December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: PCS Encryption?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I was under the impression that Fortezza was ok for classified >traffic. Did I miss the changeover, was it unannounced, or was I >simply misremembering? Fortezza now comes in several implementations for various, variable and multiple levels of classification and message handling. There is info on latest mani-dexterous products at NSA's armadillo and missi sites. If you don't want to be logged by NSA, see the Mykronyx bouquet at: http://jya.com/fortezza.htm To be sure, you might get logged anyway: jya.com may have been approved by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts for a snoop.

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Patrick May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sandy Sandfort writes: [ . . . ] > On Sun, 2 Feb 1997, Timothy C. May wrote: [ . . . ] > > Fourth, it sent a message to enemies of liberty that "Even the > > Cypherpunks have found it necessary to abandon their anarchic > > ways." > > That's one message that one could take from all this, I suppose. > I don't see it that way, nor do several list members who thanked > me in private e-mail for improving the list. Again, YMMV. This is the strongest point in Mr. May's essay, and it is not easily dismissed as a difference in perspective. I admit to looking forward to the moderation experiment when it was announce; the noise on the list was phenomenal even by cypherpunk standards. My procmail filters were approaching the level of complexity required for self-awareness and the ASCII art still slipped through. Plus, I generally agree with Mr. Sandfort's positions. The point above demonstrates that support of the current solution is not rationally justified. Banning people from the list, however ineffectually, and imposing moderation on the main list, rather than offering another filtering service, does indeed support the thesis that even a virtual anarchic society must resort to a central authority to solve some problems. The moderation mechanism is the message. > What didn't work was "local filtering" which has no feed-back > loop to engender comity. This is a strong rebuttal. The primary affect of local filtering is that posts which are filtered do not garner as many responses as those which are not. This feedback is swamped by the tendency of filtered messages to generate flames from those who do not filter them. Filtered sublists are a more effective technique, available to non-technical subscribers as well. Some of the more advanced tools discussed here, such as collaborative filtering, rating schemes, etc. have potential if the ease-of-use barriers can be overcome. A cryptoanarchic solution, however, should be technical and individual. Centralized human moderation does not have the cypherpunk nature. Regards, Patrick May

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by tmcghan＠gill-simpson.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

on or about: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 14:51:47 -0800 in a message allegedly from: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> {snip} > the really important issue is this: is the _physical hosting_ of the > Cypherpunks mailing list coterminous with the "Cypherpunks"? { much thoughtful and well-phrased commentary elided } > I would have had no problem had John announced that he was creating > a new list, the "Good Stuff" list, with Sandy has his Chooser of > Good Stuff. > But by making the _main list_ the censored one, this skewed things > considerably. > * Why, many reasonable people may ask, did I not simply unsubscribe > from the "Cypherpunks" list and subscribe to the"Cypherpunks-Unedited) >(or whatever it is called) list? Because of my overall anger > But the clear message by having Sandy censor the > main list (the default list, the list name with the main name, the > list we all know about, etc.) {snip} Now that the horse is out of the barn, ( or maybe not? ), I can't help but ask whether one specific 'change to the change' would have satisfied most of your objections: retaining 'cypherpunks' as the name of the unedited, all-the-crud-you-can-read-and-then-some, version, and adding an 'cp-worthwhile' list for those of us who prefer not to wade thru mountains of garbage to glean a few precious tidbits. What's in a name? Is perception more important ( to you ) than reality? If just swapping names between cp and cp-unedited would make such a large difference, I humbly suggest to you that you consider how much labels need to matter. Is the title of the group more important the the content? From where I sit, this looks a lot like a style-over-substance complaint. Of course, I don't have my trifocals on just at the moment. It may also be worth noting that the current 'status quo' is a transient experiment, with a fairly short time limit. When JG, Sandy, et al. evaluate the results with an eye to future direction(s), they may well consider an 'inverted default' for the two list names (i.e.: cp / cp-unedited) In any event, please accept my .02 in the spirit in which it is intended ( constructive criticism ). /* */

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swiss buy centralized euro-smartcard system
by Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.hotwired.com/staff/pointcast/Features/1814.html A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | U. Miami School of Law | froomkin(a)law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warm here.

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Re: PGP 2.1
by wlkngowl＠unix.asb.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 3 Feb 1997 10:46:20 -0500, you wrote: >Mark Henderson wrote: >> >> Larry Johnson writes: >> > Hello, >> > Can any;one tell me how to get a version of PGP 2.1? >> > Thanks >> > >> But, why do you want version 2.1? >Because the guy who wrote it was let off after that on his jail Phil Zimmerman? >charges, so I'm not going to use anything he made after that if No, the charges were not "jail charges". They were for exporting munitions. He was let off after 2.5 or 2.6. The urban myth is that 2.3a is safe. You can read the source code yourself. 2.6.2 is fine. Older versions actually have some minor bugs. >I don't know why. >I'm not saying that he rolled over or nothin buyt I'm gonna be >paranoyd like he said in the book. I dont suposse he'd mind, >since he said it. You'd be using a version with holes in it. Why not read the source code of the new version and verify it's security yourself? (If you can't undertsand it, it won't matter which version you're using because you're trusting it no matter what.) >I'm not real smart sometimes but I'nm not a real lamer, either. >(I don't think) Well, start thinking.... Rob ----- "The word to kill ain't dirty | Robert Rothenburg (WlkngOwl(a)unix.asb.com) I used it in the last line | http://www.asb.com/usr/wlkngowl/ but use a short word for lovin' | Se habla PGP: Reply with the subject and dad you wind up doin' time." | 'send pgp-key' for my public key.

