December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Libel & the 1st Amendment (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 16:28:56 -0500 (EST) > From: "Mark M." <markm(a)voicenet.com> > > Anyone can afford a contingency-free attorney as long as the plaintiff has a > good chance of being awarded damages. This has the benefit that the legal > system doesn't get overcrowded with frivolous cases. Really? And what if the out come is nothing more than a public statement in the local newspaper that the original statement was not true and paying the court costs? I doubt you will find a single attorney who will take the case because there is no profit for them. > If the legal concept of libel is abandoned, this presumption will largely > disappear. People will have to rely on the credibility of the source, instead > of whether or not the victim of libel has sued. Really? And just exactly do you base this assumption on? Historicaly it would seem that people want to believe the dirty grit about people. If they didn't they wouldn't make the National Inquirer as successful as it is. No, in general people don't give a crap about the real truth or falsity of the statement unless it directly impacts them in some manner. What they are interested in is entertainment, something the law should not provide. The real issue is whether a Democracy can exist in an environment where there is no requirement of honesty and truth from its citizens. I would contend that it can't since the democratic process itself is representative of those people and their beliefs. If you really and truly belive a democratic society can exist with no recognition of and protection for reputation we will just have to respectfuly disagree. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Re: Libel & the 1st Amendment (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 23:23:18 -0600 (CST) > From: ichudov(a)algebra.com > > I can give you an example. > > ``Jim Choate invented an improved bubble sort method, called BSAM.'' > > This is undoubtedly false since you likely did not invent any sorting > method. But you would not be able to get any damages (is that correct?) Under the present system? Yes, it would not be worth a lawyers time to process the appropriate paperwork unless I were a computer scientist and the statement was published in a reputable magazine by something like the ACM or IEEE. Under the system I propose you would be forced to publish a public recantation in the local press as well as paying the legal fees for the trial at least. Provided of course it was worth the cost of the bond to me. After all it is my reputation. The only person who should make decisions about how important my reputation is to me is me, most definitely not you or any other third party. I suspect you would not allow me to decide your reputation either. > When you say "should", what do you mean? That the current law will > hold you to a minimum standard of evidence? > Or you mean that it would be nice if it were so? Neither, the currrent requirements of the law are irrelevant. My premise is that such current laws are broke, why would I want to promote them? Answer, I wouldn't. As to 'nice', what is nice isn't an issue. What is necessary is the recognition that for a democratic society to exist in a world where business is done based on reputations by parties who may never make more contact than a email and EFT making statements about such reputations which are not backed by verifiable evidence should be discouraged strongly. > > A democratic society should have no tolerence for libel, slander, or other > > forms of lies. > > Why? And who decides what is a lie? This is almost too silly to even respond to. A lie is a statement which could be true but isn't. In the context of the current discussion this would mean that a statement made by one party about another party which was told to a third party and was not verifiable with evidence. Why should anyone tolerate a liar? Responsible and reasonable people don't tolerate liars. Who decides? The same group who decides now, the jury. > > In civil cases the plaintiff should place a bond, set at some percentage of > > the maximum permissible award, at the time the case is filed. This would at > > least cover the general costs of the court and limit nuisance cases. > > > > You can either oppose "specieocracy" and inequality of rich and > poor in libel litigation, or ask to place bonds that will make even > harder for the poor to sue, BUT NOT BOTH, if you want to remain logical. This is another clever attempt at a smoke screen. Nice try but 'Brrrrrttt', you loose the bet. I would suggest you don't play poker, your bluffs are truly amateurish. If the plaintiff pays up front or at the end is irrelevant. If the plaintiff loses they pay the cost of the court. If they win then the defendant pays the court costs, reimbursment of the bond, and the penalites awarded by the jury/court. The only reason to require anything up front is to act as a verification that the plaintiff can pay the court costs (which they get back if they win and must pay anyway if they loose) up front. The reason being that it would be possible without this for people to skip out on the court costs if they loose, which would cause another more expensive cost, a criminal trial, that the people in general would have to carry. The end result would be that the taxes we would have to pay would be higher just like your credit card costs are more expensive than they need to be because of fraud by other card holders. I would never attempt to speak for you but I pay too much tax now taking care of deadbeats and similar sorts. Further more, the bond would not have to be extravagant. If it were a simple case of libel with no punitive damages involved it would be resolved by a small claims court and might require no more than $25 - $50 as a bond. The point of the bond is to make the plaintiff think twice, not hinder them if that is what they truly feel is their due. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Re: If guilty of a lesser crime, you can be sentenced for a greater
by rex 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Black Unicorn <unicorn(a)schloss.li> wrote: >If you want to look at it a different way, if you are involved with a drug >offense and are not using a weapon, you'll get a lower sentence than a >full fledged drug crime. It's a step in the right direction - i.e. away >from manadatory sentencing of a flat time period for a crime regardless of >circumstances. But Putra got the same sentence she would have gotten had she been convicted on both charges. The fact that she was acquitted meant nothing. UNITED STATES v. VERNON WATTS UNITED STATES v. CHERYL PUTRA on petition for writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit No. 95-1906. Decided January 6, 1997 Per Curiam. In these two cases, two panels of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that sentencing courts could not consider conduct of the defendants underlying charges of which they had been acquitted. United States v. Watts, 67 F. 3d 790 (CA9 1995) (-Watts-); United States v. Putra, 78 F. 3d 1386 (CA9 1996) (-Putra-). [...] Because the panels' holdings conflict with the clear implications of 18 U. S. C. 3661, the Sentencing Guidelines, and this Court's decisions, particularly Witte v. United States, 515 U. S. ___ (1995), we grant the petition and reverse in both cases. [...] Justice Stevens, dissenting. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 revolutionized the manner in which district courts sentence persons convicted of federal crimes. Burns v. United States, 501 U. S. 129, 132 (1991). The goals of rehabilitation and fairness served by individualized sentencing that formerly justified vesting judges with virtually unreviewable sentencing discretion have been replaced by the impersonal interest in uniformity and retribution. [...] II The issue of law raised by the sentencing of Cheryl Putra involved the identification of the offense level that determined the range within which the judge could exercise discretion. Because she was a first offender with no criminal history, that range was based entirely on the offense or offenses for which she was to be punished. She was found guilty of aiding and abetting the intended distribution of one ounce of cocaine on May 8, 1992, but not guilty of participating in a similar transaction involving five ounces of cocaine on May 9, 1992. United States v. Putra, 78 F. 3d 1386, 1387 (CA9 1996). If the guilty verdict provided the only basis for imposing punishment on Ms. Putra, the Guidelines would have required the judge to impose a sentence of no less than 15 months in prison and would have prohibited him from imposing a sentence longer than 21 months. If Putra had been found guilty of also participating in the 5 ounce transaction on May 9, 1992, the Guidelines would have required that both the minimum and the maximum sentences be increased; the range would have been between 27 and 33 months. As the District Court applied the Guidelines, precisely the same range resulted from the acquittal as would have been dictated by a conviction. Notwithstanding the absence of sufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the alleged offense on May 9 led to the imposition of a sentence six months longer than the maximum permitted for the only crime that provided any basis for punishment. In my judgment neither our prior cases nor the text of the statute warrants this perverse result. And the vigor of the debate among judges in the courts of appeals on this basic issue belies the ease with which the Court addresses it, without hearing oral argument or allowing the parties to fully brief the issues. [...] Even more than Williams, this Court, like all of the Circuits that have adopted the same approach as the District Courts in these cases, relies primarily on the misguided five-to-four decision in McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79 (1986). For the reasons stated in my dissent in that case, id., at 95-104, I continue to believe that it was incorrectly decided and that its holding should be reconsidered. Even accepting its holding that the Constitution does not require proof beyond a reasonable doubt to establish a sentencing factor that increases the minimum sentence without altering the maximum, however, there are at least two reasons why McMillan does not dictate the outcome of these cases. In McMillan, as in these cases, the defendant's minimum sentence was enhanced on the basis of a fact proved by a preponderance of the evidence. But in McMillan, the maximum was unchanged; the sentence actually imposed was within the range that would have been available to the judge even if the enhancing factor had not been proved. In these cases, however, the sentences actually imposed were higher than the Guidelines would have allowed without evidence of the additional offenses. The McMillan opinion pointedly noted that the Pennsylvania statute had not altered the maximum penalty for the crime committed and operated solely to limit the sentencing courts' discretion in selecting a penalty within the range already available to it without the special finding of visible possession of a firearm. Id., at 87-88. Given the Court's acknowledged inability to lay down any `bright line' test that would define the limits of its holding, id., at 91, and its apparent assumption that a sentencing factor should not be allowed to serve as a tail which wags the dog of the substantive offense, id., at 88, see also ante, at 7, n. 2, the holding should not be extended to allow a fact proved by only a preponderance to increase the entire range of penalties within which the sentencing judge may lawfully exercise discretion. [...] In my opinion the statute should be construed in the light of the traditional requirement that criminal charges must be sustained by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That requirement has always applied to charges involving multiple offenses as well as a single offense. Whether an allegation of criminal conduct is the sole basis for punishment or merely one of several bases for punishment, we should presume that Congress intended the new sentencing Guidelines that it authorized in 1984 to adhere to longstanding procedural requirements enshrined in our constitutional jurisprudence. The notion that a charge that cannot be sustained by proof beyond a reasonable doubt may give rise to the same punishment as if it had been so proved is repugnant to that jurisprudence.

