December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Spamming
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

vipul(a)pobox.com wrote: > > At 06:09 PM 8/20/96 -0700, Rich Graves wrote: > <Snip> > > No. I think we can all (most) agree that spam-email is like junk-snailmail. > > In that case there are a few things to consider: > > > > 1. Junkmail requires the SENDER to pay for it, not the recipient. > > Internet pricing models are complicated and debatable, but you surely > end up paying for snail-junk-mail. Not directly, but hidden in the high > first-class mail costs. More mail, more infrastructure, higher costs. > This could be quite true for the net also, if we consider bandwidth costs > money. Actually I believe that without "junk mail" costs for regular postage would probably be higher: less mail = fewer packages over which to amortize the cost of building the infrastructure necessary for ubiquitous messaging. Direct-mail organizations get a lower rate by doing a lot of the expensive parts of post office work themselves (pre-sorting the mail by zip code, barcoding messages, etc) and not necessrily just based upon volume. For all the bitching Americans do about the high cost of first-class mail it is still the least expensive of any western nation and offers fairly good service (and the USPS actually made a profit for the last two years so it is unlikely that the cost will go up for a while...) jim

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Re: Spamming
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:55 PM 8/22/96, Vipul Ved Prakash wrote: >> > > Internet pricing models are complicated and debatable, but you surely > end up paying for snail-junk-mail. Not directly, but hidden in the high > first-class mail costs. More mail, more infrastructure, higher costs. Actually, precisely the opposite is true, according to a number of studies. "Bulk mail" is a major profit center for the Postal Service, thus subsidizing non-bulk /first class mail. -- Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: telco's vs x-phones
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:32 PM 8/21/96 -0400, John Brothers wrote: > >I think you both have good points here. I will redo the math. > >At 09:19 AM 8/21/96 -0700, Brian D Williams <talon57(a)well.com> wrote: >>In a reply to Vipul Ved Prakash, Jim Bell wrote: >>Siecore plain vanilla 36 fiber singlemode list $ 1.82 a foot, $5.46 >>a yard. > >Jim said $10/meter, so about 50% of his estimate. > > >> >>>Each fiber pair should be able to handle approximately 1 million >>>conversations at current data rates, or a total of 18 million >>>conversations for that 18-pair cable, or 9.5 trillion >>>conversation-minutes. >> >>At current data rates (OC-48 Sonet) 32,256 voice channels per >>fiber, 580,608 total for the fiber. > >Ok.. I think we're talking apples and oranges. Jim uses the term conversation, >which I assume is a 3 minute duration of time. Your OC-48 handles almost >precisely 1 million conversations per day. (32k DS0 x 24 * 60 * 20) My error was being off a deciminal point. I was thinking around 6.4 gigabits per second, which works out to 100,000 channels at 64,000 bits per second per channel, not 1 million. However, even my selection of 6.4 gigabits per second is arbitrary: I have seen at least two ads for 80 gigabit (8 channels/fiber at 10 gigabits per channel) for fiber optic systems. But my goal is not to make fiber look unrealistically good, but to generate a ballpark figure. >>>Multiply this cost by 10 for right of way, trenching, repeaters, >>>and other auxiliary hardware, or $100 per meter. This is probably >>>just a ballpark estimate, but... >> >>Off by a factor of at least 10 not counting switching equipment. > >So, assume that he's a long haul carrier, and doesn't have to buy any >switching equipment. Still, based on $500/meter, that means >that this network cost about 2.5 billion to build. Even long-haul carriers must have SOME switching equipment. But as you note, my point is that the difference between local and LD costs is simply the fact of the insertion of some arbitrarily large amount of fiber trunk between the local switches. LD companies still deserve to be paid, but the AMOUNT that they are paid maybe should drop to an arbitrarily low level as their costs drop. >So if the system was running at full capacity, 24/7/365, the LD will have >to charge $0.50/conversation, or $0.15/minute to make 2.5 billion per year. > >Even reaching 10% of that capacity is unlikely at $5/conversation. > >Which, clearly, isn't happening. I assume that either I have made a >mistake in my calculations, or the costs of laying fiber has been >grossly overestimated... Yes, I think the costs laying fiber are still a bit opaque. The main reason one of the first alternative telephone LD services (Sprint) was that it was the creature of Southern Pacific Railways, who (obviously) owned a large amount of (ta da!) RIGHT-OF-WAY. And, more particularly, right of way that was well-connected, easily accessible, and easily diggable