December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: The Science Generations
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Frantz wrote: > At 10:10 AM -0800 12/8/96, Dale Thorn wrote: > >The phrase "your beloved HPs" gives your hand away. > What hand? You appeared by your statements to be a lover of HP stuff. > I now find it was only from that era. > My of my hand is only to say that people DID use them other things for > real business uses. Your posts appeared to say that was impossible. > However, as Bob Hettinger says, "Reality is not optional." First, let me apologize for something I try never to do. When someone sends private email, if I put it to the list I should remove the sender's name (if no permission given). I still use HP personal computers, since (despite their problems) they are still the most effective at running for a long time and processing a lot of data. As far as showing your hand, I find it interesting how many erstwhile serious users will nonetheless wave away any discussion of the specific problems computers have (particularly the early ones), which I can only relate to denial. In the words of Consumer Reports back in the early-mid 1980s, "These electronic items are the least reliable and most problematic things we've ever tested" (quote approximate). I never said it was impossible to use an Apple (or early IBM) for serious work of *some* kind, i.e., simple spreadsheet work. What I said and I hope it came through is this: If you were using an IBM mainframe in the period 1980-1982 or thereabouts, you would have what I call unreliable equipment, but, you would probably also have IBM person(s) on site to keep the stuff running. On the other hand, IBM PC users (outside of large corporate sites) didn't necessarily have that luxury, therefore, if they tried to do what I could easily do with HP personal computer equipment, their IBM PCs would die and have to be fixed "by the dealer", with more consequent unreliability added. How many people have you heard of who could run databases on an IBM or Apple II floppy system, entering data with fairly large files and several indexes, and searching and printing the data almost continuously? Those people who know what I'm talking about should have a good laugh on that one.

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Re: PICS is not censorship
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:52 PM 12/8/96 -0800, Lucky Green wrote: >Let's put the question if something like PICS will be mandated aside for >the moment. Do you agree that sites that deliberately mislabel their >content, will eventually face legal action? If so, then PICS should not be >considered truly voluntary. Self-labeling is useless without regulation and punishment - there's too much incentive to treat the label like a marketing tool. My hunch is that courts will never allow compulsory labeling at the level that most people would want - my bet is that labeling re visual depictions of nudity/sex can be mandated, but that labeling re editorial/political content can't be. (I'm not saying I think a fair reading of the Constitution says that, I'm saying I think that's the compromise that judges will come up with.) And labeling that keeps kids from seeing female breasts but lets them find out about where to get abortions, or how to do their own at home*, or that lets kids see home pages about how it's OK to be gay or a nazi or a nerd or a creationist or a Republican or whatever isn't going to serve the needs of the people who want to impose a strict content-control regime on their kids, or on the net. And while my faith in the judiciary is pretty weak, I just don't think they'll go so far as to say that the Constitution allows the government to force people to put subject labels on their web pages. *(circa 1991, there was a videotape circulating in keep-abortion-legal activist circles which described and showed how to perform an early-term abortion using relatively simple technology (e.g., suction) - I can't seem to remember the medical term for the procedure, but the tape was intended, a la PGP, to make the technology available while it was still legal to discuss it. Someone must have ported this video to Quicktime by now.) Third party labeling/rating is a much superior solution because it allows the labelers to examine data with a mindset compatible with the mindset of the customer, which source-labeling, nor automated filtering, will never do. Here's to hoping that regulators/legislators won't get around to imposing a source-labeling scheme before experience is able to show them that it's neither necessary nor sufficient to reach their goals. -- 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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To all IETF attendees
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Any Cypherpunks attending this weeks IETF meeting in San Jose are encouraged to send me some email if you want to get together. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred Make your mark in the history of mathematics. Use the spare cycles of your PC/PPC/UNIX box to help find a new prime. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/justforfun/prime.htm

