December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Your New Online Dumbshit Number
by HyperReal-Anon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

<Thank you for registering with Adobe Systems, Inc. < <Your new Online Customer ID is: 2202094119525317 < <The PIN you entered and confirmed has been encrypted and stored with your >registration information. > >Please remember your Customer ID and PIN for the next time you login as an >Adobe Customer on www.adobe.com. Thank you for spamming the Cypherpunks List. Your new Online Dumbshit ID is: 3313105220636428 The PIN you entered and confirmed has been encrypted using GAKed crypto and stored with your registration information, the names of your children, your address, and nude pictures of your spouse. Please remember your Dumbshit ID and PIN for the next time you spam as an Adobe Spokesperson from adobe.com.

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IP: FCC Proposes Rules for Cellular Wiretaps
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: FCC Proposes Rules for Cellular Wiretaps Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 07:57:54 -0500 To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/washtech/fcc1023.htm FCC Proposes Rules for Cellular Wiretaps By Roberto Suro Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, October 23, 1998; Page A16 Law enforcement agencies armed with court-authorized surveillance orders would be able to determine the location of a mobile telephone caller under rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission yesterday. The FCC proposals, which are still subject to a comment and review process, would also require wireless telephone carriers to ensure that police could tap into conference calls and collect information on the use of services such as call-waiting and call-forwarding on cellular phones. Determining how wiretapping will be adapted to the age of wireless telecommunications has been the subject of a long-running dispute between the telephone industry, privacy groups and the Justice Department and the FBI, which have represented law enforcement agencies nationwide. In 1994 Congress enacted the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which mandated that law enforcement get the capabilities it needed to monitor wireless communications without imposing unreasonable costs on industry or undue invasions of privacy. The law did not, however, spell out how this should be accomplished. The FCC proposals approved yesterday mark the first time that a neutral referee has defined what exactly is required by the 1994 law and has thus defined the final stage of the debate. "The FCC indicated its determination to ensure that, in the face of rapid technological change, law enforcement maintains its ability to use court-authorized wiretaps to combat the most serious crime, and at the same time the FCC recognized the important privacy interests at stake," said Jonathan Schwartz, an associate deputy attorney general. The Center for Democracy and Technology, which has led the fight for privacy groups, issued a statement charging that the FCC had "proposed turning wireless phones into location tracking devices and requiring telephone companies to build additional surveillance features into their telephone networks, largely rejecting privacy arguments that the government already has too much surveillance powers." The Justice Department and the FBI asked the FCC to intervene in April after failing to convince industry and privacy groups to accept a list of nine technical provisions considered essential to meet law enforcement's needs. The FCC's proposed rules accepted the law enforcement position on five points. These include access to detailed information on conference calls, such as knowing when a party has gone on hold or has dropped from the call. In addition, the FCC acceded to law enforcement's request for access to digits dialed by a caller after the call has been connected, such as the numbers punched to get access to a bank account or voice mail. The FCC rejected law enforcement demands on three points, including a requirement that carriers send a signal to verify that a wiretap is functioning properly, and declined to rule on a proposal that the carrier send a signal whenever a caller received a network message, such as an incoming ring that did not result in a completed call. The proposal acknowledged the telecommunications industry's complaint that the FBI was demanding capacities "that go beyond the scope of what Congress had intended," said Thomas E. Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. The FCC rejected a petition from the Center for Democracy and Technology asking it to prevent law enforcement from gaining location information from wiretaps on cellular phones. The proposed rule would oblige carriers to provide any information they have on the location of a phone at the beginning and termination of a call. "This does not turn wireless phones into tracking devices," FCC Chairman William E. Kennard said in a statement. "Law enforcement can only secure this information if a court authorizes it. This capability will help law enforcement make our streets safe." © Copyright The Washington Post Company ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sure bet the "EOP" was jerking Softwar's chain, observing one or two levels deeper what he reports he was getting from his ISP. Such reconnaissance by fire is customary practice, according to multi-level logs of the snoopers prowling the finer-grained log levels down to what semi-skilled ISPs are able to keep track of, report on, and fend the prying devils/customers off with. Watch out, though, for the deepwatchers of the recon teams sent out as freshmeat from compsec training bases of the infrastructure protection farms, some working for, running ISPs. Some of the recon by fire teams are bait the CI meanies use to snare those working both sides, you know, the venerated old salts "who set up Arpanet" and their hotshot inheritors at the best universities and tanks in the country convinced they know what's best for the churchgoers of techno future. Software mentioned the name of one of them advising on how to do this, though it's not clear that Smith knew who he was inadverdently passing over while he was avidly trying to catch mechanical rabbits sent out to run the inbred speedsters ragged chasing easy prey, not knowing, not caring, they're on a track, just displaying they're trained to hang in there in sniffing range of the bunny's ass: Brown, Foster, Podesta, Hillary, Bill. EOP is not only what it's reported to be. Nor is any address that's readily traceable. Onion layered they are, more than NRL knows. Bet Anonymizer is not only what it's reported to be, that is, the semi-sharp operators don't know what it's being used to onion. Are remailers, recon by fire. Like this? Is strong encryption the answer? Right, peddle that.

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IP: WHITE HOUSE HITS SOFTWAR WEB SITE!
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 21:02:07 -0400 (EDT) To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com From: softwar(a)us.net (CharlesSmith) Subject: IP: WHITE HOUSE HITS SOFTWAR WEB SITE! Sender: owner-ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Precedence: list Reply-To: softwar(a)us.net (CharlesSmith) >From the 10/23/98 WWW hit report from www.us.net/softwar website % bytes files name 2.11 1.28 62230 20 | gov.eop.gatekeeper 198.137.241.100 GOV.EOP = EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT Once again, the White House has visited the Softwar web site. Last night the White House downloaded 20 files for a total of about 62K worth of data. The White House seems to be interested in the SOFTWAR documents covering the CSPP or Computer Systems Policy Project and John Podesta. One document of interest to White House fans of SOFTWAR is the memo written by BXA head Bill Reinsch to Ron Brown, dated June 1, 1995, which arranged a secret meeting between the White House and the CSPP on June 6, 1995. The CSPP has admitted in writing that they attended several CLASSIFIED briefings at the invitation of the Clinton White House on super computer exports and encryption technology. Another curious White House download included data on SOFTWAR's new ciphering products such as our encrypted emailer and encrypted web browser. I extend a hearty digital welcome to President Clinton from the INTERNET. Mr. Podesta requested in the spring of 1998 that I send him written questions. Mr. Podesta has not answered these questions and now refuses to be interviewed. Again, I challenge the President, or anyone in the Administration, to answer the questions submitted as per Mr. John Podesta's request. I have attached the questions that HAVE NEVER BEEN ANSWERED below. My website provider - us.net - gives a listing of "hits" on my website. Most WWW providers can give you this information. Here is tip number six from my ART of INFO WARFARE postings. Tip #6 - Anonymous Surfing. Please note - each time you hit a web site (www site) with your internet browser it leaves your email address and more for the web masters to play with. They usually end up sending you spam (unsolicited) email on related services and products. Avoid this by surfing anonymously. Go to http://www.anonymizer.com - This service is great when you don't want to trigger those marketing programs and junk mail. It's also good to use if you visit the NSA, CIA, or North Korean web sites. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ March 2, 1998 Mr. John Podesta The White House 202/456-1907 Attn: Sarah Latham REF. INTERVIEW FOR ARTICLE IN INSIGHT MAGAZINE (Washington Times Group) TOPIC: ENCRYPTION and COMPUTERS Dear Mr. Podesta: Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. 1. What is your current position and previous term(s) of service at the White House? 2. Are you currently working on encryption policy? 