December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Dale disses gays.
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 19:35:01 -0800 From: Dale Thorn <dthorn(a)gte.net> :Another funny thing - I'm an ordinary English/Welsh/Dutch White :person, Makes me hate myself. :and I've had plenty of White friends, and an equal percentage of :Black friends given the number of Black people I've known, but I've :never had a friend who was gay or lesbian, as far as I know, and I :think I could tell. How, Dale, by the smell? :I can only guess that the gays are very clique-ish, :or their brains are wired differently than non-gays. Perhaps the hard wiring makes it possible for them to avoid bigots like you. Sign him up to pass out the pink triangles. What a fraud! Still love you, big guy. Can you tell?

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[Declan McCullagh: "A List Goes Down In Flames," from Netly]
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 21:24:37 -0800 (PST) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu The Netly News Network http://netlynews.com/ A List Goes Down In Flames by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) February 12, 1997 The plan for the cypherpunks mailing list was simple. It was to be an online gathering place, an intellectual mosh pit, dedicated to the free flow of ideas and personal privacy through encryption. Of course it caught on. From its modest beginnings connecting a few friends who lived in Northern California, it quickly grew into one of the most rowdy, volatile lists on the Net: Cypherpunks typically piped more than 100 messages a day into the mailboxes of nearly 2,000 subscribers. And the list became a kind of crypto-anarchist utopia. Populated by pseudonymous posters with names like Black Unicorn, it was a corner of cyberspace where PGP signatures and digital cash were the norm -- and there were no rules. Then yesterday came the news: The list was being evicted and faced imminent shutdown. In an e-mail seen 'round the Net, John Gilmore, Electronic Frontier Foundation cofounder and list maintainer, announced that he was no longer willing to provide a virtual home for the cypherpunks. In a post entitled "Put Up or Shut Up," he described how his efforts to improve the list through moderation were condemned, how technical problems were consuming more of his time, how pranksters had tried to subscribe the entire U.S. Congress to the list. How this experiment in crypto-anarchy had failed. He gave the cypherpunks 10 days to find new lodgings. "The last straw for me was seeing the reaction of the list to every attempt to improve it. It was to carp, to cut it down, to say you're doing everything wrong," Gilmore told me yesterday night. One of the first employees of Sun, Gilmore quit after eight years -- a millionaire more interested in pursuing ideas than dollars. But his experiment with the list has left him weary. "If everything I'm doing is wrong, I'm clearly not the right person to host the list," he said. "I would like to see some other structure in which the positive interactions on the list could continue. I'm not trying to create that structure anymore," he added. Instead, he would try the only true crypto-anarchist solution: "I'm handing it over to members to do what they wish with it." The cypherpunks first pierced the public's consciousness when Wired magazine splashed them across the cover of the second issue. The Whole Earth Review and the Village Voice followed soon after. The name "cypherpunk" came to be synonymous with a brash young breed of digerati who were intent on derailing the White House's encryption policies and conquering cyberspace. This was crypto with an attitude. Gilmore was typical of the breed. Monthly Bay Area meetings of the 'punks were held in the offices of Cygnus, a company he started to provide support for the free Unix alternative, GNU. But the veteran cypherpunk came under heavy fire in November 1996, when a loudmouthed flamer flooded the list with flame bait and ad hominem attacks on various members. Finally, Gilmore, ironically, gave him the boot -- and incited an all-consuming debate over what the concept of censorship means in a forum devoted to opposing it. In a society of crypto-anarchists, who should make the rules? The mailing list melted down. By last month, it seemed, more messages complained about censorship than discussed crypto. Indeed, for months Gilmore seemed unable to do anything right. He tried moderation, which proved to be even more contentious, raising the question of empowering one cypherpunk to decide what was appropriate for others to read. One member of the group, in effect, would be more equal than the rest. And why would members take the time to write elaborate, thoughtful articles on crypto-politics if their treatises might not make it past the moderator's keyboard? After the expulsion, some of the longtime list denizens left angrily, joining the 700 subscribers who had departed since the controversy began. One of those was Tim C. May, a crusty former Intel engineer who prides himself as the organizer of the first cypherpunk meeting in September 1992. In an essay summarizing the reasons for his departure, he wrote: "The proper solution to bad speech is more speech, not censorship. Censorship just makes opponents of 'speech anarchy' happy -- it affirms their basic belief that censors are needed." After all, May pointed out, the list ended up on Gilmore's toad.com machine only by happenstance -- it almost was housed on a workstation at the University of California at Berkeley. Ownership of the computer with the database of subscribers did not mean that Gilmore owned the cypherpunks. "Whatever our group once was, or still is, is not dependent on having a particular mailing list running on someone's home machine... and it cannot be claimed that any person 'owns' the cypherpunks group," May wrote. The cypherpunks have responded to Gilmore's eviction notice. List participants generally have halted the incessant attacks on Gilmore, and now the discussion has turned to how to continue this experiment in online anarchy -- while preventing one person from ever again having absolute control of the List. Within hours of Gilmore's announcement, posters were tossing around ideas of a distributed network of mailing lists that would carry the cypherpunk name, and other 'punks likely will migrate to the more tightly controlled coderpunks and cryptography lists. But for the true believers in crypto-anarchy, only one solution is adequate: Usenet. "There is no 'nexus' of control, no chokepoint, no precedent... for halting distribution of Usenet newsgroups," Tim May wrote. That, in the end, is what defines a cypherpunk. ###

