December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: [GAK] FBI at it again
by lead remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Dr.Dimitri L"iposuction" Vegetable had his foreskin ripped off > last night by a vacuum cleaner. > > ,/ \, > ((__,-"""-,__)) > `--)~ ~(--` > .-'( )`-, Dr.Dimitri L"iposuction" Vegetable > `~~`d\ /b`~~` > | | > (6___6) > `---` I thought Dimitri was Jewish.

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PGP Key Preview...
by harka＠nycmetro.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi there, is there a way to preview the contents of a received public key, without adding it automatically to the public key ring? Thanks a lot in advance... Ciao Harka /*************************************************************/ /* This user supports FREE SPEECH ONLINE ...more info at */ /* and PRIVATE ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS! --> http://www.eff.org */ /* E-mail: harka(a)nycmetro.com (PGP-encrypted mail preferred) */ /* PGP public key available upon request. [KeyID: 04174301] */ /* F-print: FD E4 F8 6D C1 6A 44 F5 28 9C 40 6E B8 94 78 E8 */ /*<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>*/ /* May there be peace in this world, may all anger dissolve */ /* and may all living beings find the way to happiness... */ /*************************************************************/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAgUBMunrbjltEBIEF0MBAQEisgf+OBS8Q06g3pNfKgntaKQdCkHyLXZWHjI7 hOnVeF47C0qgsFjEEymnrQMl4b1l2zcRgqUKTY8jXhmaY6yeGcoRXc5hgo1679MY l+7BTNKIy2YTnzjhFk5bOKXk6V9DDWfq4chhCE2dpEVdUgRPVTfkfbm5VEN+zmn8 gaXyIf/bYv5GEs2F/FPc1kTmySx/NT5CvbvQRHaQdfEDk+QatnRjRLSsprln8cnt vxqZO9a6lveygA/wECPdx1gnHBhrscUeaLHIXz4YVVaSMrkEHJfLWOrzQHg2CGwQ o5OcKmuY0FcvzfpS2Yo0/lA8+/Ez83yUAdeEeY+yF7p2XgrLaOiFnw== =o/jO -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- If encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption...

