December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Cats Out of Bags
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, On Thu, 30 Jan 1997, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: > as I've said before, I really hate the "cat out of the bag" > saying, as Aaron's recent comments indicate. Interestingly, the saying, "to let the cat out of the bag" is related to the saying, "to buy a pig in a poke." A poke is a sack or bag. In times past, street peddlers would sell a mark a young pig. The pig was supposedly put into a poke, but in fact, a bag with a cat in it was substituted. By the time the mark figured out his mistake by "letting the cat out of the bag," the peddler was long gone. The lesson the mark learned was "Don't buy a pig in a poke." The better metaphor for crypto is that the genie is out of the bottle. Alternatively, that the crypto bell cannot be unrung. S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Re: Cats Out of Bags
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

fascinating reading sandy, but > >The better metaphor for crypto is that the genie is out of the >bottle. Alternatively, that the crypto bell cannot be unrung. these have the same conceptual limitations I was flaming. to use the analogy: 1. it is unconstitutional to put a crypto genie in a bottle in the first place. 2. it is unconstitutional to make laws against ringing crypto bells. again, when you use the above analogies, the government can argue with you and say, "no, we thing that crypto hasn't really spread as much as it could without the ITAR", and this is a pretty difficult point to argue. how can you argue that crypto has spread as much as it possibly can? relaxing regulations would surely cause it to spread more than it has. admittedly, I can't think of a nice substitute with a good "ring to it". <g> however, I do like the saying that crypto-news has been using about "our safe, our KEYS!!" or something similar. I propose that people emphasize this. using any of the other analogies just encourages orwellian thinking along the lines in the government: oh YEAH?! who SAYS the genie is out of the bottle?! what makes you think we can't put him BACK THERE?! so imho its all a diversion and a decoy. it's the wrong argument to get involved in-- has crypto spread to make it impossible to contain? and as the saying goes, "never get in an argument with a fool, people might not know the difference". do we believe in the constitution or not? perhaps it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when we don't.

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Re: [GSM] 2 Questions
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dense Vaginal K>rud<OfTheMoment will fuck anything that moves, but he'd rather be fucking his own daughter's prepubescent body. \|/ @ @ -oOO-(_)-OOo- Dense Vaginal K>rud<OfTheMoment

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Re: [OFF-TOPIC] Alphabet frequency charts
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dinghy Violent K)arcass(OfTheMonth wears satin lingerie embroidered with pink swastikas, prancing around for his homosexual, AIDS infected lovers. /\_./o__ Dinghy Violent K)arcass(OfTheMonth (/^/(_^^' ._.(_.)_

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Re: Denial of service attack
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Disruptive Viscera K[ondom] Of The Minute grew a beard to look like his mother. (~\/~) /~'\ /`~\ _ _ `\ /'( ` ) ( `\/' ) `' `\ /' `\ /' Disruptive Viscera K[ondom] Of The Minute `\ /' `\/' '

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[GSM] Hardening mailing lists against spam attacks
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Derisve Vitriol K[reep]OfTheMoment died of AIDS last night with his faggot lover. __o _ \<_ Dr.Derisve Vitriol K[reep]OfTheMoment (_)/(_)