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Re: Thoughts re moderation, filtering, and name changes
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greg, I read your missive (cpunks.html). It was interesting and thoughtful, despite the lack of ASCII art. I thought that I would reply to it by private email, in order to be able to speak bluntly, without damaging some of the rather fragile egos on the list. On the list I do my best to refrain from personal insults toward others, but there sometimes comes a point where the mere facts of a matter tend to be insulting to others, despite attempts to tippy-toe around them. Your HTML post does, in fact, deal with some very important points in regard to the content of the list. So much so, that it points out one of the major reasons that I see the moderation/censorship process that has been implemented as a deceitful and shoddy treatment of CypherPunk list members. After years of reaping the rewards of his role of crypto-anarchist- privacy-freedom/of/speech champion (which he has every right to), John Gilmore decides to declare, "My machine--my list. I'm changing it." (He might as well have added, "Anyone who doesn't like it can go fuck themselves!") John Gilmore effectively said, "I 'AM' the cypherpunks." Despite the fact that he rarely posts to it and does not participate in the discussions. And exactly what was the purpose behind the changes? Any two imbeciles with a case of beer could have sat down in a single evening and hammered out a solution to the problems you have addressed. Instead, John chose to confiscate the subscribers by giving his 'new' list the cypherpunks name, instead of building a new list on its own merits. And he set it up so that anyone who wants to follow what is happening in the moderation/censorship process gets 'twice as much' crapola as before. The fact is, there is not one, single member who expressed a desire to continue receiving the Tim May crapola or the UCE/Spam crapola. But the process was set up so that those who choose not to receive the edited/moderated/censored list get this shit forwarded to them, by design of John and Sandy. As far as 'censoring' goes, 'people' are being censored, not 'content'. I, among others, am auto-botted to the flames and uncensored lists. My 'offense' appears to be questioning the New List Order. If John, in his 'moderation' announcement, had stated that he intended to automatically shit-can certain member's postings, he would have lost even what shaky respect he still maintains among people who are paying a modicum of attention to what is actually transpiring on the list. To tell the truth, my original concern with Sandy censoring the list was that he does not have a particularly good command of the English language, and he seems to have trouble grasping the concepts involved in moderation/censorship. I actually like Sandy, so I was hoping my forebodings would turn out to be incorrect, but they have not. I think he is in over his head and, as a result, his moderation is close to being a joke. This is not a 'casual' observation. I have read every single message since the start of moderation, and documented the censored/uncensored posts, as well as analyzing the headers, etc. There are more than a few obtuse things going on behind the scenes. I believe that your view of 60% on-topic but uninteresting is a figure fairly close to how more than a few list members view the situation, but no one seems to realize that they are each talking about a different 60%, which, taken together, encompasses the majority of the postings. Think of it this way--what if each member was allowed to cut-out the 60% that they personally found uninteresting? What do you think would be left? You seem to be one of the few list members who realizes what they gain by having a 'library' of posts that introduce them to information and perspectives that broaden their horizons. I would hate to lose access to your posts because another member cut them out as a part of the 60% that s/he found 'uninteresting'.