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Call for Participants: The Financial Cryptography 1997 Workshopfor Senior Managers and IS Professionals
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS The Financial Cryptography 1997 (FC97) Workshop for Senior Managers and IS Professionals February 17-21, 1997 The InterIsland Hotel Anguilla, BWI <http://www.offshore.com.ai./fc97/> Workshop Update: January 29, 1997 FC97 is sponsored by: The Journal for Internet Banking and Commerce <http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/JIBC/> Offshore Information Services <http://www.offshore.com.ai/> e$ <http://www.vmeng.com/rah/> C2NET <http://www.c2.net/> See Your Name Here! <mailto: rackliffe(a)tcm.org> FC97 Workshop for Senior Managers and IS Professionals February 17-21, 1997 FC97 Conference and Exhibition, February 24-28, 1997 The Inter-Island Hotel Anguilla, BWI Workshop and Conference Reservations: <http://www.offshore.com.ai./fc97/> The world's first intensive financial cryptography workshop for senior managers and IS professionals will be held Monday through Friday, February 17-21 1997, from 9:00am to 6:00pm, at the Inter-Island Hotel on the Carribbean island of Anguilla. This workshop will be the prelude to the world's first peer-reviewed financial cryptography conference and commercial exhibition, Financial Cryptography 1997 (FC97), which will be held the following week, February 24-28, 1997. The goals of the combined workshop, conference and exhibition are: -- to give senior managers and IS professionals a solid understanding of the fundamentals of strong cryptgraphy as applied to financial operations on public networks, -- to provide a peer-reviewed forum for important research in financial cryptography and the effects it will have on society, and, -- to showcase the newest products in financial cryptography. Workshop and Conference participants are encouraged to bring their families, though Workshop participants should expect to be busy the first week. :-). The Workshop Ian Goldberg, the Workshop chair, has picked an outstanding team of instructors in financial cryptography and internet financial system security to teach the courses in this workshop. The Workshop will consist of 40 hours of intensive instruction and lab time over 5 days. Each student will have their own internet workstation, and the lab will be open 24 hours. The SSL internet commerce server used in the workshop will be Stronghold, developed by C2NET, of Berkeley, California. For information on Stronghold, please see <http://www.c2.net/>. Thanks to C2NET for their gracious donation of this outstanding software to the FC97 Workshop. Who Should Attend The Workshop is intended for senior IS managers and technical professionals who want to get completely up to speed on the design, development, and implementation of financial cryptography systems, the core technology of internet commerce. After the workshop, senior managers will have a hands-on understanding the strengths and liabilities of currently available financial cryptography and internet transaction security software and hardware, and thus be able to make better asset allocation decisions in this area of explosive technology growth. Senior technical professionals with strong IS experience will be able to implement those technologies and to pass on what they've learned to their clients and colleagues when they return home. The Workshop will be held in a casual but intensive atmosphere at the very cutting edge of financial technology on the internet. Someone has likened the experience to a financial cryptography bootcamp. At the end, Workshop attendees will be utterly conversant in cryptography as it applies to finance, and will be quite prepared for the technical papers in the FC97 conference the following week. Workshop participants will not only know what everyone else is doing now in internet commerce, but, more important, because they understand the implications of strong financial cryptography on ubiquitous public networks, they will be able to know what to do *next*. The Workshop Leader Ian Goldberg is a Ph.D. student in security and cryptography at the University of California, Berkeley. Just last night, he cracked RSA Data Security Inc.'s 40-bit challenge cipher in just under 3.5 hours. In late 1995, he discovered what became a much-publicized flaw in Netscape's implementation of SSL. He is a recognized expert in electronic payment systems, and in DigiCash's ecash digital bearer certificate protocol in particular. He has produced several ecash clients for Unix and Windows, as well as an ecash module for the Stronghold web server, which has extended the existing ecash system for better security, privacy, and ease-of-use. The Principal Instructors Gary Howland worked on digital cash systems for DigiCash, and then moved to Systemics, where he developed the SOX protocol, a flexible payments system currently in use in a bond trading environment, soon to be available to the public. He also developed the Cryptix and PGP libraries in Perl, and assisted on the Cryptix and PGP library implementations in Java. Adam Shostack is a security consultant based in the Boston area. He has extensive background in designing, implementing and testing secure systems for clients in the medical, computer, and financial industries. His recent public work includes 'Apparent Weaknesses in the Security Dynamics Client Server Protocol,' 'Source Code Review Guidelines,' and comparisons of freely available cryptographic libraries. His clients include Fidelity Investments and the Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Boston. Additional Instructors The Workshop will have