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Re: Get cybersitter to block your ISP
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Path: perun!news2.panix.com!news.panix.com!panix!news.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!howland.erols.net!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!news-lond.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!news-feed1.globalnet.co.uk!kew.globalnet.co.uk!usenet From: pevans(a)globalnet.co.uk.removethispart (evans-the-swim) Newsgroups: alt.privacy,alt.censorship,alt.revenge,news.admin.censorship,alt.html Subject: Get cybersitter to block your ISP Message-ID: <5ckclk$6kl(a)kew.globalnet.co.uk> Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 20:16:16 GMT Lines: 153 NNTP-Posting-Host: client856c.globalnet.co.uk X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82 To all readers: I suggest that you do as I have done. If you have a web page, add a link (or many) dealing with Cybersitter, and email Mr. Milburn. Here's my example... Mr. Milburn: I have been reading the reports of you and your company's unethical, deceptive, bullying, and probably defamatory practices. It appears that your response to critics is to add their ISP to the list of sites blocked by your software. Accordingly, I have added to my home page links to various sites and files which will inform the reader of the true nature of your agenda. I am also suggesting to readers in all the newsgroups that relate to this issue that they do the same. My hope is that they will respond by doing so, and in turn force you to add so many ISP's to your list that you effectively restrict your users from the entire net. If successful, this will lead ultimately to the mass realisation that Cybersitter does not do what it is advertised to do, and that people wishing to "protect" their children from influences with which they disagree should choose other methods, and that you and your company will disappear as yet another burp in the turgid indigestion of the net. Please respond when you have added my ISP to your list of blocked sites. Feel free to email my postmaster as well. A sample of the information available to visitors to my site follows: ============================================= Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 14:36:55 -0800 From: Jonathan Wallace <jw(a)bway.net> Subject: 1--Solid Oak Blocking Software & Ethical Spectacle FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jonathan Wallace jw(a)bway.net NEW YORK CITY, January 19, 1997--In an apparent act of retaliation against a critic of the company, Solid Oak Sofware has added The Ethical Spectacle (http://www.spectacle.org) to the list of Web sites blocked by its Cybersitter software. The Ethical Spectacle is a monthly Webzine examining the intersection of ethics, law and politics in our society, which recently urged its readers not to buy Cybersitter because of Solid Oak's unethical behavior. The Ethical Spectacle is edited by Jonathan Wallace, a New York- based software executive and attorney who is the co-author, with Mark Mangan, of Sex, Laws and Cyberspace (Henry Holt, 1996), a book on Internet censorship. "In the book," Wallace said, "we took the position-- naively, I now think--that use of blocking software by parents was a less restrictive alternative to government censorship. We never expected that publishers of blocking software would block sites for their political content alone, as Solid Oak has done." Solid Oak describes its product as blocking sites which contain obscene and indecent material, hate speech, and advocacy of violence and illegal behavior. In late 1996, computer journalists Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) and Brock Meeks (brock(a)well.com) broke the story that Cybersitter blocked the National Organization for Women site (http://www.now.org) along with other political and feminist organizations. In addition, the product blocked entire domains such as well.com, maintained by the venerable Well online service. McCullagh and Meeks implied that they had received an inner look at the Cybersitter database of blocked sites from someone who had reverse engineered the software. Shortly afterwards, Solid Oak asked the FBI to begin a criminal investigation of the two journalists and accused college student Bennett Haselton (bennett(a)peacefire.org) of being their source. Though McCullagh, Meeks and Haselton all denied he was the source (or that anything illegal had occurred), Solid Oak president Brian Milburn called Haselton an "aspiring felon" and threatened to add his Internet service provider to the blocked list if it did not muzzle Haselton. Haselton came to Milburn's attention by founding Peacefire, a student organization opposing censorship. On his Web pages (http://www.peacefire.org) Haselton posted an essay called "Where Do We Not Want You to Go Today?" criticizing Solid Oak. The company promptly added Peacefire to its blocked list, claiming that Haselton had reverse engineered its software, an allegation for which the company has never produced any evidence. "At that point," Wallace said, "I felt Milburn was acting like the proverbial 800-pound gorilla. I added a link to the Spectacle top page called 'Don't Buy Cybersitter' (http://www.spectacle.org/alert/peace.html) Anyone clicking on the link would see a copy of Bennett's 'Where Do We Not Want You to Go' page with some added material, including my thoughts on the inappropriateness of Solid Oak's behavior. I wrote the company, informing them of my actions and telling them that they misrepresent their product when they claim it blocks only indecent material, hate speech and the like." Solid Oak has now responded by blocking The Ethical Spectacle. "I wrote to Milburn and to Solid Oak technical support demanding an explanation," Wallace said. "I pointed out that The Spectacle does not fit any of their published criteria for blocking a site. I received mail in return demanding that I cease writing to them and calling my mail 'harassment'--with a copy to the postmaster at my ISP." Wallace continued: "With other critics such as Declan, Brock and Bennett, Solid Oak has claimed reverse engineering of its software, in supposed violation of its shrink-wrapped license. I have never downloaded, purchased or used Cybersitter, nor had any access to its database. I believe that Solid Oak's sole reason for blocking my site is the 'Don't Buy Cybersitter' page, criticizing the company's bullying behavior." The Ethical Spectacle includes the internationally respected An Auschwitz Alphabet (http://www.spectacle.org/695/ausch.html) a compilation of resources pertaining to the Holocaust. "Sixty percent of the Spectacle's traffic consists of visitors to the Holocaust materials," Wallace said. "Schoolteachers have used it in their curricula, it was the subject of a lecture at a museum in Poland some weeks ago, and every month, I get letters from schoolchildren thanking me for placing it online. Now, due to Solid Oak's actions, Cybersitter's claimed 900,000 users will no longer have access to it." Solid Oak can be contacted at blocking.problems(a)solidoak.com, or care of its president, Brian Milburn (bmilburn(a)solidoak.com.) ----------------------------------------------- Jonathan Wallace The Ethical Spectacle http://www.spectacle.org Co-author, Sex, Laws and Cyberspace http://www.spectacle.org/freespch/ "We must be the change we wish to see in the world."--Gandhi

