December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

wired news: Germany Gets Radikal About Extremists on Web
by tank 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

T O P S T O R I E S Germany Gets Radikal About Extremists on Web Tuesday - Are the German government's tactics for barring extremist material on the Internet realistic? Germany Gets Radikal About Extremists on Web by Rebecca Vesely 5:03 pm PST 21 Jan 97 - The German government, never shy about expressing its disdain for left- and right-wing radicals inside its borders, has taken to combing the Internet for signs of extremist activity. But Germany's effort to stop the distribution of terrorist manuals and Nazi propaganda is like pointing a fire hose at a beehive - instead of quashing the bees, it only scatters them, and makes them more insistent. Last week, German authorities filed charges against a member of the communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), Angela Marquardt, for linking to the banned left-wing magazine Radikal from her homepage, causing Net activists to anticipate another incident like that last September, when several German ISPs temporarily blocked Radikal's server, XS4All. In response, the magazine was mirrored on more than 50 Web sites around the world. "The decision to prosecute for linking to Radikal will probably bring yet another escalation of events, where this censored magazine will become all the more popular on the Net," said Felipe Rodriquez, managing director of XS4All, which is based in the Netherlands. "Censoring the Internet is usually very counterproductive, and an insurance that many people will mirror the information and start distributing it." XS4All, which describes itself as "networking for the masses," hosts some 4,600 homepages, and was recently in the news for posting several homepages for media banned in Serbia, such as Radio B92, that continue to offer via the Web live RealAudio feeds and frequent updates on the continued nationwide protests against the Serbian government. Banned in Germany 12 years ago, and published underground for the past decade, Radikal advocates the overthrow of the German government. German officials say the magazine's publishers provide terrorist information in their pages, including how to sabotage train lines. But the publishers argue that they have the right to publish material contrary to the German government. "We fundamentally reject the notion that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force," the publishers wrote in an article titled "Who We Are" in 1995. "The existing social conditions can only be changed if left-radical groups and associations build up their abilities and structures so as to be able to counter some of these effects even today. This, of course, includes militant and armed intervention, but these would be empty gestures if there wasn't also some sort of linkage or means of conveying their message." While publishers continue to produce the magazine in print form outside of Germany, sympathizers have been posting it to a homepage on XS4All. "As an act of solidarity with them and with Radikal we decided to put it on the Internet and, of course, to frustrate this censorship attempt of the German authorities," the sympathizers wrote in an email to Wired News. They added that while they had no contact with the publishers of Radikal, they are currently being investigated by Germany's public prosecutor general and have no plans to "go on holiday in Germany." Although Radikal is not banned in the Netherlands, the German government says that linking to the magazine from inside Germany is "aiding a felony," spokesman Ruediger Reiff told Reuters. In December, Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Cabinet approved a bill banning the electronic distribution of forms of hate speech, terrorism, and indecent material. The new German law places responsibility on the loosely defined "suppliers," and in response, CompuServe considered moving its administrative operations to a neighboring country. PDS member Marquardt says her prosecution has less to do with Radikal, than an attempt to quiet German citizens who, like herself, are outspoken critics of the government. "This is hardly about bomb-building instructions or highly detailed descriptions of train lines and their weaknesses," Marquardt, who could not be reached for comment, wrote in a statement posted on her Web site. "The all-too-stubborn guardians of the state will quickly learn: The Net interprets censorship as a malfunction and circumvents it." In the meantime, XS4All has not received any official communication from the German Justice Department, nor from the Dutch Justice Department. "Our policy is that as a provider we are not in the position to judge whether this magazine is illegal in the Netherlands, therefore we do not interfere with the liberty of speech of our user," XS4All's Rodriquez said. Copyright =A9 1993-97 Wired Ventures, Inc. and affiliated companies=

