December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Exon Countdown Clock and farewell messages
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:59 AM 11/8/96 -0800, Michael Page wrote and Rich Graves forwarded: ... >We would attempt to send it via a Email, but the respected Senator does not >have Email. (The Irony). ... There is no irony here, Mr. Exon tried to control the internet for the very reason that he didn't understand it and one of his granddaughters did. Perhaps if he did understand the internet then he wouldn't be a threat. Remember, people fear that which they don't understand.

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BizWeek speaks on Crypto
by John Fricker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.businessweek.com/1996/47/b350287.htm --j ----------------------------------- | John Fricker (jfricker(a)vertexgroup.com) | -random notes- | My PGP public key is available by sending mail with subject "send pgp key". | www.Program.com is a good programmer web site. -----------------------------------

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No Subject
by Igor Chudov ＠ home 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

manifold::~==>premail -t cypherpunks(a)toad.com Chain: haystack;jam Subject: I urgently need a lot of money. Please share your money-making secrets, I am in a desperate need for cash.

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Censorship on cypherpunks?, from The Netly News
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Netly News http://www.netlynews.com/ November 11, 1996 Cypher-Censored By Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) The cypherpunks mailing list, so legend goes, coalesced around two principles: the dissemination of strong encryption and an absolute commitment to free speech. It was a kind of crypto-anarchist utopia: Here was a place where anonymity was encouraged and PGP-signed postings were the norm -- and nobody seemed to be in control. That is, until recently, when Dimitri Vulis was given the boot. After he refused to stop posting flames, rants and uninspired personal attacks, Vulis was summarily removed from the mailing list. Now, normally, when someone gets evicted from a mailing list, it excites little attention. But here was an ironic -- some would say momentous -- event: The list is run, after all, by John Gilmore, the EFF cofounder, a cypherpunk god who is famous for having once said that the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. And it was none other than Gilmore who gave Vulis the boot. The shunning of Vulis was "an act of leadership," Gilmore said. Thus began a debate over what the concept of censorship means in a forum devoted to opposing it. Did Gilmore have the right to show Vulis the virtual door? Or should he have let the ad hominem attacks continue, encouraging people to set their filters accordingly? The incident raises deeper questions about how a virtual community can prevent one person from ruining the forum for all and whether only government controls on expression can be called "censorship." Vulis, a 31-year old Russian emigre who completed a PhD in mathematics last year at the City University of New York, is described as sociable, even friendly, by people who have met him. Online, though, he's almost notorious. His .sig file, for instance, proudly points out that he's a former Kook of the Month; Vulis was also a Net-legend and even has the alt.fan.dimitri-vulis newsgroup named after him. Vulis portrays himself as a victim, but as I posted to the list last week, I disagree. Anyone who's spent any time on the 100-plus-messages-a-day list can read for themselves the kind of nasty daily messages that came from Vulis's keyboard. The list is on Gilmore's machine and he can do what he wants with it; he can moderate the postings, he can censor material, he can shut the whole thing down. By kicking off an offending user, a list owner merely exercises his property right. There's no government involvement, so the First Amendment doesn't apply. And the deleted, disgruntled user is free to start his own mailing list with different rules. But then the question is whether Gilmore should have exercised that right, especially in such an open forum. Again, I think Gilmore's actions were justified. Consider inviting someone into your home or private club. If your guest is a boor, you might ask him to leave. If your guest is an slobbish drunk of a boor, you have a responsibility to require him to leave before he ruins the evening of others. Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, runs a number of mailing lists and has kicked people off to maintain better editorial control. Volokh says that the most valuable publications are those that exercise the highest degree of editorial control. But what if your private club's express purpose is to cherish free speech? That's where the terrain gets mucky. One 'punk wrote: "For someone who espouses freedom of speech to arbitrarily censor someone is indeed hypocritical." Another called it a "big cypherpunkish move" that couldn't be condoned "even bearing in mind the inane and wearisome behaviour of Dr. Vulis." Still others said that this demonstrated that "libertarianism can't work without some measure of authoritarianism." (Libertarianism being the primordial flame war topic, the debate nearly consumed itself at this point.) Vulis told me yesterday: "I'm particularly disappointed by John Gilmore's actions. I've known him and communicated with him before. His treatment of me was rude and unprofessional and inappropriate." In posts to the mailing list, Vulis levels the additional criticism that it was "arbitrary and capricious" and that he was not notified that he would be forcibly unsubscribed. This week Vulis busied himself by saying that now Gilmore can be sued for what happens on cypherpunks, arguing that the list owner is exercising greater control and so is subject to greater liability. Of course, in this country anyone can sue for anything. But it's highly unlikely the suit would go anywhere. Solveig Bernstein, a lawyer with the Cato Institute, says: "Chances are in a defamation lawsuit he'd be treated like a publisher or bookstore owner.. They exercise some control over content and enjoy pretty broad immunity from lawsuits." For his part, Gilmore calls removing the Russian mathematician "an act of leadership." He says: "It said we've all been putting up with this guy and it's time to stop. You're not welcome here... It seemed to me that a lot of the posts on cypherpunks were missing the mark. They seemed to have an idea that their ability to speak through my machine was guaranteed by the Constitution." What does Vulis's ouster mean to the community that sprang up around this mailing list, of which he had been a member for nearly three years? Many of his peers think he did it for attention or notoriety; one longtime list-denizen declined to be interviewed for fear of encouraging him. (If that's his goal, he's already succeeded. Will Rodger from Inter@ctive Week and Lewis Koch from Upside Magazine are writing about this.) Other cypherpunks wonder why Vulis is abrasive online, yet mild-mannered in person; Gilmore likened him to "a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality." The flap comes at a time when other prominent cypherpunks are leaving, citing too many flames and too little content. Perry Metzger, another longtime member, announced last month he would start his own, moderated mailing list. The hard-core programmers have moved on. Yet the list membership has never been higher, at 1,949 direct subscribers. And the cyber-rights issues the group discusses have never been more important. Ironically, tools like anonymous remailers that the cypherpunks labored to create now make it impossible to get rid of Vulis completely. Blocking posts from remailers is unthinkable to the cypherpunks. So the embattled Russian émigré continues to read the list under a pseudonym and appears to be posting as frequently as ever. But perhaps Gilmore succeeded in part. If not more polite, Vulis's messages now are at least on-topic. ###

