December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Constitutionality of new regs.
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One issue which I haven't seen anybody address is the provision to make export licenses easier to obtain for those companies which show a credible business plan that supports GAK. 1) Isn't this showing favouritism in an administrative decision to people who support the government's political agenda. 2) If the export of a certain encryption `item' is inimical to `National Security', isn't the harm to the `National Security' the same regardless of whether the exporter plans to produce GAK products in the future or not? Based on these two points shouldn't this aspect of the regulations considered as being `arbitrary' and hence unconstitutional. A further thought. If you obtain an export license by showing the government a business plan that supports GAK, but then do not follow your business plan, how will the goverment `get' you?

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Shell Game News
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Online reports on the new crypto regs. MSNBC features Bernstein's challenge, with multiple sidebars. http://www.msnbc.com/news/49260.asp http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncs20.htm (AP brief)

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17 Dec '03

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by mozart＠asianet.net.hk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Zippy, anonymously
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:18 PM 12/31/96 -0500, Adam Shostack wrote: >http://www.metahtml.com/apps/zippy/welcome.mhtml > >Let Zippy provide you with web service. Chaining through the >anonymizer works, too. :) A suggested page is: http://www.metahtml.com/apps/zippy/zippy.mhtml/http://www.nsa.gov:8080/dirn… Pretty damn funny! (At least the version I got...) --- | If you're not part of the solution, You're part of the precipitate. | |"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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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:04 PM 12/31/1996, Douglas Barnes wrote: > The problem with payment schemes like this is that they're hard > to rationalize (as Lucky points out here). > A direct mail piece (via snail mail) can easily cost the sender > more than a dollar when all costs are taken into account. This > does not seem to have appreciably slowed down junk mailers IRL. > Spam to a large mailing list has a multiplicative effect (although > it's also easier to throw out and/or ignore.) Certainly if someone > had a real product, it would be worth anywhere from $1 to $25 to > post an advertisement to a sizeable mailing list. > On the other hand, a blanket charge would serve as a disincentive > to people who make valuable contributions, unless it were a > completely negligible cost, in which case the advertisers would > have no problem coughing up the money. There's a serious imbalance > between how annoying spam is and how much we're willing to pay > to post (most of us would like to see them charged to the point > where they wouldn't do it at all.) It won't be worthwhile for a year or two for spam artists to go to the trouble of figuring out how to do this. I'm not sure I have a good solution to this problem in the long term, however. If our custom was to send money to people who make good posts, then you could imagine the fee being quite high, say $20, since most of the money will be made back. Voila! We have a wonderful feedback system for how much contribution we have made. People who want to make sure that they are putting in at least as much as they take out can make a little rule for themselves: I won't take money out of my cypherpunks e-cash account. I will only send it to other people for their good posts. In effect, this is a fully distributed tokening system without the choke point of a single token administrator. > In general it seems very difficult to balance the various aspects > of maintaining a lively discussion, fostering a sense of community, > allowing anonymous postings, and keeping the whole thing simple > enough to actually implement. I agree that we should keep it sweet and simple. That's one nice aspect of the e-cash scheme. All the software is already out there, except (maybe) the majordomo part which I have volunteered to do. Keep in mind that if the list brings in, say, $1000/month that buys a lot of food. I have to think that this will liven up the monthly meetings and create many positive and lasting relationships. > I've been on the verge of responding to certain posters over the last > few months, and I've realized before I've hit the "send" key that > I'd be giving them just what they want -- attention -- while further > degrading the signal to noise ratio. This is exactly the sort of process which is facilitated by paying a dollar. In your case it won't make a difference, but most people will find their presence on the list becomes much more responsible when they have to put up a buck. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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No Subject
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Criminal, criminal, who's the criminal... WSJ, December 30, 1996: Obscure Treasury Unit Helps DEA Uncover Scheme >From the beginning, it was The Case That Didn't Add Up. It started with a woman in St. Louis who wanted to pay Federal Express $38 to ship a package supposedly containing a $2 paperback book to Los Angeles. The company called the local Drug Enforcement Administration office. [Thanks, FedEx assholes!] Ralph Moore, a DEA agent, got a search warrant, [Seems like pretty flimsy grounds for a warrant to me.] opened the package and found $10,000 in cash. [So?] He checked his records: The woman was on welfare. He searched her house and found a new car, $25,000 stuffed into a coat pocket and papers showing the woman owned seven buildings. "Follow the money" is supposedly an axiom for federal investigators, but in November 1994 Mr. Moore was discovering how tough that is to do in drug cases where suspects are rich and financially savvy. So who was Mr. Moore going to call? He noticed a DEA memo about an obscure unit of the Treasury Department, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. [Dum-da-dum!] The St. Louis case became a prime example of how Fincen, the nation's smallest intelligence agency, brings the latest in high-tech firepower to the never-ending battle against money-laundering schemes. The agency, created in April 1990, uses a staff of 200 analysts and agents to offer state- of-the-art computer tracking and analysis to state and federal agents and prosecutors, giving them more time to work the cases from the street. The DEA's Mr. Moore desperately needed the help. The woman who had mailed the package had a boyfriend who made $20,000 a year working for an electric company. The agent found he had more than 30 different accounts in one bank. Bank records showed hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing through them in patterns that never repeated themselves. Enter James Petrakis, a graying, 47-year-old Fincen investigator, who flew out from Washington. Mr. Petrakis designed a computer program for the case that could follow the money as it flowed through companies -- some phony, some real -- and through people who transferred ownership of some 30 pieces of local real estate that seemed to be involved. There were gaps in the digital portrait that emerged, but the general outlines were stunning: Mr. Moore had uncovered a family-run drug- distribution business that appeared to have stashed between $5 million and $7 million in various investments and purchases in St. Louis banks. Because the business also trafficked in guns, the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tax and Firearms was working on the case, too. Robert Nosbisch, the top bureau agent, agreed that tracking the money was going to be key. "The objective in a case like this is to get anyone who has a significant role into jail and take all of their assets," he says. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [What do you do when the highwaymen wear badges?] Mr. Moore's chief suspect, a short, hot-tempered man named William Y. Jones, "was too good," he recalls. Mr. Jones had a way of anticipating the federal agent's moves. "It was almost like a chess game. As I would move a piece, he would move a piece," the agent adds. There were other odd things. Although Mr. Jones was 43 (in 1995), his credit records and other personal history only went back to 1985. Before that, he had no records. Mr. Jones's biggest drug moves usually happened on government holidays, when the DEA and ATF staffs were slim. Mr. Moore had a theory: Mr. Jones was probably a federal informant, a man who had worked with federal agents in drug cases before. [More like a graduate of the Federal Witness Protection Program, I'd say. Seems odd that they want to ID us down to the last gnat's eyebrow while making up IDs for their buddies.] "We needed to become unorthodox," Mr. Moore recalls. When wiretaps led them to a $1 million stash of Mr. Jones's cocaine in a car, they seized the drugs and the car, too. Later they heard Mr. Jones say on his tapped cellular phone that federal agents didn't steal cars. One of his drug partners, Mr. Jones concluded, must have double-crossed him. [So now they'll just steal stuff from you and not even notify you that it has been confiscated. Amazing!]

