December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: RC5-12/32/5 contest solved
by stewarts＠ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Any bets on whether the $5000 RC5-12/32/6 contest will be solved before the www.rsa.com contest status web page is updated? :-) Or how long before someone in the government starts talking about how 56 bits takes 65,000 times as long to solve as 40 bits, which is 26 years for a whole building full of computers, and even 48 bits ought to take a month and a half for a whole building full of computers (or supercomputers, if they hype it up....)? At 09:55 PM 1/28/97 +0100, Germano Caronni <caronni(a)tik.ee.ethz.ch> wrote: >challenge: RC5-32/12/5 >time: from start of contest until Tue Jan 28 21:54:58 1997 >method: massive distributed coordinated keysearch, details later which was a bit slower than Ian Goldberg's crack, but pretty close. How many machines were you using, on average? # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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Re: Rejection policy of the Cypherpunks mailing list
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dave Hayes wrote: > Dale Thorn writes: > > I heard years ago that approximately 10% of the people on the street > > are certifiably mentally unstable. > This depends on your standads of "unstable". I'll bet genetic > diversity is now much more of a factor then when those standards were > written. > > Multiply that by two at least for > > Los Angeles (suburban L.A., actually, Hollywood for example is much > > safer than Altadena or Westlake Village). > I beg to differ. Which parts of Altadena and Hollywood are you > referring to? I used Altadena as a generic example of a suburb, although Camarillo would be even better, since it's not so cosmopolitan as most of the 'burbs right next to L.A. Hollywood (to me) is an ideal example of inner city, for a lot of reasons. I love the place, dirt and all. BTW, I was *not* referring to walking around, I was comparing driving, mainly on the freeway. Statistics have come out in major papers that back my experience up 100%. I drive from P.C.H. @ Seal Beach Blvd. to the Ventura County beach area every weekend, and back again. I used to go down the 101 to the 405, then south on the 405 to Seal Beach Blvd. Nowadays I take the 101 all the way into town to the 5, down the 5 to the 605, and down the 605 to 7th Street in Long Beach. It's 3 miles further thru town, and 20 minutes slower on average, but I get only about one psycho per 20 round trips now, as compared to at least one per trip on the 101-405 combo when I went that way. The difference was striking, and I can only surmise that rednecks and their ilk are more fearful of attacking other people in the inner city as opposed to the outlying regions.

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Re: Rejection policy of the Cypherpunks mailing list
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

aga wrote: > On Tue, 28 Jan 1997, Dale Thorn wrote: > > aga wrote: > > > On Tue, 28 Jan 1997, Dale Thorn wrote: > > > > Igor Chudov @ home wrote: > > > > > Dale Thorn wrote: > > > > > > But seriously, I was just telling the folks over the weekend, if I > > > > had my hand on the button, a lot of people would die very quickly. > > > > As in The Day The Earth Stood Still, a single act of aggression would > > > > suffice to be immediately terminated. > > No trial, huh? Good question. The law we have right now already assumes that there are situations where a criminal will not go peacefully, if at all. In some countries (years ago?) such as England, bobbies were known to not carry firearms for ordinary street duty. Am I right? But here in the USA, that would be unthinkable. So my proposal doesn't eliminate the responsibility portion of law enforcement. I'd say, if a target were eliminated thru negligence, malfeasance, or other wrongdoing under "color of law" or whatever, let the courts handle that as they do now. My suggestion would give the law enforcers the ability to dispense the first level of justice expeditiously, which they cannot accomplish now due to all of the red tape and the corrupt legal system (lawyers specialize in getting chronic offenders off, particularly "traffic" offenses). By transferring a major portion of the bureaucracy to the pencil pushers, we can free up the street cops to do what they do best, namely bust or eliminate criminals. I dare say that the downside of this is much less pleasant than the virtual anarchy (in the bad sense) we suffer now. If the police get out of control, A.P. will arrive just in time to plug a few of those holes, so to speak. Ideally, future robotics should be able to provide something like Gort (sp?) to take the place of human officers, given advances in the kind of pattern matching needed to deter aggression and the like. Those who don't make it past the robots, well, the rest of us can learn to behave, and we'll be much better off when we do.

