December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: concerning Ben Franklin
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is one of the point that I address in my article in the February 1997 issue of "Internet Underground" magazine (to which I am a contributing editor). Here's an excerpt, since the magazine is just starting to hit the stands. --- The debate swirling through Capitol Hill conference rooms and the corridors of the White House revolves around one basic question: What role should the government play in regulating encryption? The founding fathers might be startled by the byzantine rules. After all, some revolutionaries were cryptographers themselves. Benjamin Franklin in 1781 crafted a substitution cipher based on a 682-character French phrase. James Madison created a code replacing words with two- and three-digit numbers that he used until 1793. But by far the most remarkable cryptologist of the Revolutionary War was the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, who between 1790 and 1800 invented a cipher system so far ahead of its time that it remained in use even into the late 20th century. --- The Codebreakers is also a good source. -Declan >I was reading one of the posts in the thread reguarding sone stolen object >in Miami, the one reffering to the locks of the boxes, and it got me thinking. >Ben Franklin was a revolutionary, scientist, inventor, publisher, statesman, >and bookburner (according to F451). Perhaps he should be considered to be a >cypherpunk, not that he necessarily knew anything about crypto, but because >he was interested in many of the same ideals. It is my belief that were he >alive today, he would be on this list. If the work of fiction referred to >above, and in another recent post, is accurate in its reference to Franklin, >then he would seem to have had the same solution to net pollution, burn it. >Rather than considering Ben Franklin the first fireman, I would like to >think of him as an early breed of cypherpunk. By this I consider cypherpunk >to be interested in the subject, and its outcome, and a cryptographer to be >just one faction of cypherpunk. Merely my opinion. >Does anyone know whether or not Mr. Franklin may have played with code as >well? All of my sources were assimilated into my understanding of the man >several years ago, and at the time crypto was less in the public eye than it >is now. ------------------------- The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