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Re: FBI Gets 500 Mil to Tap Your Communications
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"rwright(a)adnetsol.com" "Ross Wright" 22-JAN-1997 02:52:34.76 >at [8]. Unlike the earlier draft, this essay lays out its assumptions >and straightforwardly projects needed capacity growth. The result is >a capacity figure of fewer than 60,000 intercepts, less that 4% of >the original request. This level of capability would allow the FBI >simultaneously to monitor more than 500 phone lines in an area with >the population of Manhatta still an enormous increase on historical >numbers of intercepts. [...] >[8] <http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_3.01.html> Something that the CDT didn't point out was that basing wiretap "requirements" on past growth makes two assumptions, both of them invalid: A. Past wiretaps (& other probes, such as pen registers & tap-and-trace) were all entirely justified; the growth in their use does not reflect either use of them in situations they are not required for or use of them in situations in which government has essentially failed and more resources poured into the alleged "problems" (e.g., drug trafficing, money laundering, and pornography) will do less than no good whatsoever. B. The number of lines will go up at the same rate as the estimated growth in wiretaps. In regards to this latter one, if they go up at a greater rate, then the FBI will request expanded capacity; if they go up at a lower rate, they will assuredly not request a decrease, and will thus ultimately have the capablility to wiretap _all_ lines. >Fuck the FBI. With a backhoe. -Allen

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Aussie Ecash at Advance Bank
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Sender: e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com Reply-To: Ian Grigg <iang(a)systemics.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Precedence: Bulk Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 16:42:59 +0100 From: Ian Grigg <iang(a)systemics.com> To: Multiple recipients of <e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com> Subject: Aussie Ecash at Advance Bank <snipped Received headers> From: Edward Breese x1364 <edwardb(a)executive.advance.com.au> To: ecash-merchant <ecash-merchant(a)advance.com.au> Subject: ecash - latest news Date: Tue, 21 Jan 97 17:44:00 EST Message-Id: <32E47395(a)central.advance.com.au> Encoding: 41 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Sender: ecash-merchant-request(a)whitetail.advance.com.au Resent-Message-Id: <B0000000184(a)whitetail.advance.com.au> Resent-From: ecash-merchant(a)whitetail.advance.com.au X-Unsub: To leave, send text 'LEAVE' to <ecash-merchant-request(a)whitetail.advance.com.au> Dear ecash enthusiast, A short note to let you know that the ecash System Integrators kit was posted on the Internet last week. You can find it at: www.advance.com.au/advance/ecash/sysint.htm We are currently testing the ecash system internally here at Advance Bank. We hope to make the merchant software available for free download in the next 2-3 weeks - you will then be able to start building and testing your ecash enabled web sites. There will also be supporting documentation, such as: - the ecash merchant information kit - how to build an ecash shop - ecash usage guidelines etc Thank you again for your interest. We'll let you know as soon as the software is available for download. Advance Bank Subscription Information ======================== To subscribe to the ecash mailing list by e-mail: Send an email message to ecash-merchant-request(a)advance.com.au and in the BODY of the message type: SUBSCRIBE If you'd like to remove yourself from the ecash mailing list: Send an email message to ecash-merchant-request(a)advance.com.au and in the body of the message type: UNSUBSCRIBE --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/ FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://offshore.com.ai/fc97/ "If *you* don't go to FC97, *I* don't go to FC97"

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Re: FBI Gets 500 Mil to Tap Your Communications
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"rwright(a)adnetsol.com" "Ross Wright" 22-JAN-1997 02:52:34.76 >at [8]. Unlike the earlier draft, this essay lays out its assumptions >and straightforwardly projects needed capacity growth. The result is >a capacity figure of fewer than 60,000 intercepts, less that 4% of >the original request. This level of capability would allow the FBI >simultaneously to monitor more than 500 phone lines in an area with >the population of Manhatta still an enormous increase on historical >numbers of intercepts. [...] >[8] <http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_3.01.html> Something that the CDT didn't point out was that basing wiretap "requirements" on past growth makes two assumptions, both of them invalid: A. Past wiretaps (& other probes, such as pen registers & tap-and-trace) were all entirely justified; the growth in their use does not reflect either use of them in situations they are not required for or use of them in situations in which government has essentially failed and more resources poured into the alleged "problems" (e.g., drug trafficing, money laundering, and pornography) will do less than no good whatsoever. B. The number of lines will go up at the same rate as the estimated growth in wiretaps. In regards to this latter one, if they go up at a greater rate, then the FBI will request expanded capacity; if they go up at a lower rate, they will assuredly not request a decrease, and will thus ultimately have the capablility to wiretap _all_ lines. >Fuck the FBI. With a backhoe. -Allen