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Re: Libel & the 1st Amendment
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Cc to Dr. John Martin Grubor, Law Systems Institute] Jim Choate wrote: > > It has been asserted by at least one member that the 1st Amendment protects > libelous or other defamatory speech. [I would appreciate if people with better knowledge of law correct me] I doubt that anyone made this assertion. What Greg Broiles and Dr. Grubor asserted was that because of the first amendment, the government can not initiate an action in a libel case. Which means that libel is not a crime. There may be some old statutes that declare libel a crime, as Greg noted, but they are not enforceable because of the first amendment. Suits can be brought by private individuals though. The government, even if it is defamed, cannot sue a private person for libel. For example, I can say that Congress regularly molests small children, and they will not be able to do anything about me. > This is hokem. The 1st most certainly does not protect lies in any form. It ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > protects opinion, this is distinctly different then stating a untruth about > some party or distribution of material with the attributation to them > without their permission. Not exactly. I can lie as much as I want about the government. No one would be able to prosecute me. These particular lies are protected, contrary to what you state. The law does not protect ALL opinions, as well. > No civilized society can exist that permits lies and other defamations of > character and expect to survive for any length of time. Simply for no other > reason than contracts and other such instruments would not be worth the > paper they were printed on. Let alone any laws or other issuances from the > government itself. You are mixing in totally unrelated things, Jim. Enforcement of contracts has nothing to do with freedom of speech. For example, if you borrow $100 from me and fail to return your debt in time, this is an issue of contract law and not of free speech. Contract law is not about speech, it is about promises. > ARTICLE I. > > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, > or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of > speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, > and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. > > > Where in there do you see a right to lie, cheat, or steal? If it did, it > would be a lie because it would not protect the very freedom it says it is. Do you think that all rights should be found in the first amendment? What does the right to steal have to do with what we are talking about? I suggest reading "The Fourth Estate and the Constitution: Freedom of the Press in America", by Lucas a Powe, Jr. As for stealing and cheating in contracts, read any textbook on business law for business students. It is very useful to read this stuff, by the way. Not that these books give one a complete picture on law, but they are very informative. - Igor.

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M.M. / Re: Sovreign Right of Lawful Access
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike McNally wrote: > Somebody wrote: > > This morning at the RSA keynote, David Aaron, the US Crypto > > ambassador quoted the "Sovreign Right of Lawful Access" as > > something that goverments were determined to preserve. > > Speaking as a private indiwidual, and not as a drone in the employ > of IBM (don't get me started on the "but wait, key recovery *isn't* > the same as key escrow" hoo-ha), that dude scared the piss out of > me. That plinking sound you hear is the sound of NSA's bloodhounds stamping the phrase, in reverse, on the bottom of their jackboots. "Sovreign Right" has that certain ring to it which suggests the rhetoric of Dictators who imagine themselves to be Kings. "Lawful Access" has that "Of course, we will only use this 'right' against drug dealers.", kind of feel to it. Perhaps the student who popped RSA's test balloon could propose the "Universal Right to Casual Access." Toto

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Re: Rejection policy of the Cypherpunks mailing list
by Richard Fiero 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Get it straight Sandy Sandfort. I'm not in your home. I am in my home and I will observe my priorities, not your's. Sandy Sandfort writes: > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mail lists are far >more like private homes, businesses or clubs. When you are a >guest there, you are subject to their rules of behavior. If Dr. Vulis was pushing the envelope in list-abuse as a multi-stage social experiment, Sandy Sandfort has surpassed him by far. In part I refer to a Sandy Sandfort reply to a criticism made by Paul Bradley. The reply was made public two hours before the criticism was. This is not moderation. It is manipulation and interference. Since I have a low tolerance for self-serving pedantry, I never would have noticed the criticism if it had not been preceded by the reply. In the reply, Sandy Sandfort employs the name-calling "sophist" and "hypocrite." Also in the reply is the Freudian slip or obscene proposition: > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "Force," my ass. Shouldn't this have gone to cypherpunks-flames? One might wonder just what the rules of proper decorum are. -- Richard Fiero

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Re: East German Collapse (Was: Fighting the cybercensor
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One point I had forgotten. The demonstration took place on the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht. This is one explanation as to why the border guards did not attempt to open fire with firearms or attempt to break up the demonstration with tear gas. Also consider that the Tiennamen square massacre had occurred only a few months before and it did not appear to have settled the issue of who controlled china. Many of the dissidents were still at large, China was a pariah nation. East Germany had recently been visited by Gorbachev who did not appear ready to help keep the regime if things got sticky. The mass defections were taking place at their peak at a rate of tens of thousands in a day. Something like a quarter of the youth between 18 and 25 had defected. Bill if anything understates this point. Certainly if the people decide that the structures of state are not worth supporting change can be astonishing. I think that the spending into bankrupcy thesis might be argued for the case of the USSR and more plausibly the US. The problem is that I don't think that the military spending in either case bore any relation to need, to the threat from the other side or to any rational determination. I think both budgets simply increased to the limit that the economies could support and beyond. There is a similar problem in the third world today. Many third world countries spend more on arms than they do on health or education. Much of the alledged "foreign aid" is in fact subsidies for this trade. The arms are primarily to suppress internal dissent. There are plenty of governments left in need of similar reform. Phill

