December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: libsln.htm -- Is Libel a Crime?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:33 AM 1/28/97 -0500, aga wrote: >On Mon, 27 Jan 1997, jim bell wrote: > >> At 01:14 AM 1/27/97 -0600, ichudov(a)algebra.com wrote: >> >These postings do not prove that libel is a crime. It is because libel >> >is not a crime. Libel is a tort, and unlike with crime, the government >> >cannot initiate a legal action against someone for libel. Only injured >> >(libeled) individuals and not the government can sue in a libel case. >> >> On the contrary, in some jurisdictions libel is indeed a crime. However, >> that doesn't mean that prosecutions happen anymore, but the laws are (in >> some places) still on the books. > >Jim, either you are full of shit or that Law is VERY >unconstitutional. The first amendment prohibits any Criminal Laws >from being made against libel. You'd think that, wouldn't you? Yes, I agree that those laws are unconstitutional, but so is about 90+% of what the Federal government does today. Sigh. Criminal libel statutes are apparently (in the US, at least) a holdover from an earlier era in which government took the place of King George, and wanted the power to punish people who were too outspoken. The fact that they are "never" (?) used anymore is presumably a reflection of their unconstitutionality. Criminal libel statues should also be considered unconstitutional because they give way too much leeway to the prosecutor to decide whom to prosecute. His friends will never be charged, but his enemies will. One obvious problem with the LACK of a criminal libel statute, from the standpoint of the "government-controlling-class," or "the bigshots," is that it's impossible to sue (and collect from) a (comparatively) poor person for defaming him...but it's still possible to put him in jail. Civil libel is, therefore, essentially useless to a government agent as a means of keeping the masses in line. Myself, I believe that libel should be eliminated as a cause of action in civil cases as well as it has, de facto, in the criminal area. If anything, the ability to sue for libel makes things worse: There is an illusion that this is easy and straightforward, if not economical. It is neither. The result is that people are actually MORE likely to believe a printed falsehood because they incorrectly assume that if it wasn't true, it couldn't be printed. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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c2 internet accounts
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

does c2net still offer internet accounts? I liked their offer for internet accounts with a 5 mb web site via telnet. does anyone else know of a place for cheap telnet only accounts? thanks;

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Altavista
by mjw＠VNET.IBM.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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. Mark Waddington Interactive Financial Services | Phone : +61-3-96266574 Business Development Manager | Mobile: +61-412-217316 IBM Asia Pacific | Fax : +61-3-96266273

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Getting into MIT is impossible
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

According to Rick Osborne: "I disagree and can speak from experience. I was denied admission to MIT even thought I had a 3.82 GPA, 1440 SAT (one try), and had taken 9 AP tests with two 5's, four 4's, two 3's, and one 2. As for being well-rounded, I was on several academic teams, sang in Chorus, acted and stage managed in Drama, and played Tennis." People get into MIT--or don't get into MIT--for lots of reasons. Most intelligent people apply to several schools, knowing that admissions practices are subject to the vagaries of reality. In my case, my SATs were about 1500, with some 800s in achievement tests. And the usual bullshit high school clubs, political offices, etc. etc. I was accepted by MIT, but not by Caltech. I didn't lose any sleep over the way things turned out. And I decided not to go to MIT, either. "The only thing I didn't have that the next MIT applicant had was money. I made the mistake of letting them know that I was dirt poor and would need full aid/grants/etc, and to quote "The Great Escape" it was "Zzzt! To the Russian front!"" My guess is that "other factors" were involved. I noted with some interest, but little surprise, that the guy claiming MIT required a 4.0 GPA and a 1600 combined SAT score could barely spell, and had major problems making a coherent point. Methinks this is why MIT rejected him, not his lack of a "1600." ">For what it's worth, I wanted to go to MIT my sophomore year in high >school, too "Lucky you. It had been a dream of mine since I was an annoying overachiever of 6. Sux to be white trash, I guess." MIT offered me a substantial economic aid package, in the form of loans, grants, and various campus jobs. What does this tell you? "MIT may be a great school, but they tend to be snooty assholes for the most part. (DISCLAIMER: Not all MIT grads/attendees are necessarily "snooty assholes", I'm just saying that I've yet to meet one that wasn't.) I've known about a dozen or so MIT grads, and only one of them was a snooty asshole, and it was a _she_, one of the first MIT women grads (and she was _very_ impressed by this). Most MIT grads are perfectly reasonable. Xanthar --

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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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Authenticated mail command processor
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I am wondering if anyone has written a package for remote command processing that has authentication and access control built in. I am looking for the following: 1) PGP Authentication of each incoming message 2) Access control where ability of users to execute commands is finely limited 3) Protection against replay and MITM attacks, encryption 4) Sending back of the results of execution 5) Some form of logging I need it for my cryptorobomoderator bot, to allow moderators to go to vacations and perform other admin tasks w/o logging in. Thank you. - Igor.

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

17 Dec '03

> > Remember, Aaron is employee of the government. He talks in doublespeak, Aaron is employee of the government. Therefore he must lie. -- 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 Jeremiah A Blatz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- "Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" <froomkin(a)law.miami.edu> writes: <snip> > The above may have been dictated via Dragon Dictate 2.51 voice > recognition. Please be alert for unintentional word substitutions. Stego? Maybe 3 bits per substituted word? Good bye, uhnsufride, hello, "speech recognition." Jer "standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMvDlzMkz/YzIV3P5AQExTAL/d5/Bd7hrwi6zWAsHTm+W8j072sQVtVjx kkFbxf5oBYObYScT8h57PZlZcobumV3I8sjAguPVBeBC9uMIiKDd8H0xh5w0Ncr5 EcIsRwmpn/6rXutrUO1IUVTnepCJq6gn =iACw -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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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: Altavista
by Eric Murray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Leonid S Knyshov writes: [about targeted webvertising using stats gathered by tracking browsers] > 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. Probably not. But the practice still bothers me. _I_ want to control what information about me others can have. I do not want the precedent set that on the Net, what you do is trackable by every organization who might care. Sooner or later someone _would_ use that information to hurt me. That's why I wrote cookie jar, a program that lets the user have better control over which 'cookies' if any they release to web servers, and what other information their browser gives out. See http://www.lne.com/ericm/cookie_jar/ for details and code. > >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. This doesn't bother me as much (besides the fucking ads, which I hate... maybe I'll make cookie jar smart enough to nuke them). The reason is that the ads are selected based on what you typed in to the search engine right then- there's no tracking involved like with Doubleclick. -- Eric Murray ericm(a)lne.com ericm(a)motorcycle.com http://www.lne.com/ericm PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03 92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF

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