try to *live* on a welfare wage for a few >months to see how silly this thought is. While there may well be a few Hmmm, only a few years ago the Finacial Post did a report on welfare in Ontario. The maximum benifit package (for two adults, two children or something like that) came to about 34 000 dollars. YES 34 000 dollars. Actually, the figure the Post published was wrong. Welfare Ontario said they were a couple of hundred dollars UNDER the true value. Of course that isn't all in cash. It comes as subsidies houseing, free diapers, free baby food...... Are you telling me that it would be hard to live on 34 grand? I wasn't aware that our dollar was so weak.... And then there is the B.C./Alberta fiasco. The final check welfare recipients get in Alberta just happens to be the exact amount it costs to buy a bus ticket to B.C. The B.C. govn't gave up ALL federal funding of their welfare program to impose a rule that required 3 months of residence before benifits would be given. I don't even want to start talking about the newfys. What it comes down to is this. Eventually we as a society will have to make a choice. We will have to chose between hurting the people who work and hurting the people who don't work. You can't have it both ways. IF you MUST make the choice, who will you choose? mhayes(a)infomatch.com It's better for us if you don't understand It's better for me if you don't understand -Tragically Hip

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Re: First Contact
by David E. Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: allyn(a)allyn.com, cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Thu Nov 28 23:40:50 1996 > I think that the character Data uses either PGP or some > sort of crypto system to lock up the ship's computer. The term used is "fractal cypher." It's not a terribly significant plot point IMO (although, for longtime fans of ST:TNG, there is some juicy humor with Data and the Borg "Queen" when she tries some, er, unconventional tactics to try to get him to reveal it.) > At least if you spend any reasonable time here in > cypherpunks, coderpunks, or other crypto related > areas, you should recognise what he uses. AFAIK the "fractal cypher" is just a couple of clever technobabble words thrown together for effect. > I have not seen seen it; I am guessing that maybe > they are using something to excite the juices of > us Internet folks. If they are, they're not doing a good job. :) > Mark dave - ----- David E. Smith, P O Box 324, Cape Girardeau MO USA 63702 dsmith(a)prairienet.org http://www.prairienet.org/~dsmith send mail with subject of "send pgp-key" for my PGP public key -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMp53b3EZTZHwCEpFAQHZQQf9HCh0nR44oSTGZDYCeElkqUfSUX759F2M WoUCuJ10EGO6L1euUiwpyg1eBcgicscOliwf0KNYMSdwj2hfAp/gXhWUR8o0XydU NvnCrOSu2iTvvkzZixB4uuIhKUB8z5Rfzv2Sz0EHWK2XKcBvRhht96uKR7mi+wIg QSfBgdx+RVFIVbFCIA6PWJ3NhRU6p/c+5ptm0fVAJOJJ4uHWswP58l3aimI6Ormu TrxEgFs+BezsqvJLNw3ZcAWCYSkOUKJiCC//w/e210RBEJKZOgiht7sSUTJqQDsx 6Z7mnU0hPfOE2Eco+b0zL4U/B7xskUX22OCuDlcsgLsoK1kggsZgjw== =ciV0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Is /dev/random good enough to generate one-time pads?
by Steve Reid 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > Subj sez it all. > Yes, as a matter of fact it is. /dev/random is based on an entropy pool > taken from hardware interrupts and such, thus is a RNG, not a PRNG I expect it would be "good enough", but it is not _perfectly_ random, and so it wouldn't be a true one-time pad. Because it uses MD5, the bits are not all provably independent. You get (very strong) cryptographic security instead of perfect security. The one-time pad is easy to explain in theory, but implementing it perfectly is extremely difficult. Many people believe that quantum events are the only source of perfect randomness, but most methods for harvesting that randomness could introduce statistical properties. For example, a radioactive substance may have exactly a 50% chance of emitting a particle given a certain amount of time, but what happens if your timer isn't perfect? One-way hashes are good at removing such obvious and not-so-obvious statistical properties, but like a PRNG, you can't prove that the bits it produces are all completely independent. It's definately "good enough", but it's not perfect.

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Re: SMTP import error #-5
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

No Alias Created wrote: > Igor Chudov @ home wrote: > > Dale Thorn wrote: > > > The biggest influence on IQ are the so-called "engrams" (fears, super- > > > stitions, anxieties, etc.) planted in your brain early in life. > > > Some of this can be overcome with mental exercise, and awareness of what > > > negative influences are holding you back. Much easier said than done! > > > IQ as they attempt to measure it can probably be most easily explained > > > as pattern matching skills. Unfortunately for testing, and although you > > > can be every bit as intelligent at 70 as at 10, your pattern-matching > > > skills change and evolve over time, so any given tests will only apply > > > (more or less) at the age group they are optimized for. > > > Would you dismiss strong correlations between IQ and success in life > > and academia as something irrelevant? > > Not at all, and I think you could make some interesting equations out of > this if you wanted to spend the time. > > Factors for raw intelligence, i.e., pattern matching skills. > Factors for aggressiveness, assertiveness, self-confidence, etc. > Factors for manipulative ability (to manipulate people, etc.). I don't > know how to properly categorize this last item, but perhaps a professional > psychologist would. > > In sum, I think you could observe successful people and establish most > of the relevant factors, but be aware - if you are not an insider in > several of these "success circles", you might miss one or more key > factors, particularly those that would be denied by successful people, > such as willingness to do things people don't like to talk about openly. Another new error message! Seems like a new one every couple days now.

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No Subject
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Thu, 28 Nov 1996 jbugden(a)smtplink.alis.ca wrote: > Another anecdotal example is in the opening chapters of "Surely You're Joking, > Mr. Feynman" by Richard Feynman, the late Caltech professor and general bon > vivant. He describes how his mother introduced a doctor, a general and a > professor with the same respectful tones indicating to him that a career in > academia was as highly valued as any other high position in society. Your lower middle class slip is showing.

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