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Re: East German Collapse (Was: Fighting the cybercensor
by stewarts＠ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:59 PM 1/28/97 -0500, "Phillip M. Hallam-Baker" <hallam(a)ai.mit.edu> wrote: >>That's it? The system collapsed because the guards left their posts? >>And no mutiny charges? Incredible. >I was there. >The collapse of East Germany was quite spectacular. There >was at most three months of warning. First there was a series >of sit ins at foreign embassies, then a migration of large >numbers of people in their twenties within the eastern block. In particular, people started leaving East Germany by way of still-somewhat-communist Hungary (where the Germans let them go) and from there into Austria (where the Hungarians let them go), and it was getting to be tens of thousands of people per month. Once a system like that starts leaking, it's hard to contain. (ObCypherpunksContent: if substantial amounts of tax money starts escaping into Cypherspace, it's not easy to maintain a modern CorporatistWelfare-for-Bureaucrats state either.....) >Unfortunately US commentators tend to see everything in terms of >US cultural norms, many of which were explicitly rejected by the >protestors. The East Germans wanted West German affluence, they >wanted to be part of Western Europe. They were certainly not >responding to US military spending as right wing theorists claim, >nor was the economy collapsing because of the arms race, it >was collapsing because of the costs of a totalitarian state and >the incompatibility of that state with modern industrial >organization. The US right wing does argue that the Soviets couldn't afford to run a military industrial complex big enough to outrace theirs, and that it was a major contributor to the economic collapse (which it probably was.) Of course, they also consider that Communism isn't an economically viable system, ignoring the similar problems with the Good Old American Patriotic Military-Industrial-Complex, and somehow think that now that there aren't any Russian Commies to kick around any more that we need a bigger army, as well as a supply of easily-kicked-around enemies. Unfortunately, I suspect that sometime soon they'll remember that there still are a billion Commies left, and that Oceania has always been at war with EastAsia. Hopefully the Communist system in China will have fallen apart by then to the extent that it can admit to being a semi-capitalist kleptocracy instead of pretending to still be in charge of anything. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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Re: Last nail for US crypto export policy?
by Z.B. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 28 Jan 1997 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com wrote: [snip] > >EXPORTABLE CRYPTOGRAPHY TOTALLY INSECURE: CHALLENGE CIPHER BROKEN IMMEDIATELY > > > >January 28, 1997 - Ian Goldberg, a UC Berkeley graduate student, > >announced today that he had successfully cracked RSA Data Security > >Inc.'s 40-bit challenge cipher in just under 3.5 hours. > .... > >Goldberg used UC Berkeley's Network of Workstations (known as the NOW) > >to harness the computational resources of about 250 idle machines. > >This allowed him to test 100 billion possible "keys" per hour -- > Good grief...I just remembered that this challenge started today when I read this letter. A question - how does DES differ from the RC5 cyphers that are also up for breaking? Where can I find some software to use on these? Zach Babayco zachb(a)netcom.com <-------finger for PGP public key If you need to know how to set up a mail filter or defend against emailbombs, send me a message with the words "get helpfile" (without the " marks) in the SUBJECT: header, *NOT THE BODY OF THE MESSAGE!* I have several useful FAQs and documents available.

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Re: Fighting the cybercensor. (fwd)
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > I am a cyber-revolutionary and the world has bought into > > the chaos of our revolution. I never intended the Web to be a tool > > for confirming the present social order which is manifestly > > corrupt. > > Which of course is why you were in contact with Billy's boys right? We did consider very early on the idea of proceedings of congress annotated with the campaign contributions of the various speakers. Imagine if instead of Newt Gingrich you saw Newt Gingrich ($243,493 Tobbacco Industry) as a speaker note. We were in contact with the Clinton folks because the Bush guys ignored the Web and the Internet completely. They just were not interested. Nor were the Perot folks either - odd since the electronic townhall was a big part of their platform. Even in this campaign the Perot page could not be read with Netscape 6 months before the election. On the other hand have a look at www.buchanan.org If you thought that Pat got a bum rap off the press when they called him a neo-Nazi just take a look at his site. Buchanan Brigade? Look at the choice of topics for the speaches. Phill

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