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Re: PICS is not censorship
by thad＠hammerhead.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.netcom.com> says: > ..Do you agree that sites that deliberately mislabel their > content, will eventually face legal action? If so, then PICS should not be > considered truly voluntary. I think that most of the PICS labels that are on web pages will be those generated by scripts from groups like RSACi. (http://www.rsac.org) These groups have contracts that require you to not lie when you fill out their questionnaires, and if you do lie, you are in breach of contract and should expect to be sued by them. These companies should create a cryptographic signature for their labels, I'm really surprised that RSACi doesn't do that yet; I don't know if other PICS labelers do. If you just make up your own PICS label, then I can't believe that you would have any problems saying whatever you want. Of course, it's likely that most of the Surfwatch type programs will have options to block all pages without a well-known label attached to it, and this will probably be the default in a couple of years. If this is the way it works out, then I'd consider this voluntary. I think that this is the way it will work out, too. thad -- Thaddeus Beier thad(a)hammerhead.com Visual Effects Supervisor 408) 287-6770 Hammerhead Productions http://www.got.net/people/thad

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Re: PICS is not censorship
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:18 PM 12/8/96 -0800, Thaddeus J. Beier wrote: >I think that most of the PICS labels that are on web pages will be those >generated by scripts from groups like RSACi. (http://www.rsac.org) >These groups have contracts that require you to not lie when you fill out their >questionnaires, and if you do lie, you are in breach of contract and should expect >to be sued by them. So what is going to happen if I generate one of their tags from scratch without filling out their questionnaire? Are they going to sue me, claiming that they own an html tag? Can one own an html tag? -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred Make your mark in the history of mathematics. Use the spare cycles of your PC/PPC/UNIX box to help find a new prime. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/justforfun/prime.htm

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Re: PICS is not censorship
by thad＠hammerhead.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

tcmay(a)got.net ("Timothy C. May") sez > This is why I fear PICS. Democracy has run amok in the Western world, and > the various "herds" will vote to constrain the freedoms of other members of > the herd. > > My Prediction: If PICS is used voluntarily by more than 80% of Net users to > label their Web pages and their writings, etc., then less than 3 years > later PICS will be mandated in the United States and other such countries. PICS, or something like it, is the absolutely right response to calls for true Internet censorship. People agreeing to a language, a way of communicating, is a good thing. Did you object to HTML? TCP/IP? Other agreements that limited the way that people communicate? I don't think that PICS will be mandated any more than those two standards are mandated, perhaps I'm naive, but I think that the social conventions will work in this case. I suppose the a better solution would have been to have many competing private rating services, but PICS will work well, not put much load on the net, and is transparent and simple. I like it. thad -- Thaddeus Beier thad(a)hammerhead.com Visual Effects Supervisor 408) 287-6770 Hammerhead Productions http://www.got.net/people/thad