1 0

Re: John's: In anarchy -everyone responsible
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- on or about 970204:0312 Greg Broiles <gbroiles(a)netbox.com> said: + Are mailing lists an example of "public goods" where private + ownership is impossible, or should be avoided? ... yes, there is a requirement, even in a libertarian society, let alone an anarchic society, for cooperation in the *commonweal[th]*. in otherwords, is there even such a social state as true anarchy? (given the residents of planet earth, I doubt it.) + Is the desire for an anarchic community at odds with a desire for + good use of resources? the individual desire for anarchy must exclude common human "pride" and greed. true anarchy is poorly defined and understood by most advocates. the absolute need for common resources negates anarchy in the popularly defined "description" of anarchy, solely because the issue of community "responsibility" is in opposition to the perceived: 'I can do anything I want.' In a "popular" anarchy, Jim Bell's assassination politics make perfectly good sense; but, a "popular" anarchy is not an _anarchy_. on or about 970204:0621 John Gilmore <gnu(a)toad.com> said: + In an anarchy, *everyone* is responsible; + nothing is "somebody else's job". Bingo! John's statement is the absolute bottom line! e.g.- if you are walking down the street with thousands of other people and you see a piece of trash (which obviously was tossed by an obviously imperfect anarchist), _you_ pick the trash up and place it in a waste container. _you_ -not someone else who is shirking _their_ common responsibility. anarchy is _not_ living on a desert island surrounded by piles of McDonald's wrappers and empty coke cans. that is an individual who elected to "escape" both society and {him,her}self. anarchy is only possible in an ideal world where _everyone_ assumes not only responsibility for themselves, but for the common good. no malice, no greed, no need for assassination politics.... John's quote from Booker T. is precisely the point: ...now that they were in actual possession of it, freedom was a more serious thing than they had expected to find it. or maybe Bobbie McGee: "freedom is just nothing else to lose..." (BTW, written by a Rhodes Scholar) -- attila out (for the moment) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQCVAwUBMvfD1b04kQrCC2kFAQGCRAP/TFNkLEtSKhEzksBCeT4r1pfZnIgwHkZz QtlfSo8dKcQMBXJcdfJ58dklisFrolyLApcEYFO5E+v6XPH+SFe+DOOoMgGNfj1v 3qnL49ol2s34ioaJG3BFqy6JOJmL7eom0PleQrGWzko8mGM99dRBVgCRCLZMmWk8 4Uaqs5Ztkbw= =112P -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: Moderation, Tim, Sandy, me, etc. * Strong crypto == DES?!
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The gist of your post seems to be saying that: - yes, the result it is not purely anarchic - the moderation experiment intentionally moderated the main list by design - this is perhaps slightly at odds with cypherpunks philosphy on freedom but that this is necessary because: - cypherpunks larger goals are more important - cypherpunks goals are better served by having a lower noise environment to work in - create that environment by any means possible (ends justify the means) - people weren't being responsible with their freedom anyway - it's only an experiment - if you don't like this and complain you're part of the problem Now it may seem nit-picking to a pragmatist, which is the way you presented your arguments, but the idea that cypherpunks should stoop to moderation/censorship calls into question what cypherpunks larger goals are. Why? Because we promote electronic freedom, but in order to effectively organise the promotion of freedom, we reject full freedom of speech as unworkable, and impose restrictions. This lends ammunition to our opponents. "See even they realise there must be limits to free speech". Cypherpunks main goal is: "to promote privacy and freedom through technological means" and arising from this goal, are presumed philosphical stances: - privacy and freedom are a good thing (unconditional free speech is a good thing) - censorship is a bad thing - government retrictions and backdoors in crypto are a bad thing (crypto providing practical privacy, and practical free speech being provided by cryptographically enabled anonymity) - chaumian credentials are preferable to fully traceable credentials - etc. etc. So the question to me boils down to is unconditional free speech a good thing? Dorothy Denning says no. Louis Freeh says no. The Clinton administration says no. I thought you said yes. I thought most of your actions for the last 10 years screamed yes! Why cut corners for little gain? Another moderated list with official sanction (hosted by toad.com, with your commendation that people subscribe to it (to reduce noise and increase productivity), with instructions in the sign on message listing the moderated/filtered lists available, clearly stating the filtering policy, regularly posted instructions on available filtered lists to cypherpunks) would have been beautiful. Fine. Lovely. But you set up moderation of _the_ list, with no interaction required by the subscriber. That caused Tim to unsubscribe. It's causing me, and others to argue for this aspect of the moderation to be reversed ASAP. > PS: Can we talk about crypto too? It's clear from the last few days > of press releases that the pro-GAK forces are again working to confuse > novices into thinking that two very different things are the same > thing. Last time it was "public key infrastructure" and "key > recovery". This time it's "strong crypto" and "56-bit DES". What > should we do about this? Educate the public? Education, and countering government news-speak seems to be the key issues at the moment. Educate the journalist that perpetuated the pro-GAK lie. Write an article to the same publication pointing out the fallacy (unfortunately as these are private presses they are `moderated', so you may not get your say). Buy the advert space if they won't publish. I'll contribute. Distribute strong crypto (you are personally, the ipsec S/WAN initiative is important). I'm working on creating and distributing strong crypto, and influencing sectors of users to use strong crypto, rather than export crippled US stuff. The myth that 56 bits is strong is perpetuated by journalists outside the US too. The export situation is complex, many user groups (even IT managers) don't understand. They don't understand the meaning of key strengths either. Break DES to demonstrate it's weakness. May happen in the next 1/2 year. Gets free publicity. People aren't saying 40 bits are secure anymore. Cypherpunks acheived that. Hope that Matt Blaze goes ahead with his hardware DES breaker. He said some time ago that he had spare funding and was considering using it for this purpose. Anyone know the state of play? This would be more important as it would quantify the costs, and would be much more impressive, and realistic for an estimate of the strength of DES against industrial espionage or well funded criminal attack. Adam -- print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

1 0

Re: "alt.cypherpunks" people?
by Anil Das 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back wrote: > > What do people think of starting an alt.cypherpunks USENET newsgroup? > I have only one objection. I will never post to an Usenet group under my real email address for fear of ending up in spammer databases. -- Anil Das

1 0

Are cypher punks capable?
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Against Moderation wrote: > In general, unsubscribing and resubscribing to a mailing list is not > completely trivial. Do you think that a cypher punk is not able to solve these problems?

2 1

bye.bye
by Bjorn Asman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have to agree that Mr. Tim C May have a big point. Even if i didn't like all the things Mr. May wrote so could i read it, and that is the point i think Mr. Sandford missed. That is to have a list that is a "living" list. You have to have all the people giving their chanche to say what tehy like even if they dont are "mentaly healthy".I have one more thing to "say". Namely to say bye.bye. to this list. I have never posted to this list, i have only read it, because i like the freedom in it (free speech and so on), but if i have to change my subscription to unedit-cypherpunks just to "hear" the freedom of speech, i rather just say no and unsubscribe. bye.bye bjorn.asman(a)infodesign.se.org Roerstrandsgatan 7a 41703.Goeteborg Phone +46-(0)31-221056 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The subjects are cyborg, nature is coyote, and the geography is Elsewhere -Donna Haraway ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 0