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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by tmcghan＠gill-simpson.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Toto wrote: > {snip} the source of any excessive increase could be put on 'hold' > until the system operator has a chance to check on the validity > Bill Frantz wrote: > > > > The Christmas attack against this list shows the need to develop lists > > which are resistant to attacks. ...and how long has Usenet had 'moderated' newsgroups? ( only as long as there have been individuals with the time and patience to screen the volume of input, and exercise thoughtful discretion in selecting the 'worthy' postings.) How smart an 'automatic' filter can clever folks design? for(;;) { ECM; ECCM; } Thomas M. McGhan tmcghan(a)gill-simpson.com http://www.gill-simpson.com voice: (410) 467-3335 fax: (410) 235-6961 pagenet: (410) 716-1342 cellular: (410) 241-9113 ICBM: 39.395N 76.469W

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Tim May wants to Kill people!
by aga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is a very sick Tim May who says he would love to kill this guy with a ">clip of hollowpoints through your chest." On Tue, 31 Dec 1996, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > >Message-Id: <199612310025.QAA11547(a)adnetsol.adnetsol.com> > >Comments: Authenticated sender is <rwright(a)adnetsol.com> > >From: "Ross Wright" <rwright(a)adnetsol.com> > >Organization: King Media and RW Marketing > >To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > >Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 16:33:41 -0800 > >Mime-Version: 1.0 > >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT > >Subject: (Fwd) Re: Mr. May's Posts. Other Things. > >Priority: normal > >X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42) > >Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com > >Precedence: bulk > > > >This is the message I got in response to my post regarding Mr. May's > >offensive, racist, and bigoted post about ebonics. I have made > >overtures towards peace and tried to explain that I thought that the > >Doctor's verbal slapping was not as bad as it seemed, maybe even he > >deserved it!. He refuses to answer. He's just a pussy, I guess. > >Like's to make terroristic threats. To Nam vets, yet. Ballsy, Tim! > > > >Maybe the Doctor is not to far from wrong. > > > >I would rather have discussed this with you in private e-mail, or > >over a few beers, but you refuse to answer my e-mail. > > > >Received: from you.got.net (root(a)scir-gotnet.znet.net > >[207.167.86.126]) by adnetsol.adnetsol.com (8.6.12/8.6.6) with ESMTP > >id UAA29906 for <rwright(a)adnetsol.com>; Fri, 27 Dec 1996 20:25:14 > >-0800 Received: from [207.167.93.63] (tcmay.got.net [207.167.93.63]) > >by you.got.net (8.8.3/8.8.3) with ESMTP id UAA13732 for > ><rwright(a)adnetsol.com>; Fri, 27 Dec 1996 20:17:45 -0800 X-Real-To: > ><rwright(a)adnetsol.com> X-Sender: tcmay(a)mail.got.net Message-Id: > ><v03007800aeea52e5d282(a)[207.167.93.63]> In-Reply-To: > ><199612230801.AAA24862(a)adnetsol.adnetsol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 > >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 > >20:32:00 -0800 To: "Ross Wright" <rwright(a)adnetsol.com> From: "Timothy > >C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> Subject: Re: Mr. May's Posts. Other Things. > >X-PMFLAGS: 35127424 0 > > > >------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- > >Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 20:32:00 -0800 > >To: "Ross Wright" <rwright(a)adnetsol.com> > >From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> > >Subject: Re: Mr. May's Posts. Other Things. > > > >At 12:09 AM -0800 12/23/96, Ross Wright wrote: > > > >>hard on him. This latest rant of his has made me reconsider your > >>rough treatment of Mr. May. I kinda think he deserves a slapping > >>right now. > > > >Go ahead with your "slapping." > > > >Of course, I'd treat a "slapping" as an assault. I'd love to put a > >clip of hollowpoints through your chest. > > > >Your place or mine? > > > >Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" > >We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't > >allowed. > >---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------: > >---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital > >money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital > >pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, > >information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, > >collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on > >the information superhighway." > > > > > > > > > > >