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Re: Private property & the cypherpunks list(s) (fwd)
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Fri, 14 Feb 1997, Jim Choate wrote: > I am taking intellectual property rights from nobody. If anything I am > giving unlimited intellectual rights to the material to humankind for > posterity. Sorta cypherpunkish, don't you think? I am amused by this. Jim's plan sounds much less cypherpunkish than collectivist. Communal property, ho! After all, workers have nothing to lose in this revolution but their chains. They have a world to gain. Workers of the world, unite! -Declan

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Good Bye Cypherpunks!
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friends, I have been on the list since May 1993, after reading about it in Wired 1.2. The list impacted my life more than any other medium. I knew little about cryptography when I joined the list. Now I work in the field. Some of the subscribers on this list have become my personal friends. Many have become co-workers or clients. The list has been good to me. But it is time to move on. Cypherpunks(a)toad.com has come to an end, and perhaps it was time. See you all on USENET mailto:cypherpunks@toad.com is dead. Long live news:alt.cypherpunks Umsuscrive message follows ;-) -- 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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Where is the reorg FAQ?
by das＠razor.engr.sgi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I saw a reference to an FAQ by Adam Back, explaining the mailing lists that are being set up to replace cypherpunks(a)toad.com, but I didn't see the FAQ itself, on either cypherpunks-unedited or cypherpunks(a)toad.com, which I read as mail.cypherpunks. Maybe it fell through the cracks. Could Adam or somebody else repost it? Thanks. Btw, one of our many news servers has alt.cypherpunks, but it has very low traffic. I doubt people are not posting. Must be alt.cypherpunks missing from some upstream sites. -- Anil Das

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Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by Cynthia H. Brown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sat, 15 Feb 1997 paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk wrote: <earlier discussion excised> > Not my point, I didn`t say I would refuse, as in my example, to have > my car serviced by a woman, rather, that I would not feel comfortable > doing so. This is not prejudice, it is a statistical judgement based > on the fact that, as a percentage, I know few women who are competent > car mechanics but I know a number of men who, by the same criteria, I > would call competent. Acknowledged, agree to disagree :-). (Very few of my male friends can do more than sew on a button, but that doesn't weight my choice of a *professional* tailor.) It did, however, sound like you were agreeing with the previous poster's (more extreme) position. > Very much so, I did not intend, even though my post may have appeared > that way, for one minute to suggest that women were *unable* to carry > out certain tasks, just that they seem less suited to certain > vocations that others. For example, I know a number of good female > History or English students but very few good female mathematics > or computer science students. This is not, I believe, because women are > not "suited" to computer science rather that they have never been encouraged > at high school etc. to learn about such subjects which are seen as male preserves. > I wholeheartedly believe this should not be the case, and my original > post may have been misleading, I just believe that in the current > system very few women do become good at science/technical subjects. Agreed (sadly) that there is a dearth of role models like Mme. Curie or Roberta Bondar. There is also an unfortunate "geek stigma" often attached to those who are good at math or science (male or female). Whether this stigma discourages more girls than boys is questionable (psychology thesis, anyone?), but it has probably resulted in good-math-potential brains taking economics (or whatever) instead. Fewer competitors for the 56-bit prize, but also fewer brains thinking up better PRNGs. Cynthia =============================================================== Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng. E-mail: cynthb(a)iosphere.net | PGP Key: See Home Page Home Page: http://www.iosphere.net/~cynthb/ Junk mail will be ignored in the order in which it is received. Klein bottle for rent; enquire within.

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Crypto code published in magazines
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm trying to find instances of crypto code published in computer magazines in the last few years. I know of Blowfish in DDJ, are there cases of more mainstream computer mags like Byte publishing crypto code (I know Byte did DES in 1977, I'm hoping for something a bit more recent)?. Please mail or cc replies directly to me, nntp.hks.net seems to have died :-(. Peter.

