December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Libel/slander & crypto relevancy
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I have received several private emails inquiring into what possible crypto relevance the recent exchange over libel/slander and the law. It is clear that even in democratic countries like Canada (not know as a freedom of speech protectorate) slander/libel is covered under criminal codes. While it is true that currently these statutes are not heavily used, if at all, this will change as businesses and special interest groups move even further onto electronic networks. Consider the zealous use of the law by the CoS. Ask Julf if the ramifications are not 'real world'. Consider a trial where a person is purported to have altered a transmission by some party. It is not in the juries best interest to rule in the favor of anyone other than the person claiming the damage. Why you might ask? Simply because they are going to see themselves in that same situation and will want to know that they are protected both in spirit as well as actuality. What company will want to use an environment where their contracts and other exchanges can not only be viewed by unknown third parties but are subject to a man in the middle attack, potentialy ruining a company. Consider the ramifications in a political venue. Now some will quickly point out that they can encrypt the entire document, hardly suitable for web pages and other forms of advertisment. I predict that within the next five years these slander/libel laws will be used by some organization to prosecute defamation of their Internet presence (eg web page graffitti). Within 10 years this area will be one of the hotest areas of the new communications law. Now some have held that list operators and such will be protected, most probably not in reality. Consider, we live in a time where a person can get drunk and kill somebody with their automobile and the bar or store they bought the drink(s) from can be charged. There is a current trend in the legal industry to find the person that is easiest to prosecute in the chain of events and it has nothing to do with personal responsibility or other quaint but possibly naive views. I want to thank Toto for acting as the unknowing and unwilling dupe in my taking advantage of his emotional outburst and its results, it wasn't personal I was simply trying to create a suitable environment to make my point. It was a happenstance occurance I could not resist taking advantage of. It is clear that here we have a lawyer in Canada who is not even aware that there is a little used criminal statute in the country he practices in which could be used by citizens sufficiently motivated and having suitable quantities of cash at hand to pursue the matter. This is not a unique occurance by any means, consider the outburst from some list members, supposed legal experts, over some of the references that I forwarded (not what I would call a consistent understanding of the law by any stretch of the imagination). The reality is that the legal industry (after all the main motivation for the legal profession is money) has a serious lacking in trained individuals. This should be a warning sign to everyone in any society which has hopes of embracing communications technology. Lawyers don't make law, they survive by taking their views of the law and convincing juries of from 6 to 12 (YMMV) persons that this is the way to protect 'society' and its best interests. If they don't understand the technology (eg forwarding private email to publicly accessible lists by accident) how in the world are they going to understand what is best, let along convince anyone else? Is this the kind of self-interest you want to trust your criminal communications case, let alone your liberty, to? It has been proposed by at least one party that a district attorney or other public prosecutor would not act on such events. This is also naive. The ramifications for their political opponents to use this 'insensitive and clearly self-interested' refusal to act as a perfect example of how that prosecutor is interested in their own political career and not in the interest of the people they are charged with protecting as well as a good demonstration of their technological ignorance. It would be very difficult to get re-elected in such an environment. Now the crypto relevancy, one of the methods to help reduce if not completely abort such attempts is digital signatures. Recently a couple of co-workers for Tivoli-IBM went to the Usenix conference and while there did some key signings. However, after discussion upon their return it was clear that having had their keys signed and signing others there was no clearly useful way to apply those keys in commen communications. Last year the Austin Cypherpunks did a short term experiment with a system (kourier.ssz.com) which was involved in encrypted file systems, encrypted transfers, traffic analysis, and heterogenous key-ring management. This also made it clear that the legal ramifications, economic issues (eg who pays) as well as the technical hurdles have not been studied sufficiently to call this technology mature. All that I ask is that instead of jumping the gun and saying 'it ain't so' you simply consider the ramifications from 'their' perspective. It truly is amazing what one can learn by walking a mile in another mans shoes. For if there is one truth to be learned it is that this discussion is not about how it is, but rather how it will be and how it should be. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Re: Fighting the cybercensor
by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dale Thorn <dthorn(a)gte.net> wrote in article <5ch8v4$co9(a)life.ai.mit.edu>... > blanc wrote: > > From: Dr.Dimitri Vulis > > However U.S.G. is able to say that people of Iraq or Lybia or Cuba should > > not be permitted on the 'net. It also bombs Iraq and murders their > > civilians > > in retaliation for something their governments supposedly did. > > > The U.S.G. has many more resources than most of us to do these things, > > including equipment, cooperative troops, money, and recognition from other > > governments. If other nations disagree with the U.S.G. they have the > > resources to discuss, bargain, negotiate, criticize, form alliances, take > > their chances and retaliate, etc. > > I wish this were true, at least of nations which would be friendly > to someone like me (white, Western, etc.). A bully on a school > playground can always be knocked down, no matter how big or how > vicious he is. Sadly, the U.S. bully cannot be knocked down. Bad > enough you get nuclear, chemical, and/or biological stuff waved at > you - if you get into a hot war like Desert Storm, your country is > carpet-bombed with fleets of B-52's until it is thoroughly debilitated. Actually the US is being remarkably ineffective in keeping Cuba etc off the Net. If you don't believe me just try the cuban home page. We had a Web server running in Sarajevo during the siege back in '93. There is no way that the US govt. can hope to control the Internet any more than it can control the phone system. What is astonishing is that the Cuban authorities are so keen to import a technology that breaks down their propaganda. The Cold War was not won by the arms race, it was won in Eastern Europe which was never a major participant. The main instrument that won it was West German TV which broadcast pictures of supermarkets with full shelves into the homes of East Germans every night. The viewers could see that it was not mere propaganda and their relatives confirmed the fact. As a result the East German guards on the Berlin wall simply decided to leave their posts one night. The East Germans couldn't stop the TV signals either. When Dresden started to become a ghost town because people wanted to move to a town which could recieve the broadcasts the East Germans ended up installing their own relay to keep the locals happy. Phill

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Re: Handbook of Applied Cryptography
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's the publisher's URL for Handbook of Applied Cryptography, which amplifies Patrick's summary, and gives ordering info. http://www.crcpress.com/PRODS/8523.HTM Just reading the mouthwatering summaries and the extensive, detailed list of topics is a good primer on crypto.