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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:32 PM 12/31/1996, Timothy C. May wrote: >At 1:04 PM -0800 12/31/96, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >>At 11:47 AM 12/31/1996, Lucky Green wrote: >>>At 10:25 AM 12/31/96 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >>>> The easiest and fastest solution is to set up toad.com to charge a >>>> dollar per message. (Proceeds to be spent by John Gilmore as he >>>> sees fit.) >>>> We can then leverage off the existing e-cash infrastructure which >>>> already provides blinding software for free on all major platforms. >>> I am not sure that this proposal would work. Some of the spammers on this >>> list are rather dedicated. They might gladly pay a dollar per message. >> Let's try it and see how it goes. If it doesn't work, we can try >> a more complicated scheme. (I volunteer to modify Majordomo to >> make this happen. We could have this feature in the near future.) > "Let's try it and see how it goes" is often a dangerous step. It could kill > the list as we know it; exactly what fraction of current subscribers do you > think will arrange for digital cash accounts, will arrange their mailing > software to use this, will bother with PGP, etc.? It's not always bad to take a few chances. I've noticed that there is a lot of negativity in the cypherpunks scene. (I am not without sin in this department. ;-) It would be more exciting to try out a few ideas. I would much rather be trying lots of things and throwing out the bad ones. This should lead to better technology. This not only benefits the cypherpunks list, it benefits everybody using the Net, which is (I think) one of our goals. It short circuits poorly intentioned authoritarian schemes to dictate what may or may not be sent to a mailing list. (For example, people often propose to make spam illegal. Most readers of this list will recognize the camel's nose.) > Now maybe this is a Good Thing, to drive out the slackers and those without > good tools integrating PGP into their mailers, etc., but maybe it is not a > Good Thing. It could be a mistake, but I think the only way we will find out is to try it. Unlike the interesting token scheme, this is easy to deploy and it doesn't provide an insurmountable barrier to dissent. You can still put up a dollar to say "This is a drag! Let's get rid of it!" But if your token gets pulled by an abusive token administrator, it's harder to get the word out. (Not impossible, though.) Keep in mind that the worst case is that people will have to ask their e-cash endowed friends for a few ASCII tokens to prepend to their posts to the list. That is not very tough to arrange. >> I have seen a lot of complaints about "too much noise". That is >> not a problem. The problem is too little signal. I can extract >> the signal - unless it isn't there. > My sentiments exactly. But I fail to see how collecting a dollar per post, > or whatever the fee is ultimately set at, increases the number of good > posts (not the percentage, the S/N, the _number_, which is what we both > agree is the important thing). > Explanation? One thing it does for sure is to eliminate attacks where somebody sends thousands of messages to toad.com and overloads its capacity to forward them. It also means that bigger faster hardware can be purchased if the load gets too high, or to compensate somebody to wrangle majordomo. I suspect it will also promote high quality posting. Certainly, "me too" posts and "unsubscrive" posts will be greatly attenuated. And, people who post reams of drivel and invective can only do so at the expense of financing the monthly cypherpunks food bash. This doesn't mean they will stop, but it does mean that we can chown down on hundreds of pounds of guacamole at their expense. As for other people, I think if it isn't worth a dollar to you to post a message, it probably isn't worth it for the rest of us to read it. Without any real evidence, my feeling is that if somebody has to pay a dollar to post a message, they will give it more thought and write it more carefully. This is sort of like expecting children to use proper grammar, forms, and excellent handwriting in preparing a report. The result is that greater care and thought is devoted to the ideas in the report itself. I don't believe that people making valuable contributions have any trouble at all coughing up a dollar to do so. Very few people post more than 10 messages a month. $10/month isn't much of a burden. If this does turn out to be a problem, when readers see a post they like they should send the person a buck to encourage more good work. This is a very effective way of saying "I really enjoyed what you had to say." And, nothing stops frequent posters from asking for money on the list to continue their fine work. In a sense, this is a fully abstracted version of the token scheme. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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