3. Can the current "Key Recovery" design as proposed by the Clinton administration be used against political opponents or dissidents by oppressive governments such as China or Iraq? 4. Do you deny that Vince Foster and Webb Hubbell were involved in encryption policy and the CLIPPER project? If so please explain their documented meeting at NSA Ft. Meade in May, of 1993? 5. I have obtained documents that describe meetings between George Tenet and Webster Hubbell in reference to project CLIPPER which took place inside the White House in 1993. Please explain Mr. Hubbell's role in CLIPPER and Mr. Hubbell's role in encryption policy. 6. What meetings have you had with the Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP)? 7. What was the role of the Computer Systems Policy Project in Mrs. Clinton's Health Care Reform initiative? 8. What is your relationship with Ken Kay, Director of the CSPP? 9. Has the CSPP met in the White House, Old Executive Office or the Commerce Dept? If so, when and on what subjects? 10. I have documented evidence of three exports of encryption technology to China; HUA MEI, Motorola and RSA/SDI. Please describe the role of the Clinton administration in helping these exports take place. 11. Explain why meetings between the CSPP and the US Government should not come under the FACA (Federal Advisory Committee Act) laws? 12. Please explain Al Gore's role in CLIPPER and inside the Inter-Agency Working Group for encryption. 13. Please explain Ron Brown's role in CLIPPER and inside the Inter-Agency Working Group. Did Ron Brown discuss encryption with representatives of China? 14. Was the CLIPPER design or Skipjack algorithm disclosed to any foreign government or representative? 15. What kind of encryption policy did you discuss with CIA Director Deutch, George Tenet and NSA Director McConnell in late December of 1993? 16. What role did the Federal government play in the merger of Silicon Graphics and CRAY? 17. Please describe the Clinton administration's role in the "accidental" export of Silicon Graphics super-computers to a Russian nuclear weapons lab and the exports of some 46 supers to China. 18. What role did the Federal government play in dealings with Andrew Logan in 1993? Did Mr. Logan get paid to not sue the US Government over the CLIPPER design? 19. What role did the Federal government and specifically AL GORE play in the 1994 negotiations to purchase the DSA patents from Mr. Bidzos, CEO of RSA Inc.? 20. Please explain how you can serve on policy and still remain part owner of Podesta & Associates without conflict? 21. Were there or are there any plans to mandate government encryption and nationalize the industry? 22. Why would the Commerce Dept. reference the US government DSA (Digital Signature) algorithm when I requested all information on back doors or special software to monitor US domestic financial transactions? Does DSA contain some back door or other exploitable feature? 23. Explain the role of the FORTEZZA smart card as the proposed national health care card during the 1993 Health Care reform. 24. Does the White House hold closed meetings with other groups covered under the FACA rules? For example I have documents that reference closed meetings with Dr. Willis Ware of the Computer System Security and Privacy Advisory Board. 25. Explain the role of AT&T and CLIPPER? Please note I have documents which detail the 1991 and 1992 meetings between Scrowcroft and AT&T to purchase the initial batch of AT&T 3600 phones. I also have details of the substitution contract to AT&T issued in 1993 to remove the DES chips and put CLIPPER in place. 26. Explain the role of Mrs. Hillary Clinton in encryption policy and project CLIPPER. 27. Explain the relationship between the administration, Mr. Stephens of Arkansas, his company Systematics and the lawsuit over PROMIS software. Again, thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I would like the opportunity to follow up if possible. Best of Wishes, Charles R. Smith SOFTWAR ================================================================ 1 if by land, 2 if by sea. Paul Revere - encryption 1775 Charles R. Smith SOFTWAR http://www.softwar.net softwar(a)softwar.net Pcyphered SIGNATURE: 53A79B0B3629F6D9F2F28DFE4000844F2FF14AA1235806369F861DA7546777BE C10793051D8CC7ED9E0F67D3DAD2B39F113F7A74B8D6A77CE8A867CCB46A99FE 22C5DCF13BD55532 ================================================================ **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **************************************************** --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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IP: Senate Passes Forward-Looking Electronic Signatures Bill