student-to-instructor ratio of 5 to 1, not including the Workshop leader. The Workshop will have an initial enrollment of 10 students, and an additional instructor will be added for each 5 students up to a 25 student maximum enrollment. Workshop Topics The following is the complete list of topics that the workshop will cover: Security on the Internet Internet Protocols: IP, TCP, UDP Higher-level Protocols: Telnet, FTP, HTTP, SSL Solid Foundations for Cryptographic Systems A History of Internet Attacks Building Internet Firewalls Building a Bastion Host Turning your Bastion Host into a Web Server Non-internet Internet Security Cryptography The Need for Cryptography History of Cryptography Classical Methods Modern Methods Private and Public Key Cryptography Authentication vs. Security Certification and Public Key Infrastructures Cryptographic Protocols Engineering a Cryptographically Secure System Why Cryptography is Harder than it Looks Security Through Obscurity and How to Recognize Snake Oil Internet Payment Systems Payment models: coin-based, cheque-based, account-based Security Issues Privacy and Anonymity Issues Smartcards vs. Software Existing Payment Schemes Credit Cards First Virtual CyberCash DigiCash Forthcoming Payment Schemes SET Mondex Millicent micropayments Setting Up an ecash-Enabled Web Server Setting up the Web Server Signing up for ecash Installing the ecash Module Setting Prices Logging Advanced Methods ecashiers moneychangers The workshop has been covered by Wired Magazine, and FC97 was the featured conference in the January 1997 "Deductible Junkets" section. So, if you have already decided to come to the FC97 Workshop and Conference, please register and make your plane and hotel reservations as soon as possible. Workshop space is extremely limited. The price of the workshop is $5,000 U.S. You can pay for your FC97 workshop ticket with Visa or MasterCard, with ecash, or with any of a number of other internet commerce payment protocols, at the regstriation site: <http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/>. The workshop price includes meals (but not lodging) at the InterIsland Hotel and lab space, plus the delivery and installation of hardware, network access, internet commerce software, all to a location like Anguilla. And, of course, 40 hours of instruction and structured lab activity. We have priced the workshop to be competitive with other comprehensive business and professional technology workshops of similar total session length. In addition, the first 10 FC97 workshop participants will receive a 50% reduction in their FC97 Conference and Exhibition fee, for a savings of $500 off the $1,000 conference admission. You can register, and pay for, your workshop ticket at: <http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/> Air Transportation and Hotels Air travel to Anguilla is typically done through San Juan, St. Thomas or St. Maarten/Martin. There are several non-stop flights a day from various US and European locations. Connection through to Anguilla can be made through American Eagle, or through LIAT, or in the case of St. Maarten, with a short ferry ride to Anguilla. See your travel agent for details. Anguilla's runway is 3600 feet, with a displaced threshold of 600 feet, and can accomodate business jets. Obviously, you should talk to your aviation staff for details about your own aircraft's capabilities in this regard. Anguilla import duties are not imposed on hardware or software which will leave the island again, so, as long as you take it with you when you leave, you won't pay import duties. PLEASE NOTE: Your FC97 Workshop fee only covers *meals* at the InterIsland Hotel. The InterIsland is actually a small guesthouse attached to a large conference facility, and so rooms there are in short supply. Fortunately, there are lots of small hotels and guesthouses nearby. For more information on these hotels, please see <http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/> for more information. Other hotels on Anguilla range from spartan to luxurious, all within easy walking or driving distance of the Workshop at the InterIsland. More information about Anguillan hotels can be obtained from your travel agent, or at <http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/>. Registration and Information for Other FC97 Events To register and pay for your ticket to the FC97 conference itself, see: <http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/> For information the selection of papers for the FC97 conference see: <http://www.cwi.nl/conferences/FC97> If you're interested in Exhibition space, please contact Julie Rackliffe: <mailto:rackliffe@tcm.org> If you're interested in sponsoring FC97, also contact Julie Rackliffe: <mailto:rackliffe@tcm.org> Financial Cryptography '97 is held in cooperation with the International Association for Cryptologic Research. The conference proceedings will be published on the web by the Journal for Internet Banking and Commerce. <http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/JIBC/>. The FC97 Organizing Committee: Vince Cate and Bob Hettinga, General Chairs Ray Hirschfeld, Conference Chair Ian Goldberg, Workshop Chair Julie Rackliffe, Conference, Exhibit, and Sponsorship Manager And our sponsors... The Journal for Internet Banking and Commerce <http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/JIBC/> Offshore Information Services <http://www.offshore.com.ai/> e$ <http://www.vmeng.com/rah/> C2NET <http://www.c2.net/> See Your Name Here <mailto: rackliffe(a)tcm.org> ----------------- 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://www.ai/fc97/ "If *you* don't go to FC97, *I* don't go to FC97"