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Aussie Ecash at Advance Bank
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Sender: e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com Reply-To: Ian Grigg <iang(a)systemics.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Precedence: Bulk Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 16:42:59 +0100 From: Ian Grigg <iang(a)systemics.com> To: Multiple recipients of <e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com> Subject: Aussie Ecash at Advance Bank <snipped Received headers> From: Edward Breese x1364 <edwardb(a)executive.advance.com.au> To: ecash-merchant <ecash-merchant(a)advance.com.au> Subject: ecash - latest news Date: Tue, 21 Jan 97 17:44:00 EST Message-Id: <32E47395(a)central.advance.com.au> Encoding: 41 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Sender: ecash-merchant-request(a)whitetail.advance.com.au Resent-Message-Id: <B0000000184(a)whitetail.advance.com.au> Resent-From: ecash-merchant(a)whitetail.advance.com.au X-Unsub: To leave, send text 'LEAVE' to <ecash-merchant-request(a)whitetail.advance.com.au> Dear ecash enthusiast, A short note to let you know that the ecash System Integrators kit was posted on the Internet last week. You can find it at: www.advance.com.au/advance/ecash/sysint.htm We are currently testing the ecash system internally here at Advance Bank. We hope to make the merchant software available for free download in the next 2-3 weeks - you will then be able to start building and testing your ecash enabled web sites. There will also be supporting documentation, such as: - the ecash merchant information kit - how to build an ecash shop - ecash usage guidelines etc Thank you again for your interest. We'll let you know as soon as the software is available for download. Advance Bank Subscription Information ======================== To subscribe to the ecash mailing list by e-mail: Send an email message to ecash-merchant-request(a)advance.com.au and in the BODY of the message type: SUBSCRIBE If you'd like to remove yourself from the ecash mailing list: Send an email message to ecash-merchant-request(a)advance.com.au and in the body of the message type: UNSUBSCRIBE --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/ FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://offshore.com.ai/fc97/ "If *you* don't go to FC97, *I* don't go to FC97"