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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IP: FCC Proposes Rules for Cellular Wiretaps (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Subject: IP: FCC Proposes Rules for Cellular Wiretaps > Date: Sat, 24 Oct 98 22:34:48 -0700 > From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri(a)netcom.com> > From: believer(a)telepath.com > Subject: IP: FCC Proposes Rules for Cellular Wiretaps > Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 07:57:54 -0500 > To: believer(a)telepath.com > The FCC proposals approved yesterday mark the first time that a neutral > referee has defined what exactly is required by the 1994 law and has thus > defined the final stage of the debate. What in the world makes this person believe that a regulatory agency such as the FCC is a neutral referee? ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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IP: Internet Police on the Prowl in China
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com X-Sender: believer(a)telepath.com Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 07:54:22 -0600 To: believer(a)telepath.com From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Internet Police on the Prowl in China Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Precedence: list Reply-To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/digest/wtech001.htm Internet Police on the Prowl in China By Michael Laris Special to The Washington Post Saturday, October 24, 1998; Page A12 BEIJING - As head of the Shanghai Police Department's Computer Security Supervision office, Qing Guang is in charge of ferreting out "harmful information" on the Internet. He has to look only as far as his own in box. Qing is an unwitting subscriber to Chinese VIP Reference, an electronic pro-democracy magazine run by Chinese students and scholars from a small office near Washington's Dupont Circle. Every 10 days, editors e-mail their magazine -- with its essays on "thought liberation," bulletins on democracy activism, and reader-inspired reports on corruption -- to more than 100,000 Internet users in China. Qing is one of them. And that makes the tough-talking Shanghai cop crazy. "For me, this kind of information is useless. When you put it in my mailbox, it's a type of spiritual pollution. All the users don't want to receive these kinds of things," Qing said in a rare interview. "If there was something you didn't need, and I sent it to you by force, could you accept that? Would you be disgusted or not?" The Internet is slowly coming of age in China, prompting a showdown between Communist Party officials who seek to maintain their media monopoly, and upstart Internet publishers relying on powerful technology and their uncensored news coverage to appeal to China's best and brightest. The number of Chinese Internet users has jumped 75 percent this year to 1.2 million, and it is expected to reach 10 million in five years. Eighty-five percent of users are under age 35, and they represent an influential elite of students, intellectuals and officials. VIP Reference reaches at least 10 percent of Chinese users and perhaps a greater percentage if reader surveys about how often it is forwarded are accurate. The Chinese government is ambivalent toward the Internet. Telecommunications officials have been investing millions of dollars to increase Internet access, and national policy supports its swift growth, but propaganda and security officials oppose its unfettered expansion. As Chinese at home and abroad have become more effective at spreading their ideas online, police and state security agents have launched a campaign to train "Internet police" and pursue those responsible for "hostile magazines." "The water that carries the boat can also tip it over. The Internet is also like this," the People's Daily, the most authoritative voice of China's Communist Party, wrote on Oct. 12. "Going online is inevitable, but tremendous economic benefit requires an assurance of safety." China's leaders are not alone in their concern. New York-based Human Rights Watch is looking into reports that governments in Malaysia, Turkey and Bahrain have persecuted their citizens for distributing political information online. "It is precisely because of the Internet's potential for increasing the civil and political participation of the disenfranchised that regulators are seeking to control it," said Jagdish Parikh, online researcher for Human Rights Watch. But China's government, which relied heavily on underground propaganda to build support for taking power in 1949, is especially sensitive about keeping its own censorship structures in place. Authorities boast that China was the first country to require Internet users to register with the government, and police are institutionalizing the monitoring of the country's networks. In Shanghai, for instance, Officer Qing has trained more than 200 employees from government work units to be the eyes and ears of the police on local networks. In three-day seminars, Qing describes the dangers of "black guests," the Chinese term for hackers, and explains Internet security. He also explains China's stringent Internet regulations, which went into effect last January. "No one is allowed to release