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Worrying...
by Benjamin Grosman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Isn't it worrying that so many people can happily devote their time to trying to annoy others?

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Re: PGP3.0 & ElGamal
by Gary Howland 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> At 10:43 pm -0500 11/13/96, Lucky Green wrote: > >I agree. Support for soon to be patent free algrithms is a good thing. I > >hope that in version 4.0, after the users had time to migrate to > >DSS/ElGamal, PGP will fully move away from RSA. > > Speaking of patent-free, :-), can you do blind signatures without RSA? I think it is possible using the both Diffie-Hellman and the RPK algorithm (developed by the New Zealand chap quite recently), although patents probably apply to the latter algorithm. Don't forget that for ecash style systems, only the *client* needs to do the blinding, not the bank. Gary -- "Of course the US Constitution isn't perfect; but it's a lot better than what we have now." -- Unknown. pub 1024/C001D00D 1996/01/22 Gary Howland <gary(a)systemics.com> Key fingerprint = 0C FB 60 61 4D 3B 24 7D 1C 89 1D BE 1F EE 09 06

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RE: Down-Under Bounce Attack halted
by Mullen Patrick 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please excuse me for my ignorance, but... What is a "bounce attack"? I only know of mail bouncing, and I don't see a way of making an "attack" out of such an occurrance... ??? Thanks! PM _______________________________________________________________________________ From: wb8foz(a)nrk.com on Thu, Nov 14, 1996 1:10 Subject: Down-Under Bounce Attack halted To: Cypherpunks The postmaster of that AU site running the bounce attack assures me he has been able to vanquish the daemon running the box in question; despite the fact he did not even know it was there ;-} [Don't ask..] -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz(a)nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433 ------------------ RFC822 Header Follows ------------------ Received: by mail.ndhm.gtegsc.com with SMTP;14 Nov 1996 01:10:21 -0400 Received: from toad.com by delphi.ndhm.gtegsc.com with SMTP; Thu, 14 Nov 1996 6:06:00 GMT Received: (from majordom@localhost) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA09977 for cypherpunks-outgoing; Wed, 13 Nov 1996 15:56:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from wauug.erols.com (wauug.erols.com [205.252.116.240]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA09962 for <cypherpunks(a)toad.com>; Wed, 13 Nov 1996 15:56:29 -0800 (PST) Received: (from wb8foz@localhost) by wauug.erols.com (8.8.2/8.7.3) id SAA31763; Wed, 13 Nov 1996 18:56:30 -0500 From: "David Lesher / hated by RBOC's in 5 states" <wb8foz(a)wauug.erols.com> Message-Id: <199611132356.SAA31763(a)wauug.erols.com> Subject: Down-Under Bounce Attack halted To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com (Cypherpunks) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 18:56:30 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: wb8foz(a)nrk.com Organization: NRK Research X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Precedence: bulk

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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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