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RE: David Kahn advocates GAK
by James A. Tunnicliffe 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Robert Rothenburg 'Walking-Owl' <WlkngOwl(a)unix.asb.com> writes: > In today's (22 Jan 97) Long Island, NY Newsday Viewpoints, p. A31: > "Let Feds Overheard Cellular-Phone Talk" > by David Kahn (an editor at Newsday and author of "The Codebreakers") > He intones the usual horseman: "...such criminals as terrorists, drug- > runners, kidnappers and child-pornographers are increasingly using > encryption to conceal their plans and activities, the FBI says." Lions and tigers and bears, oh MY! > He also mis-states opponenents of GAK positions, claimingthe > criticism is that "key escrow [at least he doesn't call it key > recovery] won't work all the time", ignoring anti-GAK mentions of > COINTELPRO, J.Edgar Stalin^H^H^H^H^H^HHoover, etc. etc. Actually, I thought he summed up the anti-GAK positions reasonably well, though he didn't elaborate on them. The "it may not work all the time" statement was actually an admission of the pro-GAK side. > And the usual nonsense about "every day that criminal messages can be > heard is a gain" w/out noting that anyone smart enough to use crypto > now will not use it if GAK is fully implemented. I found the logic questionable, but more disturbing was the fundamental position that "loss of privacy [...] is a price that must be paid to gain security". Benjamin Franklin's statement about security and freedom comes strongly to mind when I hear nonsense like this. He then cites the (in "our" view, useless and intrusive) hassles that airline passengers must endure in the name of "security" as justification for more of the same! Talk about a slippery slope! > Newsday is part of the LA Times Syndicate, so member papers may also > have the same viewpoint appearing in their pages within the next > couple of days. > Their website is http://www.newsday.com ... I don't know if the > viewpoint is on-line there. It is, at http://www.newsday.com/mainnews/rnmi0522.htm Pretty disappointing stuff, but then Mr. Kahn IS affiliated with the NSA these days, isn't he? Tunny ====================================================================== James A. Tunnicliffe | WWWeb: http://www.inference.com/~tunny Inference Corporation | PGP Fingerprint: CA 23 E2 F3 AC 2D 0C 77 tunny(a)Inference.com | 36 07 D9 33 3D 32 53 9C ====================================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.0 Business Edition Comment: which I won in the PGP raffle at Cypherpunks 12/96... iQEVAgUBMuZ1UvAmQsmyRPddAQFO/gf+Ikw8GScPo/+lr00lKvTnF7dZdEYhE8GC bt7wu96a/4mE81261EwxqA8voI/y5T3RsUfZLeYsGX+wkuPyqK1QImO3A7O8PNnb AvFitSaNsrMqyKTa7mI63TrvoBDCqtN3vYdDeSl6ZPHJmhHO5MF6xVoA56yeF5xf h0ooejTgeYMOGMhf2faRCKU31AdFB+pjozxMo83X2ZrCzga8wiHeqlEEKWQnu1cJ 3jc+TVZnEI95idbQqeHvxh/BBRdprrPxBfncCb8wnXuLHxPmrsWGqfvMDpS06qhl ZWEFChYLDGwsMokvcY+ZOZ6x4jlwssFGDXpflcdjFnPBp3yJKjU7fA== =/siB -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: David Kahn advocates GAK
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- It might also be that David's year long sabatical at NSA's crypto museum which recently ended put him in touch with people who believe in GAK. I found it interesting that he noted the argument that each additional day of government access is a good thing. This is the kind of belief we know that NSA holds -- a.k.a. "not on my watch" -- but I haven't seen it publicly admitted before. - Carl -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMuZ35lQXJENzYr45AQEcfwQAqMftG0DXn1nr6faA6IHeAtqSXYanwnZb DiwqppU4nJqPtIvtFw8eOVVwyYCzIv046dFtwR2mk8HeL1v8I3R2sWm7waknFjlm TM84+vLamlVnBNPUAXRYOrFiEhPQm/iitR4GVrcga9mHJ+vrI38XQGzi0lxdg310 pWjq5Fxahag= =xhF7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- +------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Carl M. Ellison cme(a)acm.org http://www.clark.net/pub/cme | | PGP 2.6.2: 61 E2 DE 7F CB 9D 79 84 E9 C8 04 8B A6 32 21 A2 | +-Officer, officer, arrest that man. He's whistling a dirty song.--+

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Re: Dr. Vulis' social engineering experiment
by snow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sprach The Thorn: > Jane Jefferson wrote: > Jane is showing signs of independent thought. Tsk tsk. > > fail, countries would instantly be absorbed by other countries, many > > relationships based on love and trust would be destroyed. > > And during that time, the deadliest person alive - the toughest and > > the meanest, and the most effective in the face of all the chaos, would > > not be the person who was capable of preserving their privacy. Rather, > > it would be the one who was capable of surviving in it's complete absence. > BTW, the suicide rate would not go ballistic, since the suicide rate No, but I bet the murder rate would.