to install the fiber. They decided they were going to put in a fiber communications system for the railroad, and at some (early?) point realized that since the cost of the trenching and fiber is basically fixed, so turning it into an LD service was going to be relatively straightforward. >Or, that since no-one is going around and buying >up 5000km right of ways, Sprint, MCI, AT&T and co. can lay fiber >much more cheaply. If we assume $50/meter, it will cost 250 million, and they >will have to charge $0.015/minute to break even at 100% capacity, or >$0.15/minute at 10% capacity - and we know Sprint charges less than that, >but if they can get more than 10% of the capacity --- although it is doubtful. (I think you still need to go back and re-check some of your figures. Yes, I did make that decimal point error, but I think you've added a few (different) errors of your own.) Now, keep in mind that a little perusing of these numbers (even if they are not exact) reveals an few interesting facts: The cost of doing the right-of-way/trenching is essentially independant of the number of fibers that you intend to lay. Moreover, the cost of the fiber itself is very low. In other words, everything being equal, you want to pack as many fibers into a trench as you can. Add to this, the fact that you can provide a way for fiber in a buried conduit, and later (years?) blow in new fiber. The line I saw installed, "up close and personal," had three separate ways for cable, and the one cable being installed immediately was 36 fibers. Had two similar fibers been installed in the other ways, that's 108 fibers, and at 2.4 gigabits per second, that's about 54x40,000 simultaneous bidirectional conversations, or 2.16 million. There are probably very few communications corridors that need more capacity than this. The obvious limit of this is that there is only a fairly limited demand for bit transmission (at least, compared with the capacities possible with fiber). In addition is the fact that once you have modern-quality fiber installed, you can increase capacity by changing the optics/electronics. It wasn't too many years ago that 400 (?) megabits/second or so was a fairly standard rate. 2.4 gigabits/sec supplanted it a few years ago, and speeds substantially greater than this are straightforward today. AT+T claims to supply fiber now, and electronics/optics within a few months, to allow 80 gigabits per fiber, or about 32 times more than 2.4. This should immediately explain why you aren't seeing a lot of trenching: Except for the natural desire among engineers to duplicate trenches along major routes to protect against "trencher fade" (accidental cuts), it won't really pay to put in more than a couple trenched routes between most major cities, if they're separated by "boonies." It's far more economical for multiple companies to share a single route, or a pair of routes. (there is an obvious exception if the whole area is developed, such as extended corridors like Washington/New York/Boston.) >My best assumption at this point is that we don't have to make back the entire >cost of the fiber per year to make a profit. if we only have to earn 20% >of its value to make a 10% profit, it would bring the price down to >$0.075/minute, and if we were to get OC-768 systems invented, we could reduce >that to $0.005/minute, which is approaching the values that Jim derived. The value of an investment is compared to the average interest rate paid. However, that's probably too conservative with a fast-changing market like telecom today. Even so, if a system paid back profit at 10% of the investment per year, it would probably be considered a very profitable investment, and I agree with your figure of 20% before fixed costs. >So, I hate to say it, but it looks like long distance is more expensive >than Jim (or I) thought. But, in a few years (say, 5) it will approach >ridiculously cheap. We can expect at that point that either >a) All (or most) long distance will be over the Internet >b) Internet phone will vanish as regular long distance becomes a flat fee > like local service. Probably closer to the latter. The main lesson from these calculations is that fiber's costs are almost entirely based on their one-time installation cost, not a continuing maintenance cost. True, the installation must be paid for, but that translates into an interest charge that is very low. In view of the fact that the billing for telephone is supposedly half of the phoneco's cost, it will make sense that all telephone service will turn into a flat monthly fee, "enforced" by the possibility of Internet telephone for the few recalcitrant companies/countries who resist the transition. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: USPS