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Re: Mirrors and replies-to
by snow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> However, I would like it if the mirror operators would reinstantiate a > feature of the original list for me. The reply-to field on the mirrors is > currently set to cypherpunks(a)toad.com. On the original list, this was set > to "sender", both to keep people from replying to the list unnecessarily > (hah! :-)) but also to keep mail loops from forming. Mail loops could be a > big problem, especially when you guys put together your neo-netnews > mailring. (a little jyaism, that... :-)). As to the Mailloops: Majordomo seems (at least to me) to be pretty good about handling those kinds of things. If you configure it right. I would rather have the replyto:cypherpunks as I am rather lazy, and would like to be able to save everything in one file easily. Just my $0.01.

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Re: More on digital postage
by snow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mr. May wrote: > At 11:40 AM -0600 2/15/97, snow wrote: > >Mr. Bell wrote: > >> However, you connect that fax machine to a phone line, when you know full > >> well that should it be enabled to do so, it will automatically pick up the > >> phone when it "hears" a ring, and will print out a fax based on information > >> provided. It isn't clear why sending a fax is any "wronger" than mailing > >> junk mail, or making a (voice) phone call to somebody. > > That is a ridiculous argument. The door to my home is connected > >to the street,m and I know full well that that makes it easy for anyone > >to come wandering in to my home. Is it legal, just because I have my > >home hooked to the street, for someone to come in and help themselves to > >a beer out of my fridge? > > The proper parallel is to _knocking on the door_. Talking about "unwanted > phone calls" or "unwanted faxes" as being equivalent to entering a house > and wandering around is incorrect. With phone calls, yes. With unwanted faxes no. With Phone Calls, and knocks on the door I have the option of simply not answering. Faxes (in certain enviroments) you can't do that with. > Our society fairly reasonably allows tort relief for, say, having one's > doorbell rung frequently or at odd hours. On the fax issue, similar tort > relief could be obtained if a person or business was truly "under attack." > (Purists, like me, would probably prefer technological solutions even in > these cases. Leave a phone on answering machine mode, only switch on the > fax mode when a fax is expected, etc.) Or simply a societal acceptance of retaliation(sp?) Someone who constantly wakes you up in the middle of the night, well you just arrange it so they get no sleep. > These tort actions are a far cry from proposals that anyone whose knock on > the door, or phonecall, or e-mail, or fax is subject to criminal > prosecution under proposed new laws. > (I think the courts are already clogged enough, and I have faith that no > court in the land will accept a case where no real harm was done. A friend > of mine got mailbombed with 25,000 e-mail messages in one day, shutting > down his account until the mess could be cleaned up, and it's not even > likely he'll ever get any relief.) I (I think like you) feel that almost no one will get convicted of these "crimes" unless the attacker simply goes too far. > What CompuServe did was quite different, as CompuServe decided that some > e-mail would not be delivered. This is essentially comparable to the Postal > Service deciding that mail from the National Rifle Association is, to them, > "junk," or to the phone company deciding that phone calls from Libya or > Iraq or some other unfavored nation will be fed to a dead number. Not really. The US Postal service is a regulated monopoly, and is the only game in town. If they weren't a regulated monopoly, I wouldn't care if they refused to carry certain peices of mail, the mailer would have the option of simply using a different service. Thus with compuserve, they have the right (as a private company) to refuse to deliver what ever they wish. And their users have the right to go elsewhere. > Getting the courts and the regulators involved in deciding what speech is > junk and what is not junk is unconstitutional, which was my earlier point. Which I argee with.

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Re: More on digital postage
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

jim bell wrote: > At 11:40 AM 2/15/97 -0600, snow wrote: > >Mr. Bell wrote: > But having an address, and a walkway, and a doorbell is generally considered > if not explicit permission, but at least toleration of the idea that > somebody can walk up and knock on the door, etc. Having a telephone with a > number that anyone can dial is going to result in some level of intrusion. > Having a fax machine is a similar issue, unless technology provides a way to > block unwanted faxes. There are some neato methods to deal with the door and the phone, but I haven't investigated faxes since I don't run one at home. For the door, you can have a locked gate so they can't knock on the door, and an adjustable volume ringer or phone at the gate that's easy to ignore when you don't want them to know you're there and you're ignoring them. If the gate is not practical, at least put a locked screen door in front of the regular door, and the ringer or whatever outside the screen. For more aggressive pests, some signs might be necessary. For the phone, you can do like I did, and simply remove (or break) the outgoing message tape, so when they call, all they get is a beep and they'll have to think fast or they're cut off. Cuts way back on pesky calls, but allows your loyals to leave messages or speak so you'll know who it is.

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