December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Atoms vs Bits
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If you doubt that wealth and atoms aren't linked much these days, one need only point out that the total weight (in tons) of the US annual GDP is about the same as it was 100 years ago while the constant dollar value of that production has increased 12 fold. Source - Greenspan speech quoted in The Economist Suvey of the World Economy 28 September 1996. DCF

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Re: Experiments on Mailing Lists
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:02 AM 1/4/1997, Timothy C. May wrote: >At 7:49 AM -0800 1/4/97, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >> The moderator keeps the cash. The moderator is pulled in several >> directions. He or she wants to keep the money but also wants people > ...blah blah blah.... > All of these schemes--some of them pretty clever--for posting tokens, > reputation-based killfiles, buying and selling reputation futures, etc., > are almost certainly far too complicated to deploy on a list like ours. > ...[Interesting Extropian history deleted.]... > So, rather than do similar tinkering with the Cypherpunks list--not that > either Hugh Daniel or John Gilmore have given any hint they are willing to > do such tinkering--I suggest those who want to try token-based posting, or > information markets in reputation capital, or herd-consensus killfiles, > etc., set up a separate mailing list and implement whatever they wish. If the point of these schemes is to filter content (*), there is no reason why they have to be implemented for the entire list. They can always be converted to a tag on the message which readers can use, but are not required to. I'm sure Tim would not object to any scheme implemented in this way. (So sure, in fact, that I will give him a dollar if he does object. ;-) (* If the point is to stop spam attacks, then they do have to affect the entire list.) Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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[Fwd: Re: Naive Export Question]
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: ONE MILLION CHILDREN..... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 04 Jan 1997 10:24:21 -0800 > From: Dale Thorn <dthorn(a)gte.net> > > C'mon Gary, why would anyone want to bother with all of this crap? > Chip implants are already in millions of pets. It's simple, cheap, > and there's no work for the owner. And there are several standards which are NOT compatible. Simply putting a chip in your pet (or child) is not sufficient to guarantee their return. If the system at use at the pound is not compatible the chip in the pet won't even respond and the operator has no idea of the actual situation. This is one of the reasons many states are enacting laws regarding the sale and transfer of pets. There was a piece on CNN just a couple of weeks ago about this problem, one state in the central US is in the process of passing various laws about animal trading. Seems they have a problem with people stealing pets from peoples homes and collecting 'for free' pets and then selling them to the medical labs at a hefty profit. Their advise was to never give pets away, but to always charge at least $10 ea. and if leaving pets unattended either put them inside a locked bldg. or else have your neighbors watch them in a fenced yard. > Thousands of humans are also implanted, i.e., Green Berets, Seals, and > similar types, women with breast implants, and so on. There's a move- > ment on to implant most children, so they're not as vulnerable to kid- > napping, etc. Baloney. I know two SEAL's (I share an office at work with one) and I can verify they are NOT chiped. I also have several female friends who have had various breast surgeries and they also are not chipped. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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[Fwd: Re: Timmy's Lost It: [Was Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice]]
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Saw you Online!
by lep1＠bellsouth.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Take_a_look_at_my_latest_rip-off!, Does your long distance carrier give you a flat 9.9 cents per minute on your interstate long distance 24-hours-per-day 365- days per year? AND the ability to ELIMINATE your long distance phone bills thru an optional referral credits program? AND FREE teleconferencing with up to 450 other members (where each member just pays their own 10.9 cents per minute but no teleconference bridge charges)? They don't charge you anything to join, there's no hidden expenses or term contracts or catches of any kind and who couldn't use one less bill per month?! Just say the words (words=long distance) and I'll send a helpful email that will save you a lot of long distance money or even make your long distance FREE thru the optional referral credits program! Sincerely, Larry Price

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[Fwd: Re: Experiments on Mailing Lists]
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: New rules for Internet sales to CA buyers
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:50 AM 1/4/97 -0800, Ian Goldberg wrote: >Greg Broiles <gbroiles(a)netbox.com> wrote: >>The following subsection of California Business & Professions Code section >>17538 took effect 1/1/97 and may be of interest to people following state >>attempts to regulate net sales: >> >>[...] >> (d) A vendor conducting business through the Internet or any other >>electronic means of communication shall do all of the following >>when the transaction involves a buyer located in California: >[snip] > >So is this saying that a merchant _anywhere in the world_ can be prosecuted >under California law if someone in California goes to their web page, >and the web page doesn't satisfy the requirements (which I snipped)? Yes; but since the law is a criminal statute, the presence of the defendant is required (absent the defendant's waiver) for a prosecution to occur. Securing the appearance of an out-of-state or out-of-country defendant (extradition) is an expensive and complicated process. Violation of the statute is a misdemeanor, and California is unlikely to try to extradite someone in order to try them for a misdemeanor charge. (This is an economic choice, not a legal restriction - I worked on a case when I was in Oregon where our client, at that time an Oregon resident, charged with a misdemeanor in California, managed to make the prosecutor angry enough that the various state & county agencies involved did jump through the hoops to request extradition.) >How is a merchant in, say, Finland, supposed to know that this law (or others >like it in any city, state, or country in the world) exists? By hiring an attorney, of course. :) This is a significant problem; in the past, it's been difficult enough to do business in far-away places that the only organizations likely to do so were large enough that they were able to pay people to keep track of applicable local rules. But now it's easy to advertise or do business worldwide, and it's very difficult to control which jurisdictions have access to your advertising materials. So it's likely that many people and organizations will unintentionally violate many laws in jurisdictions they're not familiar with. Hopefully the various enforcement agencies will take this into account when enforcing their laws. I wouldn't be surprised, frankly, if California never prosecutes anyone for violation of this law - it's hard to imagine that this will turn out to be an enforcement priority for anyone. It is, of course, still useful for selective enforcement, similar to laws against vagrancy or loitering or public drunkenness, where illegal behavior is usually ignored but vigilant enforcement is employed to punish or drive away people who are unpopular for an unrelated reason. If the legislators really wanted this to be enforced, they'd have given citizens a private right of action against offending web publishers. Then we'd see some excitement. C-Net's NEWS.COM has an article on the new law at <http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,6667,00.html>. -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles(a)netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |

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Re: Timmy's Lost It: [Was Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice]
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:15 AM 1/3/97 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote: >As for my "elitism," I've never presented myself in any other fashion. I've >discussed this issue many times. Get used to it, or ignore it, or just keep >foaming at the mouth and ranting about how I need to take "yellow pills" to >avoid being an ally of "Bubba." I don't fault you for being "elitist." However, Rich Graves was right: I think that cryptoanarchy, while obviously eliminating taxation and income redistribution sounds cozy for economic elites, actually also eliminates the basis for those elites to be formed in the first place. To cite just one example that will hit close to home for you, without copyrights or patents (which are, obviously, monopolies enforced by governments) it would be far harder for companies such as Intel to maintain a near-monopoly on the DOS-compatible microprocessor market. And it has long been observed in libertarian discussion circles that far from hating regulation, most large (American; and others) corporations actually receive a net benefit from it as compared with smaller companies: The cost of complying with regulations doesn't increase linearly with the size of company, which means that those same regulations are a way of fighting competition if they are played right. Bring in crypto-anarchy and this effect is no longer operating. Despite all this, I still see nothing inconsistent in even an "elitist" pushing for crypto-anarchy: The current political system has become so dramatically inefficient and keeps so many people (through welfare, Socialist Insecurity, and government employment) well-fed through income redistribution, that I think finally even an "elitist" would be happy to chuck the whole system and adopt a crypto-anarchy-equalized system. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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by Alfred Michael Arzt 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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