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You didn't quote the full thing: At 5:14 PM 8/22/96, Bruce M. wrote: >Web Week, July 8, 1996, p3 > The Postal Service's attorneys have told the USPS that the tampering >part of the current federal law would transfer to the electronic space, >and that the mail fraud portion might also apply... > > "We're a trusted third party," Saunders said. "We don't have any >interest in learning your trade secrets. However, we do have an interest >in your reading habits, and we sometimes send, unsolicited, samples of >child pornography to our customers, and then notify the proper authorities >that one of our customers has taken the bait." (Though I made up this last part, it represents reality. Postal inspectors frequently collaborate with various national and international authorities on matters involving pornography, fraud, pyramid schemes, and the sending of various sorts of contraband. While FedEx, UPS, Airborne, etc., may occasionally cooperate when a crime is called to their attention, I know of no cases where Federal Express, for example, has become a willing and leading partner in setting up stings. This is why the "Postal Service," despite nominal status as a a quasi-independent corporation, is actually yet another enforcement arm of the government.) The Postal Service probably has zero chance of getting into the e-mail business in any fashion, much as they might want to. Businesses see too many advantages in direct transmission, and are unlikely to hand the USPS some money for the dubious benefit of slowing down the mail and (maybe) adding some kind of signature. This is a case where businesses are fully able to understand the role of independent encryption, signatures, credentialling agencies, etc. "Postal anarchy" is already the accepted norm for e-mail. --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: USPS
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> At 5:14 PM 8/22/96, Bruce M. wrote: > > >Web Week, July 8, 1996, p3 > > > The Postal Service's attorneys have told the USPS that the tampering > >part of the current federal law would transfer to the electronic space, > >and that the mail fraud portion might also apply... > > > > "We're a trusted third party," Saunders said. "We don't have any > >interest in learning your trade secrets... Back in June I attended a presentation on this from Paul Raines, who is running the program. As I recall, there were three services they were planning to offer. 1. A time-stamping service. This is basically a remailer - you would send email to the USPS site, which would add a digital timestamp and signature, then forward the message to it's ultimate recipient. Customers wishing to use the service would deposit a sum of money with the USPS, which would be debited for each use of the service (suggested cost was on the order of 25 cents/message) 2. A CA service. Keys would be signed at various levels of assurance. At least at the start, business strength keys would be issued only at Postal Business centers, which are in about 100 cities in the US. 3. An archival service. For a fee, the USPS would store copies of all of the email you send though it's remailer. Only the sender could retrieve it, short of a court order. In answer to a direct question, Raines said that user-encrypted data was OK. Raines claimed the following advantages: * The contents would be subject to the postal fraud statutes. * People would trust a message received through the remailer more than one which was not. * IRS tax filings sent through the Postal system can arrive after April 15, provided they are postmarked before that time. Tax filings sent by other methods must be received at the IRS before midnight on the 15th. * Approximate quote: "When business negotiate a deal, they do it over the phone, in person, etc. But when the deal is closed, what do they do? They write a letter, and send it via registered mail through the USPS." * As a CA, the USPS was a known and trusted entity overseas, unlike commercial CA services. Some specific counter arguments: Fraud protection: If a person was intending to commit fraud, why would he or she send the message through the USPS remailer? Since the service is costly, most email will never be sent through it, and there will not develop a tendency to regard non-USPS email as untrustworthy. IRS filings: If I send a tax filing to the USPS remailer at 23:45 on April 15th, it gets a pre-midnight timestamp and is accepted by the IRS as being on time. If I send an email tax filing directly to the IRS at 23:45, it is also accepted (and if I was that desparate, I could also bounce the message through Hawaii, or US Samoa, and get several more hours of grace) Also, I was under the impression that the IRS now accepted FedEx timestamps for tax filings. Finally, the amount of business which this represents is miniscule. Closing deals: Ever hear of faxes or FedEx? My personal impression was that Raines had been listening to his own propaganda for too long, and was rather out of touch with the way things are done outside of the Beltway. I got the feeling that the USPS was desperately trying to find a role in a time where it was becoming merely the cheapest and slowest player in the package delivery business. Peter Trei ptrei(a)acm.org [Disclaimer: I am not representing my employer.]