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pgpfingerd
by Jeremey Barrett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- For what it's worth, I wrote a very short fingerd that fetches _only_ a user's .pgpplan file, should it exist. Else it just exits. Someone may have already done this, so be it. This was mostly for my own use, but if anyone wants the code, feel free to use it. It's available from my home page ( http://www.veriweb.com/people/jeremey/ ). After calling getpwnam() on the username supplied, it calls setuid() with the uid of the user being fingered. It ignores any finger options and attempts to parse them out. It's possible I missed some. After setuid(), it attempts to open a file called .pgpplan in the directory (pw_dir) returned by getpwnam(). If this is not a _regular_ file, it exits, i.e. no symlinks. Then it shoves the file out over stdout (this assumes it was invoked by inetd). That's it. I've only compiled it on Linux and BSDI, but it doesn't do anything very odd, so it should compile fine on other Unix platforms. - -- =-----------------------------------------------------------------------= Jeremey Barrett VeriWeb Internet Corp. Senior Software Engineer http://www.veriweb.com/ PGP Key fingerprint = 3B 42 1E D4 4B 17 0D 80 DC 59 6F 59 04 C3 83 64 =-----------------------------------------------------------------------= -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface iQCVAwUBMvKgyy/fy+vkqMxNAQHqKgQAqxKiAzcOUDx9ThN5D6OHwuyUE1WlCtXr EVjg0d19fhafiTGO3HwAFbk8zxtzs/YMtSJ4a5nbALQTUxVBF/749DboXU+IS37l urB7MjBb0mB7+4IDmmR/iFEJa/U/mlTWZiLZ7JOq2Y7GtuqDmGgN3Z/T+K0loQvl 7Qn1x8aHXlI= =RxZM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Key Security Question
by Z.B. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My computer went into the shop a few days ago, and I was unable to take my PGP keys off it before it went in. What are the security risks here? If the repairman chooses to snoop through the files, what would he be able to do with my key pair? Will I need to revoke the key and make a new one, or will I be relatively safe since he doesn't have my passphrase? Zach Babayco zachb(a)netcom.com <-------finger for PGP public key If you need to know how to set up a mail filter or defend against emailbombs, send me a message with the words "get helpfile" (without the " marks) in the SUBJECT: header, *NOT THE BODY OF THE MESSAGE!* I have several useful FAQs and documents available.

