December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

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: Censorship on cypherpunks
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:45 AM 11/4/96 -0800, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Libertarianism is not incompatible with strict regulations, as long as >the rules violate nobody's rights. > >-Declan Obviously many voluntary religious organizations have quite strict rules for their members and are compatible with libertarianism. Government monopoly regulations that cannot be opted out of are not compatible with libertarianism. Instead of using the loaded term "regulations' it might be better to call things like the rules of the cypherpunk's list "club rules" or protocols. DCF

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Group order for "Secret Power" ... (San Francisco Bay Area only)
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm looking for 19 other people interested in "Secret Power" (Craig Potton Publishers has indicated that there is a discount for 20 or more copies). If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, please contact me by phone or E-Mail. As usual with these things, I would prefer to see you in person and have a cash or check committed. Also remember that the shipping is quite steep (for the faster methods) ... The US price uses US$0.71 per NZ$1.00. US PRICE 1 Copy NZ$27.50 per copy US$19.53 NZ$19.00 for shipping via air US$13.49 NZ$12.50 for shipping via economy US$ 8.88 NZ$10.00 for shipping via sea US$ 7.10 20 Copies (per copy) NZ$24.75 per copy (10% discount) US$17.57 NZ$ 9.50 for shipping via air US$ 6.75 NZ$ 7.25 for shipping via economy US$ 5.15 NZ$ 5.90 for shipping via sea US$ 4.19 ---- Ernest Hua, Software Sanitation Engineer Chromatic Research, 615 Tasman Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1707 Phone: 408 752-9375, Fax: 408 752-9301, E-Mail: hua(a)chromatic.com

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Re: Dr. Vulis is not on cypherpunks any more
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Well put! I tired a long time ago of Dr. Vulis and several others on this > list. Rather than bitch about it or resort to the same big brother > gestapo-censor bullshit we profess to abhor I simply utilized the extensive > filtering capability of Eudora. > > I don't need "big brother" or big "cypherpunk" censoring my mail for me. > We have become what we fear the most. How prophetic and pathetic. Absolutely, John, if you, and those who support your actions, claim to be libertarians you need to take a good hard look at what you have done. This is a distinctly "big cypherpunkish" move and really cannot be condoned even bearing in mind the inane and wearisome behaviour of Dr. Vulis. 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: Dr. Vulis is not on cypherpunks any more
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The short answer is, No. Their problem. > More specifically, we constantly have > a stream of new readers sampling Cypherpunks. Some are > technically sophisticated; some are not. In either case, new > readers do not have the historical perspective not to fall for > Dimitri's big lies. It is not a requirement in a libertarian forum to tell the truth. You also seem to be implying that people need protecting from Dimitri, much the same authoritarian argument we hear from govt. about people needing to be protected from porn/drugs/free spech etc. > Nor do they have any way of know what an > abberation his sort of behavior is on this list. "So this is > what Cypherpunks are like," would be a sad, but understandable > misinterpretation of what we're all about. What John did was > appropriate. I understand the point here but I suggest a note at the top of the "welcome to cypherpunks" note every new subscriber gets explaining who Dimitri is and how to set up their mailer software to block his posts. 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: Compromise proposal
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> [this goes to cypherpunks(a)toad.com and freedom-knights(a)jetcafe.org. I am > not reading f-k, but I am interested in Dave Hayes's opinion.] What weight can my opinion possibly have? This list is apparently owned by a Mr. John Gilmore. If he's being censorous, that's bad, but it is apparently within his means to execute said censorship. > Many members of cypherpunks list are right when they oppose the forced > unsubscription of Dimitri Vulis from this list. The sorry state of this > list is not the result of his flames alone, there is a large number of > people who discuss things of no cryptographic relevance. Not to speak for the cypherpunks (we all know their reputation) but I should think the cypherpunks are savvy enough to know the subjectivity of the term "on-topic". > I propose the following: > 1) The block on Dimitri Vulis's subscriptions should be removed > 2) We should not impose any limitations on anyone's speech except 3) > 3) Dimitri and everyone else should put prefix "[FLAME]" > into all Subject: header fields of their flame-related > messages. Gee. What a great idea. > This solution will allow anyone with a clue to use appropriate filtering > and improve the signal-noise ratio, and at the same time will not in any > way limit anyone's freedom of speech. Improving signal to noise is a laughable goal at a social event of more than 100 people, why do people insist upon trying it on the net? ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss

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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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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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UNSUBCRIBE CENSORSHIP
by paratama＠idola.net.id 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

UNSUBCRIBE CENSORSHIP

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