harmful information on the Internet," Qing said. "You cannot send out harmful information which attacks our nation's territorial integrity, attacks our nation's independence, or attacks our socialist system." Qing would not say how many Internet cases are being prosecuted in China, nor how many police are surfing China's networks. But in interviews, Chinese Internet users who have had run-ins with security forces say the pressure is growing. Lin Hai, a computer entrepreneur in Shanghai, was arrested in March for allegedly providing his database of 30,000 e-mail addresses to VIP Reference. Although Lin had not been active in politics, and had openly sold and exchanged e-mail addresses as part of his online headhunting business, he has been charged with "inciting the overthrow of national power." Xu Hong, Lin's wife, said trading e-mail addresses is considered as sinister as trafficking in postage stamps, and she believes authorities are using her husband to send a message. "It's 'killing a chicken to scare the monkeys,'" she said, using an old Chinese expression. Feng Donghai, a co-founder of VIP Reference who works as a telecommunications researcher at Columbia University, said his parents and friends in China have been visited by state security agents four times in the past several months to investigate him. "I also received a lot of reader messages that they were visited by national security police because they received our magazine," Feng said. But, like Officer Qing, many have an alibi. "When police question our readers, they can claim they never subscribed," Feng said. The magazine has editors and contributors around the United States and in China, and is part news source and part network. Democracy campaigners in China have used it as a forum for discussing reform, and to locate the e-mail addresses and phone numbers of fellow travelers. VIP sends copies of its magazine not only to police officers but also to Chinese lawmakers and government officials, as well as thousands of citizens. VIP also e-mails a smaller-circulation daily update on dissident activities. Readers e-mail the magazine 500 times each day. About 30 of those are requests to be removed from the mailing list, but many others write to talk politics. The Chinese government has set up e-mail filters to block distribution, but editors send the magazine from different addresses each time and have an elaborate system within China to ensure the messages reach their destination. Feng said he gets several dozen e-mail threats a day and has also been hit by e-mail "bombings," which fill up his in box with large files. Several of VIP's other key editors are trying to keep their identities secret to escape similar trouble and to avoid being blacklisted. The chief editor of "Public Opinion," an electronic journal edited in China that focuses on government abuses of power, said he went into hiding after police investigated his company. "I was scared. Many people like me, who say things they shouldn't, have been struck," said the editor, who gave his name as Li Yongming in an e-mail interview from an undisclosed location in southern China. But Li has continued working on the magazine. "I will not let others cover my mouth," he said. © Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **************************************************** --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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e-cash, banks, systemic risk, and financial safety in the Metro
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 16:07:04 -0400 (AST) From: Ian Grigg <iang(a)systemics.com> To: dbs(a)philodox.com Subject: e-cash, banks, systemic risk, and financial safety in the Metro Cc: daveb(a)hyperion.com, djackson(a)jackson-trading.com Reply-To: iang(a)systemics.com Sender: <dbs(a)philodox.com> Precedence: Bulk List-Subscribe: <mailto:requests@philodox.com?subject=subscribe%20dbs> X-Web-Archive: http://www.philodox.com/dbs-archive/ I've been a faithful believer in the past that banks are not the right organisations to get involved with electronic cash. To some extent, this has been merely a learning exercise in order to determine the shape and composition of the ideal organisation that should be involved; starting off by rejecting the status quo is always educational. When building electronic cash systems, it is an obvious question to ask, and if not, your customers soon do so for you. Over time, another face has arisen, that of defending society from threat of the new world being monopolised by the dinosaurs of yesteryear. In short, the need to keep banks out of electronic cash. At the end of this rant, I have attached a post from Dave Birch of Hyperion, in which he presents some evidence of how banks are failing in the smart card area. This I find personally amusing, as I argued in my paper on the EMI's 1994 Opinion that smart cards were something that the banks could get into and sensibly monopolise. I guess that argument now looks