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(fwd) ANNOUNCE: Free Little PGP Credit Card App
by frogfarm＠yakko.cs.wmich.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: "David j. Sopuch" <djs(a)iwinpak.com> Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www.misc Subject: ANNOUNCE: Free Little PGP Credit Card App Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 12:00:24 -0400 Organization: Datamax Research corp. Lines: 10 Message-ID: <321C8418.2647(a)iwinpak.com> v2.08 of the iWinpak Internet Payment System is now available in both freeware and shareware versions at http://www.iwinpak.com Dave -- http://www.iwinpak.com Try the iWinpak Internet Payment System - the Free little PGP Credit Card app *** PageCommerce (tm) - the $99 No Server PGP Commerce Solution *** -- http://yakko.cs.wmich.edu/~frogfarm ...for the best in unapproved information EmmaGoldmanCamillePagliaMarieCurieAynRandSapphoDianaToriAmosPJHarvey&Demona Living in dread with your fragile brain and the executioner's got your number I feel a groove comin' on -:- Freedom...yeah, right.

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Re: USPS
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Or About 22 Aug 96, 8:37, Timothy C. May wrote: > (Though I made up this last part, it represents reality. Postal > inspectors frequently collaborate with various national and > international authorities on matters involving pornography, fraud, > pyramid schemes, and the sending of various sorts of contraband. > While FedEx, UPS, Airborne, etc., may occasionally cooperate when a I'm afraid that Fed-X would drop their drawers if presented with a federal warrant. I guess you could call that co-operation. > crime is called to their attention, I know of no cases where Federal > Express, for example, has become a willing and leading partner in > setting up stings. No, I don't think they would do something like that. The Post Office IS just like an arm of the federal government, even though you would need a federal warrant in order to search packages. > > "Postal anarchy" is already the accepted norm for e-mail. > > --Tim May > Can I quote you on that? Ross =========== Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: 415-206-9906

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Cypherpunks the video
by steven ryan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There was talk earlier about someone putting together a Cypherpunks video. What ever came of that? I now have access to an Avid nonlinear digital editor and would be interested in pursueing this. Steven ------------------------------------ Steven Ryan - Reading Access - sryan(a)reading.com PGP Fingerprint: E8 A2 C5 A2 7A C4 77 93 0A 1B 1D C6 B9 2F 36 9B Finger me for my PGP public key

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Re: Spamming (Good or Bad?)
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Or About 22 Aug 96, 18:27, Paul S. Penrod wrote: On Wed, 21 Aug 1996, Jim Gillogly wrote: > "Paul S. Penrod" <furballs(a)netcom.com> writes: > > find them using one of the search engines. Market droids (get > > over it, dude) are >> > Nothing to get over. That's Ross who has the problem with the term. I'm over it. Hell, I can't even remember which side of this issue I'm on. ;-) Oh, yeah... I'm a sales-droid, looking for customers like a shark... Never stop moving..... Feed on the weak.... Yeah, that's where I'm at, yeah... Anyway, the consensus is that what I'm doing (that I thought WAS spam) is about as harmless as a cold call, so I'm personally vindicated. I like this next part: > The issue is convenience, not technology. The majority of US > consumers couldn't give a rat's ass about the Internet or the Web. > They want their product or service and they want it now. When the > Web becomes more convenient to use than the telephone, then you will > see nirvana for Cybershopping. Right now that isn't happening. I'm doing O.K., but I've go a product everyone still needs... And the consumers I want have been on the Internet for a long, long time. So all you geeky programmers (I mean that in the nicest way) buy your stuff from ME!!!! Hey!!! Was that SPAM!!!! HEY!!!!! Ross (Sales Droid) Wright =========== Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: 415-206-9906

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Racists Speak Up For Crypto