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FC97: PRELIMINARY CONFERENCE PROGRAM
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Financial Cryptography '97 February 24-28 1997, Anguilla, BWI PRELIMINARY PROGRAM General Information: Financial Cryptography '97 (FC97) is a new conference on the security of digital financial transactions. The first meeting will be held on the island of Anguilla in the British West Indies on February 24-28, 1997. FC97 aims to bring together persons involved in both the financial and data security fields to foster cooperation and exchange of ideas. Original papers were solicited on all aspects of financial data security and digital commerce in general. Program Committee: Matthew Franklin, AT&T Laboratories--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA Michael Froomkin, U. Miami School of Law, Coral Gables, FL, USA Rafael Hirschfeld (Program Chair), CWI, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Arjen Lenstra, Citibank, New York, NY, USA Mark Manasse, Digital Equipment Corporation, Palo Alto, CA, USA Kevin McCurley, Sandia Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA Charles Merrill, McCarter & English, Newark, NJ, USA Clifford Neuman, Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA, USA Sholom Rosen, Citibank, New York, NY, USA Israel Sendrovic, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York, NY, USA Preliminary Conference Program for FC97: Monday 24 February 1997 830 -- 905 Anonymity Control in E-Cash Systems George Davida (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA), Yair Frankel (Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA), Yiannis Tsiounis (Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA), Moti Yung (CertCo, New York, NY, USA) 905 -- 940 How to Make Personalized Web Browsing Simple, Secure, and Anonymous Eran Gabber, Phil Gibbons, Yossi Matias, Alain Mayer (Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies) 940 -- 1015 An Anonymous Networking Infrastructure and Virtual Intranets Jim McCoy (Electric Communities, Cupertino, CA, USA) 1015 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 Unlinkable Serial Transactions Paul F. Syverson (Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA), Stuart G. Stubblebine (AT&T Labs--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA), David M. Goldschlag (Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA) 1120 -- 1155 Efficient Electronic Cash with Restricted Privacy Cristian Radu, Rene Govaerts, Joos Vandewalle (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium) 1155 -- 1230 The SPEED Cipher Yuliang Zheng (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia) Tuesday 25 February 1997 830 -- 930 Invited Speaker To Be Announced 930 -- 1005 Smart Cards and Superhighways The technology-driven denationalisation of money David G.W. Birch, Neil A. McEvoy (Hyperion, Surrey, England) 1005 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 Fault Induction Attacks, Tamper Resistance, and Hostile Reverse Engineering in Perspective David P. Maher (AT&T Labs--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA) 1120 -- 1155 Some Critical Remarks on "Dynamic Data Authentication" as specified in EMV '96 Louis C. Guillou (CCETT, Cesson-Sevigne, France) 1155 -- 1230 Single-chip implementation of a cryptosystem for financial applications Nikolaus Lange (SICAN Braunschweig GmbH, Braunschweig, Germany) Wednesday 26 February 1997 830 -- 930 Invited Speaker Ronald Rivest (MIT Lab for Computer Science, Cambridge, MA, USA) 930 -- 1005 Cyberbanking and Privacy: The Contracts Model Peter P. Swire (Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA) 1005 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 SVP: a Flexible Micropayment Scheme Jacques Stern, Serge Vaudenay (Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France) 1120 -- 1155 An efficient micropayment system based on probabilistic polling Stanislaw Jarecki (MIT Lab for Computer Science, Cambridge, MA, USA), Andrew Odlyzko (AT&T Labs--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA) 1155 -- 1230 On the continuum between on-line and off-line e-cash systems - I Yacov Yacobi (Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA) Thursday 27 February 1997 830 -- 905 Auditable Metering with Lightweight Security Matthew K. Franklin, Dahlia Malkhi (AT&T Labs--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA) 905 -- 940 Applying Anti-Trust Policies to Increase Trust in a Versatile E-Money System Markus Jakobsson (UCSD, La Jolla, CA, USA), Moti Yung (BTEC/CertCo, New York, NY, USA) 940 -- 1015 Towards Multiple-payment Schemes for Digital Money H. Pagnia, R. Jansen (University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany) 1015 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 Legal Issues in Cryptography Edward J. Radlo (Fenwick & West LLP, Palo Alto, CA, USA) 1120 -- 1230 Panel Discussion Legal Issues of Digital Signatures Michael Froomkin (University of Miami School of Law, Miami, FL, USA), Charles Merrill (McCarter & English, Newark, NJ, USA), Benjamin Wright (Dallas, TX, USA) Friday 28 February 1997 830 -- 930 Invited Speaker To Be Announced 930 -- 1005 The Gateway Security Model in the Java Electronic Commerce Framework Theodore Goldstein (Sun Microsystems Laboratories/Javasoft) 1005 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 Highly Scalable On-line Payments Via Task Decoupling David William Kravitz (CertCo LLC, Albuquerque, NM, USA) 1120 -- 1155 GUMP; Grand Unified Meta-Protocols Recipes for Simple, Standards-based Financial Cryptography Barbara Fox, Brian Beckman (Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA) 1155 -- 1230 Secure Network Communications and Secure Store & Forward Mechanisms with SAP R/3 Bernhard Esslinger (SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany) The conference will run from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM, for five days, February 24-28 1997. Breakfast provided at the conference. The conference organizers have left the afternoon and evenings open for corporate sponsored events, for networking, and for recreational activities on the resort island of Anguilla. Participants are encouraged to bring their families. Workshop: A 40-hour workshop, intended for anyone with commercial software development experience who wants hands-on familiarity with the issues and technology of financial cryptography, is planned in conjunction with FC97, to be held during the week preceding the conference. For more information on the workshop, please see the URL http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~iang/fc97/workshop.html . For workshop registration, see the URL http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/ . Venue: The InterIsland Hotel is a small 14-room guesthouse and a large, comfortable 150 seat conference facility with additional space for a small 10-booth exhibition. The Inter-Island is on Road Bay, near Sandy Ground Village, in the South Hill section of Anguilla. The conference, workshop, and exhibition will have TCP/IP internet access. The rooms at the InterIsland itself have sold out, but there are many other hotels and guesthouses on Anguilla, and shuttle service to the conference will be available. Air Transportation and Hotels: Air travel to Anguilla is typically done through either San Juan or St. Thomas for US flights, or St. Maarten/Martin for flights from Europe and the US. Anguillan import duties are not imposed on hardware or software which will leave the island again. There are no other taxes -- or cryptography import/export restrictions -- on Anguilla. Hotels range from spartan to luxurious, and more information about hotels on Anquilla can be obtained from your travel agent, or at the URL http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/ . General Chairs: Robert Hettinga, Shipwright/e$, Boston, MA, USA; rah(a)shipwright.com Vincent Cate, Offshore Information Services, Anguilla, BWI; vince(a)offshore.com.ai Conference, Exhibits, and Sponsorship Manager: Julie Rackliffe, Boston, MA, USA; rackliffe(a)tcm.org Workshop Leader: Ian Goldberg, Berkeley, CA, USA; iang(a)cs.berkeley.edu Registration: You can register and pay for conference admission on the World Wide Web at the URL http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/ . The cost of the FC97 Conference is US$1,000. Booths for the exhibition start at US$5,000 and include two conference tickets. For more information about exhibit space, contact Julie Rackliffe, rackliffe(a)tcm.org . Sponsorship opportunities for FC97 are still available. The cost of the workshop is US$5000, and includes meals but not lodging. You can register for the workshop, which runs the week prior to the conference, at the URL <http:/www.offshore.com.ai/fc97> Financial Cryptography '97 is held in cooperation with the International Association for Cryptologic Research. It is sponsored by: The Journal for Internet Banking and Commerce <http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/JIBC/> Offshore Information Services <http://www.offshore.com.ai/> e$ <http://www.shipwright.com/rah/> C2NET <http://www.c2.net/> See Your Name Here <mailto: rackliffe(a)tcm.org> ----------------- 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://www.ai/fc97/ "If *you* don't go to FC97, *I* don't go to FC97"