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Re: PICS is not censorship
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:37 PM 12/8/96 -0800, Lucky Green wrote: >>>> At 07:18 PM 12/8/96 -0800, Thaddeus J. Beier wrote: >I think that most of the PICS labels that are on web pages will be those >generated by scripts from groups like RSACi. (http://www.rsac.org) >These groups have contracts that require you to not lie when you fill out their >questionnaires, and if you do lie, you are in breach of contract and should expect >to be sued by them. So what is going to happen if I generate one of their tags from scratch without filling out their questionnaire? Are they going to sue me, claiming that they own an html tag? Can one own an html tag? "Owning" an html tag is oversimplifying things; but claiming that you've been rated a certain way by a certain group (if you haven't) could potentially create fraud, trademark, and (maybe) copyright problems - an easy analogy is to the "UL" and "Good Housekeeping" symbols displayed on some consumer goods. -- 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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Protect against physical theft of the harddisk ??
by Pavel Korensky 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, I have one problem which I would like to consult with you. I need to protect the data on the computer harddisk against physical theft. Current situation: Computer with several harddisks - approx. 9 GB. On this computer, the following OS are used: Linux, DOS, Windows NT. The data on this computer must be accessible from all operating systems. Encryption of files must be transparent to user and encryption algorithm must be "strong". Because I am not able to find any disk encryption software which is able to run on all these platforms, I decided to use the following temporary solution: Add one more computer with Linux OS. On this computer, there will be only a small root partition with necessary Linux components. All other disk space will be encrypted with IDEA, using the /dev/loop. This machine will be some kind of secure file server. On the second machine, where the user works, there will be partitions with operating systems, necessary utilities and the TCP/IP stack for DOS/Windows, NT and Linux. The data and application disks will be mounted via NFS and user will work with files from file server. The computers will be interconnected with Fast Ethernet. This mini-network is NOT connected to the Internet, so the NFS (in)security should not be a problem. Also, both computers will be placed in the same room (distance approx. 3 m), so there should be no problem with tapping/data capturing on the Fast Ethernet connection. I have the following questions. Can anybody see some major security hole in this system ? How fast will be this system ? Anybody has any idea if there is some more sophisticated solution for this problem ? Anybody heard about some strong disk encryption which is able to rund under Windows NT, Linux and DOS ? It seems that the Win NT are the major problem. I am not able to find any disk encryption for NT. Anybody is able to port Secure File System to Windows NT ? I am trying to port this program under Linux, but I am not the NT system programmer. Thanx for any comments, help, ideas etc. Best regards PavelK -- **************************************************************************** * Pavel Korensky (pavelk(a)dator3.anet.cz) * * DATOR3 Ltd., Modranska 1895/17, 143 00 Prague 4, Czech Republic * * PGP key fingerprint: 00 65 5A B3 70 20 F1 54 D3 B3 E4 3E F8 A3 5E 7C * ****************************************************************************

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Re: Please post Eudora PGP plugin URL
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:52 PM 12/8/96 -0800, Lucky Green wrote: >>If you want to be automatically notified of new versions, send e-mail to >>gt6525c(a)prism.gatech.edu with the subject of "eppi news", and the following >>message body: > >Just FYI, while the plugin is still available, email to this address has >been bouncing for weeks. It is therefore impossible to submit bug reports >or subscribe to the EPPI mailing list. If somebody on this list knows the >current address of the EPPI author, please post it. The current address of the author of the Eudora plug-in is Damon Gallaty <dgal(a)cad.gatech.edu>. I have been coorisponding with him on a couple of odd problems with the software. (Implemenation issues more than bugs.) He has been very responsive. (In fact, I need to send him another bug report tonight about failing to deal with line wrap in signatures.) So far the set of plug-ins have been very useful. I have been pretty happy with it so far. (It does have the problem of not word wrapping before applying the PGP sig and defaulting to the last key if you do not set one in config.txt.) All in all, worth the download. --- | "Spam is the Devil's toothpaste!" - stuart(a)teleport.com | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/ |alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com|

