December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Altavista
by Leonid S Knyshov 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Isn't it the future of internet advertising? I mean its just like Juno's and other companies, the only ads shown to customers are those that are relevant to their needs as submitted. Like do a search for web promotion and you are gonna get ads of various services etc. It is highly unlikely that detailed logs are kept since Alta-vista gets overwhelming number of hits. The way I go around all these ads is that I use Internet Fast Find by symantec and I love it, I purchased it after evaluating for 3 days. Sorry for commercial ;) I think it is a good idea, no wonder doubleclick.net is one of the leaders in advertising. You are shown only the ads that will potentially interest you, search for shopping and you are gonna get one of those ISN ads etc. I think it is a good idea FWIW. I wouldn't think that a company such as doubleclick.net will do you any harm. One of my job assignments is Internet research and I search for such variety of topics that those robots have no use on the information submitted. On the other hand, if I find my site on Altavista and go to it, in my referer_log I will see the entire search query and that is a valuable marketing information, you learn about how the customer found you etc. Well, this list isn't marketing101(a)anywhere.com so I am afraid I won't bother with more thorough explation :) I am sorry if you consider this an OFFtopic message but I am just answering the question. On Wed, 29 Jan 97 01:03:35 EST mjw(a)VNET.IBM.COM writes: >From: Mark Waddington >Subject: Altavista > >> However, the doubleclick.net ads appear to bear no relationship to >the >> keywords being searched... > >Interestingly, I've just noticed over the last couple of days that the >in-line >ads are directly relevant to the search words I enter. I did a search >yesterday >on "Quicken" and "security" and all the in-line ads I was shown >referred to >security or penetration detection products. >

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RE: Cellular phone triangulation
by Internaut 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Snow wrote: I'd rather become an "arms dealer". You may already be one if the government keeps this ITAR shit up. --Internaut

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Re: Cats Out of Bags
by sameer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

David Aaron seems to make lying out of his ass a hobby. His talk at the RSA conference was such a load of bullshit it wasn't even funny. "Other governments were upset with the 56-bit export allowance. They said it was going to undermine their national security." -- Start of PGP signed section. > "In an interview Tuesday, [David L.] Aaron [the Feds' Crypto Ambassador] disputed the industry's view that the U.S. efforts to control cryptographic technology are being outstripped by the pace of the technology. > > "When I talk to other governments," he said, "they still don't feel that the cat is out of the bag." > > What the fuck do *they* know? > > DCF -- End of PGP signed section, PGP failed! -- Sameer Parekh Voice: 510-986-8770 President FAX: 510-986-8777 C2Net http://www.c2.net/ sameer(a)c2.net

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Re: Last nail for US crypto export policy?
by Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 29 Jan 1997 f_estema(a)alcor.concordia.ca wrote: [stuff] > > Incidentally, I remind you of the results of the moot court that was held > at one of the CFP conferences, where a GAK case was tried in front of > real federal judges by real lawyers. Our side lost. > Um. Actually the real judges didn't render an opinion (in public) since they might have to rule for real someday and would probably be conflicted out if they had ruled on the merits in a mock trial. The opinions were by a shadow panel of law professors, and they disagreed, 2-1. == The above may have been dictated via Dragon Dictate 2.51 voice recognition. Please be alert for unintentional word substitutions. 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: Rejection policy of the Cypherpunks mailing list
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:05 PM 1/28/97 -0800, Dale Thorn wrote: >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. Your comparison with the fictional Gort, in the movie "The day the earth stood still" is of course apt. It was only after I'd written most of the essay that I realized that an AP-type system would function much as Gort did. Occasionally we (CP) see a spoof where somebody claims to have developed a software program to "replace the judicial system" or something like that. Well, the problem with such a claim (aside from the obvious and enormous AI-type difficulties) is that the current system contains numerous biases. Writing a program to replace the legal system would presumably require that these biases be measured (and admitted-to!) and implemented into a well-defined system. What we'd discover is that the current system only barely resembles the guarantees in the US Constitution. At that point, there would be an argument between those who will insist that the Constitution be followed, and those who believe that the current de-facto system, however biased, be maintained as-is. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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A comment on the censorship policy
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I cannot understand how some of my (accurate) criticisms of Sandfort's censorhip polices---some in direct response to his own self-serving posts declaring himself not to be a flamer himself---are not making it to the "New and Improved Censored List," while inane posts from Toto, Thorn, and someone named "Nurdane Oksas" are appearing. (Oksas has the especially annoying habit of quoting entire posts and then appending a one-line piece of completely list-irrelevant fluff. Also, engaging in lovey-dovey posts with Vulis, who writes messages about how he longs to see Oksas naked.) This whole process is showing the worst of Sandfort's censorship policy. (If this is dumped into the "Not suitable for Cypherpunks to read" list, I urge those of you who see it to pass it on to the main list.) END --