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COO_kin
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1-29-97. NYP: GAK-czar cooks key hooks. FBI cooks lab books. ----- COO_kin

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Re: Last nail for US crypto export policy?
by Steven Bellovin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It is dangerously naive to label this success the ``last nail for US crypto export policy''. Everyone concerned with this issue, from the NSA to the FBI to anyone who wants to use crypto, understands this and accepts it. 40-bit keys are good for protection against casual snooping, and nothing more -- and no one is going to claim that you need supercomputers to crack them. In fact, I assert that the U.S. government is *happy* about these results -- because it's going to push folks towards wanting stronger crypto for export. The only problem, of course, is the terms under which such code can be exported... I'll go further -- in my opinion, the only reason the government doesn't want DES to fall just yet is that alternatives aren't ready. That is, the banks and financial institutions, and for that matter the government agencies, have not converted to 3DES or Clipper or what have you, and can't do so on short notice; the commercial products they need just aren't ready yet. No one wants to risk a loss of confidence in the financial system. Two years from now, though, when some key escrow products are ready, it may be a different story.

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Re: AltaVista sprouts a hole ...
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Yes, I mentioned that here and in comp.org.eff.talk a couple weeks ago. No need to turn images off. Just tell AltaVista you want text-only: http://altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=&text=yes You may also find the text-only page a hell of a lot faster. -rich

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Re: Fighting the cybercensor. (fwd)
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

snow wrote: > > Phill wrote: > > I'm a philosophical anarchist and I don't consider the state to have > > "rights" over its "subjects", nor do I believe in the pure ideology of > > property you do. > > Its worth noting that the origin of property is theft. In the case of the > BULLSHIT. BULL FUCKING SHIT. The origin of property is labor. Claiming > that _my_ property is the result of ME stealing, and hence what I OWN belongs > to the community IS theft. "All your private property, is target for your enemies." Jefferson Airplane

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Re: Getting into MIT is impossible
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ichudov(a)algebra.com wrote: > > can any kind soul tell me, what are the SAT scores needed to be in > the top 10%, top 1%, and top 0.1% of all the students who take these > tests? I'm not sure what this has to do with, well, anything, but here goes. Scores from before April 1995 are not comparable to scores today because the method of scoring has changed to recenter the distribution. The 99th percentile starts at 1440 for women and 1490 for men. Full stats at http://www.collegeboard.org/sat/html/topsrs29.html Please note that this is for "college-bound seniors." It's not a stat that applies to the general population (i.e., 1490+ is the top 1% of the elite 30% or so that go to college), and it doesn't include people who were satisfied with the score they got the beginning of their junior year, and didn't take it again (i.e., me). I don't know about MIT, but I'd think that their numbers would be even higher than those for Stanford, because MIT doesn't recruit football players. Some of Stanford's numbers are at http://www-portfolio.stanford.edu/105549 MIT and the like aren't impossible. Fucking elitist, yes. Worth it? Probably, though two of my closest and most intelligent friends have no college degrees at all. Of course, they had to earn people's respect, whereas I had people recruiting me based largely on the fact that I still had a pulse five years after taking the SAT. What counts is what people want you to do five years after that. -rich

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Re: East German Collapse (Was: Fighting the cybercensor
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hallam-Baker wrote: > > 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. I think the timing was a coincidence. (And I'm told that Kristallnacht wasn't well advertised in East Germany; especially after the Soviets sided the United Arab Republic, the official story was that Hitler had been exterminating good Communists, not Jews.) While the final week was pretty spectacular, the demonstrations and defections had been building for months, as you say: > 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. I wasn't there, but an East German friend of mine was 20 when the wall came down. He was doing his compulsory military service at the time. Even in early 1987, as he was being interviewed by the Stasi concerning the direction the state would allow him to take his life, he says he felt no real fear telling them, up front, "Sure, I'll carry a gun, and I'll go where you tell me to go, but I will not hurt anyone." They gave him a gun and put him on the front, where he waved to his friends as they walked across the border. I think a lot of the border guards were like Thomas. > 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. Yeah, yeah. Economics has soomething to do with it. But I think it comes down to "Sure, I'll carry a gun, and I'll go where you tell me to go, but I will not hurt anyone." Ideas matter. -rich

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