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List of reliable remailers
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I operate a remailer pinging service which collects detailed information about remailer features and reliability. To use it, just finger remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu There is also a Web version of the same information, plus lots of interesting links to remailer-related resources, at: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html This information is used by premail, a remailer chaining and PGP encrypting client for outgoing mail. For more information, see: http://www.c2.org/~raph/premail.html For the PGP public keys of the remailers, finger pgpkeys(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu This is the current info: REMAILER LIST This is an automatically generated listing of remailers. The first part of the listing shows the remailers along with configuration options and special features for each of the remailers. The second part shows the 12-day history, and average latency and uptime for each remailer. You can also get this list by fingering remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu. $remailer{"extropia"} = "<remail(a)miron.vip.best.com> cpunk pgp special"; $remailer{"mix"} = "<mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord ?"; $remailer{"replay"} = "<remailer(a)replay.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek"; $remailer{'alpha'} = '<alias(a)alpha.c2.org> alpha pgp'; $remailer{'nymrod'} = '<nymrod(a)nym.jpunix.com> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"lead"} = "<mix(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"exon"} = "<remailer(a)remailer.nl.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"haystack"} = "<haystack(a)holy.cow.net> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"lucifer"} = "<lucifer(a)dhp.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"jam"} = "<remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"winsock"} = "<winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub reord"; $remailer{'nym'} = '<config(a)nym.alias.net> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"balls"} = "<remailer(a)huge.cajones.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"middle"} = "<middleman(a)jpunix.com> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"dustbin"} = "<dustman(a)athensnet.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek mix reord middle ?"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"death"} = "<x(a)deathsdoor.com> cpunk pgp hash latent post"; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; catalyst(a)netcom.com is _not_ a remailer. lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu is _not_ a remailer. usura(a)replay.com is _not_ a remailer. remailer(a)crynwr.com is _not_ a remailer. There is no remailer at relay.com. Groups of remailers sharing a machine or operator: (cyber mix) (weasel squirrel) The alpha and nymrod nymservers are down due to abuse. However, you can use the nym or weasel (newnym style) nymservers. The cyber nymserver is quite reliable for outgoing mail (which is what's measured here), but is exhibiting serious reliability problems for incoming mail. The squirrel and winsock remailers accept PGP encrypted mail only. 403 Permission denied errors have been caused by a flaky disk on the Berkeley WWW server. This seems to be fixed now. The penet remailer is closed. Last update: Mon 9 Dec 96 6:45:04 PST remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net +***+**+*+** 32:58 99.98% jam remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca ************ 14:36 99.97% nym config(a)nym.alias.net ####***#*### :48 99.97% lucifer lucifer(a)dhp.com ++++++++++++ 38:32 99.96% lead mix(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu +++*+++-++-+ 1:00:18 99.93% middle middleman(a)jpunix.com -.---------- 4:01:26 99.93% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net -.--------- 3:15:16 99.74% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de --+++-+++++ 1:40:17 99.68% dustbin dustman(a)athensnet.com __.-+++-++++ 7:14:49 99.66% weasel config(a)weasel.owl.de --+++-+++-+ 1:39:24 99.50% haystack haystack(a)holy.cow.net #** **#*#**+ 4:58 99.42% replay remailer(a)replay.com +**** *-- -* 1:22:47 99.41% exon remailer(a)remailer.nl.com #*#***#+#### 6:25 99.29% extropia remail(a)miron.vip.best.com -- -- .. -- 9:05:48 94.66% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net - - ----- 3:43:35 93.66% balls remailer(a)huge.cajones.com #**** 1:37:33 74.17% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com ._.--++-. 8:37:03 71.73% History key * # response in less than 5 minutes. * * response in less than 1 hour. * + response in less than 4 hours. * - response in less than 24 hours. * . response in more than 1 day. * _ response came back too late (more than 2 days). cpunk A major class of remailers. Supports Request-Remailing-To: field. eric A variant of the cpunk style. Uses Anon-Send-To: instead. penet The third class of remailers (at least for right now). Uses X-Anon-To: in the header. pgp Remailer supports encryption with PGP. A period after the keyword means that the short name, rather than the full email address, should be used as the encryption key ID. hash Supports ## pasting, so anything can be put into the headers of outgoing messages. ksub Remailer always kills subject header, even in non-pgp mode. nsub Remailer always preserves subject header, even in pgp mode. latent Supports Matt Ghio's Latent-Time: option. cut Supports Matt Ghio's Cutmarks: option. post Post to Usenet using Post-To: or Anon-Post-To: header. ek Encrypt responses in reply blocks using Encrypt-Key: header. special Accepts only pgp encrypted messages. mix Can accept messages in Mixmaster format. reord Attempts to foil traffic analysis by reordering messages. Note: I'm relying on the word of the remailer operator here, and haven't verified the reord info myself. mon Remailer has been known to monitor contents of private email. filter Remailer has been known to filter messages based on content. If not listed in conjunction with mon, then only messages destined for public forums are subject to filtering. Raph Levien

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