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Degaussing diskettes
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Dopehead L[ice] Vilus K[rust]OfTheMoment wears satin lingerie embroidered with pink swastikas, prancing around for his faggot, AIDS infected lovers. \|/ @ @ -oOO-(_)-OOo- Dr.Dopehead L[ice] Vilus K[rust]OfTheMoment

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[ITAR] Zero-knowledge interactive proofs
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Derisve L]oser[ Vampire K]unt[OfTheMinute is a pimply dweeb sitting at a computer chortling at his own imagined cleverness. .-._ {_}^ )o {\________//~` ( ) Dr.Derisve L]oser[ Vampire K]unt[OfTheMinute /||~~~~~||\ |_\\_ \\_\_ "' ""' ""'"'

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Weak cryptoanarchy
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dimitri Vindictive K[rap]OTM is a pimply dweeb sitting at a computer chortling at his own imagined cleverness. |\_/| (0_0) Dimitri Vindictive K[rap]OTM ==(Y)== ---(u)---(u)---

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PGP Source code implementation
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dainty Virus K[ankersore]OTM wears satin lingerie embroidered with pink swastikas, prancing around for his homosexual, AIDS infected lovers. ,/ \, ((__,-"""-,__)) `--)~ ~(--` .-'( )`-, Dainty Virus K[ankersore]OTM `~~`d\ /b`~~` | | (6___6) `---`

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