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Re: A comment on the censorship policy
by David E. Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 12:19 AM 1/30/97 -0800, Toto wrote: > It is extremely easy to understand. Just read your own words. > The key word here is 'accurate' criticisms. This makes them 'flames', >in Sandy's mind, because the purpose of the 'censorship experiment' >was to place total control of the list in the hands of a man who >rarely posts and doesn't seem to participate in the list discussions, >as well as for the purpose of suppressing any real dissent that may >arise from list members. Interesting interpretation. Mind you, I'm obliged to disagree. My understanding was that the moderator is supposed to ONLY filter out ads and utterly-content-free messages. (Mind you, I took the smart out and subbed to cp-unedited, so I'm in no place to judge.) If the idea was to place control in the hands of someone who rarely posts, why not give it to me? There are probably a few hundred of the real addresses on this list (not the mail-echoers) that have never posted. > Also, one of the reasons that the moderation process is so >haphazard, is that posts from some individuals are automatically >routed to the 'flames' list at some times, and viewed/censored >at other times, so that a few can be posted to the censored >list to give some half-hearted illusion of fairness in the >censorship process. (which remains a bad joke, nonetheless). Aha, a good point to be brought up: Sandy, are you autofiltering anyone based on user name, or on certain keywords? Seems to defeat the purpose of having a _human_ moderator. dave -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQEVAwUBMvFJl3EZTZHwCEpFAQHGiQf/QjEj9QJ+9viADYdfSQJumpXhb8BF+MHQ zbAYVGxLyt/WYA96cykFHYk2hCzkcfph/XDksSB6lmaStHFHfPCOAOHReu6xfHg2 3+3RyOI/eBJS8RS6z5dQBWTnKiu35sk5J2wMcnOWfMQXTWz8jYVAHnyBh9x39huP +Iwj4jOE0Qelu4/FZhgVgo3tktw5sBGjmaZgOvu/24DoT2YPsG9EQ74i6suX0B15 eE1uPaP+2zumwYpV2ywYNbfFyExY2K9XM6k7M/ZNwpplMyf+plYigVUkNRP6KJWK Gvp3bN6mAa2BF/bnoyCGTulC3By785Fk3s+EV2hUVknoZwH3SGF53w== =Sl5a -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: uae_1.html
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

jim bell wrote: > I wonder what these people will think when organizations like Teledesic and > Iridium start operating (low-earth-orbit satellites) to allow > totally-wireless connectivity. It seems to me that there will be a market > for services that allow anonymous browsing, perhaps with encrypted requests > that return otherwise-unidentified data on a publicly-accessible airwaves. Think of the possibility of satellite-fed 'roving' InterNet sites. What will be the 'export' implications of sending crypto to a place such as site.nowhere, site.somewhere, and site.intheUS-hee-hee. Toto

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Re: Fighting the cybercensor
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

jim bell wrote: > > At 01:03 AM 1/28/97 -0600, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: > >jim bell wrote: > >> > >> At 10:21 PM 1/26/97 -0800, blanc wrote: > >> >From: jim bell (in response to Dimitri Vulis') > >> >Look, I've proposed what I consider to be a remarkably consistent method to > >> >prevent the kind of political tyranny that you criticize, and I don't see > >> >any recognition of this fact. > >> >........................................................ > >> > > >> >1) Jim, why do you insist on discussing this on an forum for encryption? > >> > >> Because it's on-topic, that's why. Because it's not merely a list > >> concerning METHODS of encryption, it's also about the _reasons_ for using > >> encryption, as well as the _effects_ (both small-scale and large-scale) of > >> using encryption. > > > >Actually AP is one of the more interesting topics here. I think that there > >is a clear need for an AP bot. > > > >Do you feel like writing it? > > Desire? Yes. Ability? Maybe. Time? No. > You can hire someone to write it. - Igor.

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