somewhat weak. Whether banks should be involved in electronic cash is part of a wider question as to whether they should be involved in payment systems. Such a question is not really discussed; It is fairly to clear to me after several years of central bank watching that much of the regulators' thinking in these areas is muddied due to their lack of appreciation of the key distinction between banking and payment systems. In private and sometimes in public, the more enlightened of the insiders tend to agree that such a distinction doesn't really make sense to most central bankers. In such a void of discussion, it is insufficient to simply state that the business of payment systems is not the business of banking, as I have been doing for the last few years. Making such a statement does gives rise to the conclusion that as different businesses, payment systems and banking should at least be separately regulated. From any sensible business principles, unless there is a compelling reason to combine them, one separates them (and it should said that the marketing benefits of securing additional customer ownership for banks are not really compelling enough to argue for public intervention). Such an argument is consistent and valuable, but has not really made the grade as far as convincing the world to change. We need more. We need to collect more information on why payment systems need to be decoupled from banking. One argument that has arisen, which I have been recently made aware of through discussions with Douglas Jackson, is that the combination of payment systems and banking raises the risk of systemic failure in the economy. The logic runs like this. Banks, being the places where the money is kept, are subject to attachments by goverments; one of the bugbears of Free Banking is that it is not stable in the long run, being unable to survive a long-term attack by a regulator that seeks to attach the funds managed. Now, leaving aside from our natural distaste of theft with coercion, we need to identify how this makes the system weaker. When a regulator coerces a loan out of a bank, such as occurs regularly in periods of systemic turmoil (LTCM, the Asian crisis, S&L, need we go on?), then the bank that extends these funds will be made weaker. That is, it has somehow been lumbered with a non-performing asset, which weakens its balance sheet. To see how this must be the case, consider what would happen if the loan made was in fact a performing one. Trivially, any bank would take on a performing loan without the advice of any regulator, as this can only be good business. Therefore, any business that the regulator gets involved in must be non-performing, and therefore must involve coercion (or perhaps some other subsidy, but that is not considered here). Now, this pushes the bank in the direction of failure. If the bank fails, we now have two problems, being the original failure that caused the coerced loan and the second failure of the coercee. It takes no learned education to see that this process is starting to look like an epidemic. If the bank does not fail, then all is apparently well and good. Regulators might argue that their coercion and the consequent dead loss to the bank's balance sheet did in fact pay off, in societal terms, and they simply need to be careful to only load up a bank as far as it can support the load. The problem with this is that the regulators can make no such argument. Was it Mises who said that governments have no special monopoly on good decisions, and therefore no better ability to regulate than the market itself? Sooner or later, the regulators will make a mistake, forcing their new found compliant bank into bankrupcy in order to bail out the previous disaster. Can we accept that? We might be able to, if it was some statistical thing - every now and then, our leaders make a mistake, and something breaks. Every now and then a bank fails that did not need to, but most people shed only crocodile tears over bank failures. Well, no. Unfortunately, the mere action of succeeding in repairing the situation by coercing one good bank to bail out another bad bank causes a reward scheme that self-perpetuates the activity. More simply, bad behaviour gets rewarded, and good gets punished. Where does this incentive lead to? Evidently, repeated bail-outs and bad loans across the entire banking industry, which net out to a general weakening of the industry balance sheet. This industry-wide weakening to the system of banks is not a good sign, but when it is coupled, as it causally must be in this case, with a regulator's propensity to shift bad onto good, and risk an occasional mistake in the act, then the whole system is at risk from the very people sworn to protect it. People need banking, not banks. Who said that? He might have been thinking of the above, and perhaps predicting that we would not be able to escape from a situation of regulated weakness in the banking sector. Assuming we cannot avoid the above