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Re: Thoughts re moderation, filtering, and name changes
by hjk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Dale Thorn wrote: > hjk wrote: .... > > I wonder who is so brainless, not to understand what's going on. > > Do you really think the subscribers are pure Idiots? > > Well, Heinz. You live in a country full of people, ordinary people, > variously called the hoi polloi, the sheeple, the unwashed masses, > and other interesting names. > ... > Now whatever you think of your fellow citizens, or even those of the > USA (to name an example), I'm sure is OK on whatever basis you apply > your judgement. But I guarantee you that the people on the cypherpunks > list are no more or less intelligent than the people who vegetate in > front of their TV sets every day, right there where you live, in all > probability. If you believe that your fellow citizens vote intelligently, > then I respond that cypherpunks vote intelligently. What do you think? > Well, I thought cypherpunks claim to be elite. Heinz-Juergen Keller hjk(a)ddorf.rhein-ruhr.de

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Re: Fighting the cybercensor.
by Jeremiah A Blatz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- "Phillip M. Hallam-Baker" <hallam(a)ai.mit.edu> writes: > Mission: > > Singapore and China are blocking certain net groups. I think > this is a bad thing, question is how can we stop it? The Web > was conceived as offering despots and dictators a choice > between remaining in the dark ages and allowing freedom of > speech. Blocking and filtering schemes threaten this ideal. > > > Requirements: > > A scheme which makes blocking of individual IP addresses > impractical. <snip> > Considerations: > [i.e. areas needing brainstorming] > > 1) Copyright. Clearly copyright holders such as CNN etc would > need to be involved. Although proxies have long been a part of > the Web and the scheme does not threaten their interests it would > be as well to get them on board at an early stage. I believe that the new copyright regs explicitly allow web surfing. Copyright should not be an issue, I think. IANAL. > 2) How can one prevent the proxies themselves being blocked? Some > ideas that come to mind: > > 2a) Only issue new sites gradually so that blocking requires > continuous updates. > > 2b) Use DHCP to change network addresses regularly. > > 2c) Some crypto hack I can't quite work out (hence the post to > cypher punks). I can phrase the challenge more compactly though. > We have two sets of opposed groups A and M. The A group wish to > establish a continued conversation with groups B and C. M is > willing to permit communication with group B but not C. Whenever > M discovers that a member of group B is willing to act on behalf > of group C, M transfers that member to the C group. > > The problem is to keep A's channels of communication open despite > the efforts of M for very large group sizes. > > I'm not sure if this is a pure crypto challenge or a game theory > problem. Secure connections from proxy to client would eliminate driftnet scanning. That's probably about all the crypto. One idea would to put /cgi-bin/redirect in all the distributions of apache, apache-SSL, etc. That way, anyone who cared at all about privacy or was clueless would have an anonymizer on their web server. People who really cared could run web spiders that looked for sites with the redirect, and have cgi-bins that returned a randomized list of 10 or so. They could periodically post the list to semi-relavent newsgroups. The idea here is to reduce the chance of a denial of service attack against the anonymizer pool. The points of attack that I can think of are: 1) Filter out out anonymized connections. Crypto helps solves this one. Of course, then the evil empire filters out crypto, but that's bad for business. 2) Make the list of anonymizers dissappear This is a bit easier for the bad guys. Stego could help solve the problem, especially if combined with crypto. (i.e stego the list, encrypted with a few key underground folks public keys, into a pic of the great wall of china or something. 3) Make it illegal to use anonymizers and enforec randomly. FUD. I dunno how to solve this one. Put anphetamines in the water supply? > Comments? If people are willing to work on this I can provide > some facilities and act as a media contact. Distribution wins. (BTW, look at www.anonymizer.com) Jer "standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMuZwuMkz/YzIV3P5AQEb5gL/aOgddVJ91jtZUPrDcsnqdhOFpKLx1IAH UMZi+HkdB+ZUsRhLxCSy0enpqxikwyFVOMINSr3uLRtYSIcuPK2JFdSACI79yISk 7oZWxwTO5TDMYtbBRAAZv/d9VyCT/EVE =OIEP -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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