[ANNOUNCEMENT] Zero-knowledge interactive proofs
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The main difference between Tim C. Maypole and shit is that shit smells better. o o /< >\ Tim C. Maypole \\\_______/// // \\

1 0

Harvard Symposium
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 15:10:17 -0800 From: jmuller(a)brobeck.com (John D. Muller) Subject: Harvard Symposium To: rah(a)shipwright.com Bob: I don't recall seeing this on e$pam and thought it might be of interest. What with the Boston connection, it's clearly a dcsb-worthy item, and I'll send it to them separately. ______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Subject: [NET-LAWYERS] HARVARD JOURNAL OF LAW & TECHNOLOGY Author: "K. Dueker" <kdueker(a)LAW.HARVARD.EDU> at internet Date: 2/4/97 1:00 AM [CROSS-POSTED; PLEASE FORGIVE DUPLICATION] PRESS RELEASE Symposium: Crime & Technology Law Enforcement Technology % Cybercrime % Electronic Commerce (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - The Harvard Journal of Law & Technology is pleased to announce its Spring Symposium: "Crime & Technology." The Symposium will be held Saturday, March 15, 1997, in the Ames Courtroom at the Harvard Law School in Cambridge, MA. The Symposium will consist of two moderated panel discussions, as well as several presentations. The morning session is expected to focus on "Search, Seizure, and Surveillance Technology," while the afternoon session will focus on "The Risks of Electronic Banking & Commerce." Admission to the Symposium is free to all Harvard affiliates (with valid Harvard ID), $15 for all other students, $30 for public sector professionals, and $100 for private sector professionals. The Spring Issue of the Journal will include articles covering the broad topic of "Crime and Technology." For additional information about the Symposium or the Journal, contact Symposium Editor Belinda Juran, by e-mail at juran(a)law.harvard.edu, or by phone at the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology offices at 617-495-3606 or 617-493-7949. ABOUT THE JOURNAL: The Harvard Journal of Law & Technology is a leading scholarly publication for articles addressing the many diverse interstices of science and technology with law and society. We have published articles by law professors, practitioners, business leaders, and politicians on varied topics including biotechnology, computers, international trade, technology transfer, intellectual property, medical technologies, and telecommunications. These and other subjects are some of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of the law, and we believe that the dialogue provided by the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology will help to shape the future of this important field. We welcome submissions of articles, case comments, or book reviews addressing the relationship of law and technology. SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: For additional information, please contact the Journal at the address below. The Journal publishes three issues each year. To subscribe to the Journal's upcoming issues in Volume 10, please send the Journal a check for U.S. $45.00 (foreign orders $50.00) to the address below. To obtain the issue discussed above or back issues, please send the Journal a check for $35.00 with a note indicating the desired issue (i.e., "Vol. 9 No. 2"). Media Contact: Kenneth S. Dueker, Communications Editor Release Date: February 04, 1997. ************************************************************************* Harvard Journal of Law & Technology Publications Center Harvard Law School Cambridge, MA 02138 Telephone: (617) 495-3606 E-Mail: jolt(a)law.harvard.edu WWW: http://www.law.harvard.edu/home/jolt/ ************************************************************************* --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity." -- Jerry Pournelle The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/ FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://www.ai/fc97/

1 0

Re: Getting into MIT is impossible
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Erland van Lidth de Jeude is a MIT grad. He played the big badass in "Stir Crazy." Computer science major, BTW. At 07:37 PM 2/3/97 -0800, Clint Barnett wrote: >wasn't Dolph Lundgren an MIT grad? I seem to remember something about him >having a degree in Chemical Engineering or something along those lines. > >clint barnett >lord of the cosmos >emily carr institute > >On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, Anonymous wrote: > >> >> >> 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 >> >> >> >> >> -- >> > > > Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

1 0

Silly Americans
by Rick Osborne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

________________________ R i c k O s b o r n e ________________________ I was reading through the news when I stumbled across a thread that made a very good point. The original poster was talking about the UniSys GIF patent, and this was the reply: >Broaden your view. I can do anything I want with the GIF format without >asking _anyone_, and so can almost everyone in the world - except those >poor americans who chose to live under a "broken" patent law which >allows protecting _algorithms_. Totally silly. It brings up an interesting point, especially when applied to ITAR/EAR. On a philosophical note, why *do* we allow the government to regulate algorithms? (Implementations, I can understand, but *algorithms*?) _________ o s b o r n e @ g a t e w a y . g r u m m a n . c o m _________ "A poem: a story in meter or rhyme." 'Ahh. `There once was a man from Nantucket ... `' "You've been talking to Garibaldi again, haven't you?"

1 0