problem, and it is historically evident that many best efforts have failed, then we must look at containment. Banks may be unsound; the economy must go on. And herein lies the nub of Jackson's argument. What better way to spread failures than through payment systems? Payment systems by their nature link banks into a system of banking. Better than that, or worse as the case may be, payment systems are generally offered to and used by many other sectors of the economy. Such a powerful invention as the payment system, or money as the economists like to call it, will be made universally available. Their power is a double-edged sword. Failure of a payment system is capable of crippling economies, toppling governments and causing widespread destruction of wealth. Russia today, Albania yesterday, and the Weimar Republic in yesteryear are powerful reminders of what happens when the payment system fails. Clearly, to then reserve payment systems to banks, which are fundamentally regulated as to be unsound, is to raise systemic risk. The hitherto unchallenged argument of the central banks, that their role is to protect the system against systemic risk, should now be presented back to them as a reason for them not reserving payment systems for banks. Independant payment systems, separated from the regulated, risky and weakened world in which banks operate, must therefore decrease systemic risk in the financial system, ceteris paribus. This argument is one that supports separation. Is there another? And to be rigourous, is there an argument that supports the combination of banking and payment systems? iang PS: follows is Dave Birch's post that catalysed this rant, although the thoughts have been permeating for many a year. Also note that this inclusion does not in any way evidence Dave's endorsement of my arguments. =======8<==========8<==========8<==========8<==========8<=== From: Dave Birch <daveb-lists(a)mail.hyperion.co.uk> Frank Sudia said >Several large organizations have undertaken consumer purse trials in the >US, which have been miserable failures. The only consumer purse trial I can think of is the Mondex/Visa trial in New York. I saw a report on the web a couple of weeks ago (Business Week? Internesia sets in). The top three places where consumers in New York wanted to use their electronic purses were for subway tickets, taxis and payphones: not one of these was included in the trial. I bet that you can buy a fur coat in Bloomingdales with your Mondex card but not pay a parking meter. Worldwide, the situation is much therefore more interesting than your comment suggests. I might characterise it as follows... Several large organisations (banks) have undertaken consumer digital money trials which haven't been runaway successes. At retail point of sale, which is where electronic purses are being trialled, smartcards have no competitive advantage over cash whatsoever. Why do they persist? It's because banks treat electronic purses as cards (instead of computers, which is what they actually are). As a consequence, they are handled by the "card services" (or whatever) department of the bank. What is "card services" main business? Merchant acquiring. Who do "card services" talk to about electronic purses? The merchants that they already acquire credit card transactions for, rather than they guys who run parking meters, vending machines, payphones, taxi meters etc etc etc. Other large organisations (not banks) have undertaken consumer trials which have been great successes. Examples are * mass transit operators (e.g. Hong Kong mass transit does more smartcard transactions every day than Mondex and VisaCash have done in their history) where people find smartcards far more convenient than tickets or coins. London Transport are soon going to issue more than 7 million contactless smartcards for people to pay for subway and bus fares: how long before the newspaper vendors at the stations accept these cards as well? * campuses (in Europe and the US), where people need change for a million reasons everyday (photocopiers, payphones etc etc) and it saves the campus operators a lot of money to not have collect cash from machines. I'm just as frustrated as everyone else that electronic purses aren't catching on as quickly as I'd like. All I'd say is that purses will come (even in America), so it's best to just take it easy and wait. Regards, Dave Birch. === mailto:daveb@hyperion.co.uk ===== http://www.hyperion.co.uk/ === --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: so, what did Toto *do*, exactly to get locked up? (Re: rules of en