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Re: Libel & the 1st Amendment
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:22 AM 1/29/97 -0800, Greg Broiles wrote: >At 10:42 PM 1/28/97 -0600, Jim Choate wrote: > >>It has been asserted by at least one member that the 1st Amendment protects >>libelous or other defamatory speech. > >Defamation is not protected by the First Amendment; but the First Amendment >limits the application of defamation law in many circumstances. For >example, the First Amendment requires plaintiffs to prove "actual malice" >if they are a public official, public figure, or a private person seeking >punitive damages. What you ought to explain to us laymen is that the terminology "actual malice" dates from the case New York Times vs. Sullivan, and it used a definition of "malice" that was not in any dictionary at the time. My recollection: Sullivan was a local hero in a particular area in the south in the last 50's (?), gave a speech to a crowd of (?) people who were probably in sympathy with segregation. They proceeded to march. Later, the New York Times claimed (as I vaguely recall it, although it's been years since I read a description) that he had instigated a riot. Sullivan sued, claiming his reputation had been damaged. Arguably, it had, although it's probably equally arguable that Sullivan had done something that would have been looked upon somewhat unsympathetically by non-Southerners. The local (southern, of course) jury found NYT guilty of libel, and awarded Sullivan some huge judgment. (Had the jury been made up of northern people, presumably Sullivan would have lost.) The problem here is that two long-honored principles collided: One, the "free speech" issue, generally tries to guarantee organizations like NY Times the right to print the news and the leeway to do so. The second principle that people should be able to sue for libel in a local court, and be awarded whatever amount of money the jury declares. The problem with this was obvious, after the verdict: It, in effect, allowed essentially any burg in the country, no matter how backwards, potentially to bankrupt any targeted organ of the national news media. Something had to give. Unfortunately, the SC screwed up, as usual. The proper thing for them to do would have been to abandon libel law entirely, recognizing that it did more harm than good. But they blew it: They invented the "actual malice" standard out of whole cloth, raising the standard for libel suits by "public figures," which is really a rather arbitrary standard. Don't go to any ordinary English dictionary for this "malice" definition; it didn't exist before the Sullivan decision, not even in lawbooks. It was really just a rabbit pulled from a hat to try to avoid the collision I mentioned above. Side note: I think that the SC should be unable to re-define ordinary English words. But they try anyway. Basically, it became harder to sue well-known persons. However, what really happened is that they SC had merely put off the problem for another day, because the DEFINITION of a "public figure" was at least as malleable as Jell-O. And oddly, it was eventually revealed that you could be a "public figure" with respect to one subject, but NOT a "public figure" on another. Etc. Ironically, now that Richard Jewell (incorrectly identified as Atlanta bombing suspect) has sued some newspapers (and his former employer) for libel, it seems likely that at least some of those defendants will try to argue that merely being named by the government as a criminal suspect makes him "a public figure." BTW, I think that pressing the Richard Jewell incident would be an excellent way to derail any sort of claim that the government can obey the law. Apparently, they got a number of search warrants based on, essentially, nothing, and to rub this in the government's nose would show that the so-called "probable-cause" standard for warrants is not followed in practice. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Last nail for US crypto export policy?
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:41 AM 1/30/97 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote: >I think we do need to get some sort of push going for 3DES as a >replacement for DES - it's strong enough, even though DES is showing >its age, and it's an obvious transition from the current technology. >It's slower and clunkier than IDEA or RC4/128, but still not bad. The migration to 3DES is underway, at least in the banking sector. ANSI X.9, the group that deals with many of the protocols used in the banking industry, has made tremendous progress. 3DES, elliptic curve, and a host of other improvements all are out of committee and should be available as official (for bankers :-) specs soon, if they aren't already. -- 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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Re: Cats Out of Bags
by atb＠purple.reddesign.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> David Aaron seems to make lying out of his ass a hobby. His >talk at the RSA conference was such a load of bullshit it wasn't even >funny. > "Other governments were upset with the 56-bit export >allowance. They said it was going to undermine their national >security." I'm sure a few countries are upset because the US policy may in some way impede their citizens ability to adopt STRONG cryptography and secure their information infrastructure, thus injuring their national security. Remember, Aaron is employee of the government. He talks in doublespeak, Angooki Taipu atb(a)purple.reddesign.com

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Re: Key Security Question
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Paul Foley wrote: > On Fri, 31 Jan 1997 17:51:47 -0800, Toto wrote: >> If the repairman has your pubring and secring files, you can now >> consider them in the same light as a 'busted flush'. > > The secret key is encrypted using the same IDEA algorithm that PGP > uses to encrypt your files. If you trust IDEA, your key is as safe as > your passphrase (not at all if you have no passphrase, not much if > it's easily guessable, etc.) Send me your secring file. I have a new password-buster I'd like to try out on it. > If your computer repairman has the capability to crack strong 128-bit > ciphers, I'd be rather worried :-) He doesn't have to crack the cipher, he only needs to find the password. > On the other hand, there's always the possibility of your passphrase > being on the disk, say in a swap file, somewhere. Same goes for > plaintext of any encrypted files/messages. I doubt anyone's gonna go > hunting through your swap file, "empty" sectors, etc., looking for it, > though, unless you've done something to really piss him off lately :-) Or if he's a member of the CypherPunks list, read the message, and now considers it to be a personal challenge. Toto

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