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No Subject
by Krenn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Mark Henderson wrote: > > > > Larry Johnson writes: > > > Hello, > > > Can any;one tell me how to get a version of PGP 2.1? > > > Thanks > > > > > But, why do you want version 2.1? > > Because the guy who wrote it was let off after that on his jail > charges, so I'm not going to use anything he made after that if > I don't know why. > I'm not saying that he rolled over or nothin buyt I'm gonna be > paranoyd like he said in the book. I dont suposse he'd mind, > since he said it. > I'm not real smart sometimes but I'nm not a real lamer, either. > (I don't think) > No, you're not real smart. The source code is _provided_ with PGP. If you are paranoid, _read_ it. Krenn

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Re: Key Security Question
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > > On the other hand, if the "repairman" replaced your pgp executable > > > with version 2.6.3kgb, which uses your hashed passphrase as the > > > session key, you're hosed. Or if he installed a keystroke sniffer, > > > or added a small radio transmitter to your keyboard, or whatever. > > > Depends on your threat model. If you need to be paranoid, > > > they've already gotten you.... > > > > If you're really paranoid, you can boot from a clean floppy and > > reinstall everything from your backup tapes. You do have a > > contingency plan in case your hard disk goes bad, or gets a > > virus, don't you? Well, if you're in doubt, exercise it. Face it, the only solution is to wrap your computer, cat, family, car and yourself in aluminium foil and burn your hard disk whilst chanting "yamma yamma yamma yaaaaamaa" Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List" -Reply
by Eldon Jenkins 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sandy, I've been a member of this list off and on for the past few years. In reading this list daily for quite some time I feel that the filtering you are doing has made quite a substantial and positive change. Normally I would spend an hour or so at work filtering through the list deleting endless threads of nonsense just so I could glean the valuable information that is hidden in midst of the mindless chatter. Now the time I spend searching for information has been drastically reduced and I would like to thank you for this. While I am against censorship and moderation whole-heartedly I see this as a different case. You are not preventing anyone from posting, you just sort the posts and place them in their appropriate list. I see your efforts as more of an organizing project rather then censorship. I would love to see the list continue to be moderated. Just my two cents though. Eldon Jenkins USRobotics Programmer

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Dissolving Choke Points
by pdh＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was amused by the similarities of USG crypto policy and the moderation of the cypherpunks list. Recently a number of new regulations were announced to go into effect by a certain date. Requests for comments were made after the policy was announced. Many of us thought that was pretty sneaky. I feel the same way about the moderation plan. Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. There are lessons to be learned here. One is that censorship does not promote a stimulating and creative dialogue. The cypherpunks list right now is about as interesting as hanging out by the 7-11. Another lesson is the danger of choke points. We can see how tempting it is for people to exercise their control. Even John Gilmore was unable to restrain himself from involuntary social engineering experiments. Who would we have considered to be more trustworthy? Toad.com is a choke point, not just in terms of moderation but in terms of the rate at which it can distribute messages. Let's replace it. What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list. A message posted to any machine goes to all of the others. Each machine sends messages to its subscribers only once. Some of these machines should be across borders. The mail loop and multiple posting problems are solved by observing the message IDs. Fast implementation: use moderated mailing list software. Put a filter in the .forward file of the "moderator" account which looks at the message ID and forwards the message if it hasn't been seen already. The mailing list machines all subscribe each other. I've been looking for a stable machine with a good net connection to do this. I haven't found one. However, if we have many machines sharing the load, the stability of any one unit is not as important because the list will survive multiple "hits". Only the subscribers on one machine will be affected by having their messages delayed. This greatly reduces the work and responsibility for any one list operator. (As John will attest, keeping a machine running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, rain or shine, is a lot of work.) Also, with multiple machines, each unit handles a small amount of the load. This makes more machines available and has less impact on people's net connections. Last I checked, there were about 1200 addresses on the mailing list at toad.com. All we need are about 10 machines to take 120 subscribers each. (This is a completely manageable load.) Do you have a Unix machine on the Net? Does it have sendmail and Perl? Then you have all that it takes to participate. Send me mail and I'll help you set it up. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com P.S. I like and respect John and Sandy and I've learned a lot from both of them. While basically well-intentioned, they just made a mistake in this instance.

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Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Since it seems to be the topic of the day, here are some of my thoughts on moderating CP. o Moderation achieved what it could achieve. Spam is no longer clogging up the list. Insults, i.e., "Tim Mayo fucks children", are no longer polluting the list. o Moderation did not achieve what it couldn't achieve. The level of noise has been reduced, but signal has not been increased. This is sad, but true. The attempt was probably bound to fail, since many of the "top signal generators" have long left the list and are not about to come back. All that is remaining are a few diehards, such as myself, some TLA goons (knowingly or unknowingly) working against the cause, and many newbies and observers. I believe that Cypherpunks is beyond hope of recovery. In fact, each day Cypherpunk (as in cypherpunks(a)toad.com) lives on, it does damage to the cause. Let's kill the list. Once and for all. Let the hard core crypto go to Coderpunks, the politics to Cryptography, and the garbage into the void. I am well aware of the name recognition and reputation capital associated with CP, still I believe it best to *kill the list*. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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