by DOOM Anonymous Untraceable User 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate wrote: > > anonymous wrote > > And it's likely they have subpoenaed more people than we've heard from. > > I just hope they don't subpoena Bill Payne, or we'll receive a copy of it > > every week for years to come. > > Yep, with those silly/strange capitalizations and sentence structures of his > which look suspicously like some form of stego. You'd think somebody who > claims to be that educated would have at least learned basic grammer (unless it > was intentional). That explains it. > This does raise an interesting point about freedom of speech and the duties > of LEA's. In a democratic society what are the ethical implications of LEA's > archiving publicly available documents as a matter of course, not for > inclusion in ongoing investigations but rather as a base for future > investigations. Echelon. Also see [*1 below] > In addition, while the remailer operators do seem to be > protected by ECPA (I was advised that I fell into this category via SSZ) > what about the public archive operators? Are they covered under this > umbrella? remailers are carriers. ECPA says that if you do not review content, you aren't responsible for it. Archivers are content providers. They have to make do with a 1st ammendment fig leaf. What archives are there? There is one in Singapore (outside jurisdiction) and one at sof.mit.edu that mysteriously went off the air a little while ago. Or was it something more sinister? On the topic of ECPA, I did an archive search: (my comments in []) From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic(a)eff.org> Subject: Re: FIDOnet encryption (or lack thereof) Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 11:07:09 -0400 (EDT) Bill writes: > Heh. OK. Well, if one behaves "ethically", then I guess *that* closes > the issue. It's his machine and he gets to make the rules. (this is > my personally-adhered-to point of view) My question is this: how does he know that the mail is encrypted if he's not examining the mail that passes through his system? If he *is* examining the mail that passes through his system, it seems likely that he is violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. --Mike [hey, Jim really is protected. He's not even allowed to read CDR mail.] To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: The last word? (forwarded article) From: fergp(a)sytex.com (Paul Ferguson) Date: Fri, 02 Jul 93 00:21:16 EDT BoardWatch Magazine July 1993 pages 43 - 46 Steve Jackson Games v. US Secret Service by Peter D. Kennedy [preamble] The Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Two provisions of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (or ECPA) were paramount in the suit. The plaintiffs claimed the Secret Service violated two provisions -- one prohibiting unjustified "disclosure and use" of e-mail (18 U.S.C. 2703; the other prohibiting "interception" of e-mail (18 U.S.C. 22511(1)). [*1 Interesting. Maybe they have Toto for something intercepted illegally and they're trying to find it from another source (by subpoena).] From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic(a)eff.org> Subject: Re: Restrictions on crypto exports Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1993 23:32:17 -0400 (EDT) [re: public domain software on ftp archives] It matters not, IMHO, since an ftp archive site qualifies as a library open to the public. --Mike

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Re: Regarding Mitnick: not.
by Brian B. Riley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 10/25/98 12:11 AM, Information Security (guy(a)panix.com) passed this wisdom: >ZDnet just sent out a newsletter promoting a series of stories, >including this one: > ># IS YOUR KID A HACKER? ># Is your teen hacking the Pentagon instead of doing homework? ># How to tell -- and how to handle it. Convicted hacker Kevin ># Mitnick gives his views. ># ># >http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/zdnu98102501/www.zdnet.com/familypc/content/9 >810/columns/parental.html > >No mention of Mitnick. > >They apparently meant to name the article author 'Kevin Poulsen'. > ># It happened to my family 15 years ago, in one of the first hacker >raids in the ># country. At that time, I was the teenage miscreant who was illegally >accessing ># federal computers. Now, in my early thirties, I've begun to wonder how >I would ># protect a kid of my own from becoming a poster child for computer >crime. I believe ># the best approach is to stay informed and to communicate with your >potential ># cyberpunks. > >That reminds me. For those who haven't seen it, there is a commercial >showing a little girl (about 8?) walking into an airport, dizzied by >all the destination choices. The narrative turns to ~"and the Internet >too has many destinations, not all of which she is ready for. Travel >together..." > >All things considered, better than the Federales approach. actually it sounds more like "Reefer Madness" nineties style. Brian B. Riley --> http://members.macconnect.com/~brianbr For PGP Keys <mailto:brianbr@together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key> "The first 75% of the project takes 90% of the time; the last 15% of the project takes the other 90% of the time. -- Barry Wainwright and numerous ofthe engineers

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