by qut＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 15:28:48 -0700 From: ezundel(a)cts.com (E. Zndel) Good Morning from the Zundelsite: I have a sweet friend in Santa Barbara, California who grew up with me in the rain forests of South America. Elvira and I share many things, including an "encryption language" of sorts. We used it with relish as teenagers when the Mennonite Elders were spying on us, trying to ferret out secrets. The key was really very simple, but our "government" just never managed to catch on. It used to drive them wild. Yet it was so ridiculously simple - ". . . repeat a vowel with a 'b'". Prebesibidebent Clibintobon? Kapish? Just practice it a bit - no one will understands it! It is hilarious. It gave us a tremendous edge on wickedness - mostly romantic wickedness but now and then legitimate revolt against authority peddling a dogma we didn't always like. This story often comes to mind as I peruse the arguments regarding censorship, particularly as I was reading a recent Phyllis Schlafly's essay on "Clinton Is Trying to be Big Brother": ". . . We hope the appropriate government agencies will soon solve the recent terrorist crimes and punish the criminals. But all Americans who care about civil liberties should vigorously resist President Clinton's attempt to use the terrorist attacks as an excuse to carry on his all-out war against the personal privacy of law-abiding Americans. Now the Clinton Administration is trying to make it illegal for individual Americans to have private conversations with one another. That's the real meaning of its effort to control encryption technology, and it's a direct assault on the First Amendment. It would be downright ridiculous to assert that the First Amendment guarantees our right to speak in public but not in private. It would be just as ridiculous to say that we have freedom to speak in words that the government can understand, but not in words the government can't decipher. Americans have the right to speak to one another in private, behind closed doors, and we should likewise have the right to speak to one another in code and to put our coded messages on computer in a process called encryption. Americans would not tolerate the government opening and reading the letters we send through the mails, and we should not tolerate the government opening and reading our encrypted, or coded, messages sent via computer. Yet, Attorney General Janet Reno, FBI Director Louis Freeh, and Vice President Al Gore are all demanding the authority to read our encrypted messages. In a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California, Reno bluntly stated her demand for "ensuring law enforcement access to encrypted data.'' Reno boasted that there is "a consensus'' that the government should create a system known as "Key Escrow'' (i.e., a supposedly "neutral third party''), to which all Americans should be forced to "entrust'' the keys to their encrypted messages, and to which the government would have access. On the contrary, there is no such consensus. Do you trust Janet Reno with access to your private messages? Do you trust the FBI to keep your files confidential? On July 12, Al Gore announced that the Administration will continue to push for the adoption of a massive public key infrastructure to give the government access to all encrypted communications. In a blatant bid for a police-state surveillance society, Gore warned about "the dangers of unregulated encryption technology." A neutral panel of the National Research Council was set up to make policy recommendations about encryption. The panel called on the government to abandon its efforts to restrict encryption. The NSC panel concluded that increased use of encryption would enhance our national security, not diminish it. Thirteen out of its 16 members had security clearances with access to secret information, and they saw no national security reason to justify the Clinton policy. The Clinton Administration bases its campaign to control private encryption on the alleged need to fight crime through wiretapping. However, the NSC panel concluded that the ability of the private sector to transfer confidential financial and other data over the information highway without interception is far more important. Encryption is a First Amendment issue, not a crime issue. If the Clinton Administration is allowed to control encryption, it would be the biggest expansion of federal power since the passage of the Income Tax Amendment in 1913 . . ." And come to think of it, still after all these years: the Elders had no business whatsoever spying on some teenagers. They made the laws, and they enforced the laws, and it was pretty much authoritarian business, but even as young teenagers we knew that what they did was Trespass! They had their reasons - but we had ours! It was called privacy. Nebeveber lebet aba foobool kibiss youbou obor aba kibiss foobool youbou! Advice to the wise in these perilous times. Ingrid Thought for the Day: "All the fun's in how you say a thing." (Robert Frost)

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