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Re: Best Computer School?
by Ciro Maria 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 27 Jan 1997, SpyKing wrote: > This is a little off topic but maybe someone can help. I've got a teenage > son (HS sophomore) who's interested in majoring in computer science in > college with a particular interest in cryptography. He's leaning toward MIT. > Any suggestions from list members as to colleges to investigate? > > > Yeah Stevens Institute in Hoboken. Its pretty good I got there. Also Caltech is good, I don't really know which else.

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Re: Rejection policy of the Cypherpunks mailing list (fwd)
by Daniel Harter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 26 Jan 1997, Dale Thorn wrote: > Actually, it is a certifiable fact that the list subscribers can > jump to the unmoderated list whenever they want to. It is also a > certifiable fact that they (97% or so) have *not* done so. Has anyone compiled a summary of the difference of volume of posts to the lists? I'd be interested to find out. > Because of these facts, I must conclude that either: > > 1. The subscribers have spoken by staying put, or, > 2. The subscribers are so lazy and unaware of what's going on that > they've just left things as is. > > Now, in my opinion, we've come to this: Some people here will hold > the optimistic view of the bulk of the subscribers, and others will > hold the pessimistic view (the bulk will presumably be in-between). I just started subscribing to the list near the time it started, so I have not noticed a difference. If the unmoderated list is not much more (~10%) I think I'd prefer the unmoderated list. Regards, Dan Harter dharter(a)harter.pg.md.us

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<<Vitamin B>>(January 27, 1997) Affirmative Anonymity
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text To: DAILY DOSE <DAILY_DOSE(a)smtpgw.worldcom.com> From: VitaminB <VitaminB(a)maxager.com> Date: 27 Jan 97 15:44:12 Subject: <<Vitamin B>>(January 27, 1997) Affirmative Anonymity Mime-Version: 1.0 Vitamin B: Your Daily Dose of Bionomics January 27, 1997 Affirmative Anonymity In response to the January 24th Vitamin B ("Anonymity and Reputation"), Greg Waddell, Policy Coordinator for U.S. Senator Connie Mack (R-FL) and 1996 Bionomics Conference Speaker, made the following comments, which we'd like to share. "There are aspects of the anonymity paradigm that relate to a whole host of social issues that Machine Age liberals usually seek to remedy with strong and heavy hand of government. Namely, these are issues of discrimination by race, gender, disability, etc. etc. After the Joint Economic Committee's hearing on the 21st Century Economy, held in summer of 1995, I suddenly realized (better late than never!) that communicating via computer over the Internet forces each of us to deal with others without regard to physical attributes. Neither color, race, gender, disability, religion, nationality, nor any "class" markers are apparent over the Net. The Information Age economy, if left to evolve freely, could bring us closer to our American ideals of equality for all than any law, affirmative action program, diversity training, or anything else. I think that is the most compelling aspect of what we identify as the anonymity of the Net." --- end forwarded text ----------------- 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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Re: S/KEY (was: 2 Questions)
by privsoft＠ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks to Bill and Peter for your help. Steveo

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RE: Rejection policy of the Cypherpunks mailing list
by Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Blanc Weber <blancw(a)MICROSOFT.com> writes: > From: Sandy Sandfort > > (By the way, if you don't like moderation, you would hate Eric Hughes' > favored solution.) > ............................................... > > What was that? Eric Hughes struck me as being smarter than Gilmore, so I too would like to know what his "favored solution" was. Didn't I have dinner with him once? --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: Rejection policy of the Cypherpunks mailing list
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sandy Sandfort wrote: > Apparently, Toto does not know very much about John or me or our > relationships with the "Establishment." Unfortunately, I know a little 'too much' about you and John and your relationships with the Establishment. But as long as I don't think about it at the dinner table, it doesn't affect my appetite. > I can't speak for John, but You do so all of the time. It seems, rather, that John cannot speak for himself (or is too embarrassed to do so). > I think both of these groups are intellectually dishonest in the > extreme when it comes to telling others how this list should be > run. No, Sandy, it is yourself and John who are 'telling' others how this list 'will' be run. You seem to be projecting your own motivations upon anyone who 'expresses' any unflattering opinion of the the censorship process you have instituted. > Of course squating and claim jumping appeal to the lazy a lot > more than homesteading. It must be nice, Sandy, having the power and control over the list that enables you to fling insults at others and then direct them to others only at your own whim and discretion. I guess that it is every list-dictator's dream to have the power to send a big FUCK YOU to one portion of the list, and send a portrait of themself as Mother Teresa to another portion of the list. Toto

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Re: Moderated list is missing headers
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Lou Poppler wrote: > > The arguments about imaginary quotes and libel are harder to untangle > because the moderation process seems to consume the mail headers showing > the messages' travels before reaching toad.com. I suggest that these > headers are signal not noise, and should be propagated if at all possible. > We have had problems in the past with forgeries, and should retain this > basic tool for evaluating a message's source. The header information, on all of the lists, has been changed in order to make it more difficult for list members to keep track of what is going on behind the Electromagnetic Curtain. A simple example is the fact that, originally, a quick glance at the header was sufficient to recognize which messages were sorted to the flames list and were sent out by toad.com from this list. This has since been changed to make the process of censorship more obtuse. Your complaint about it being difficult to 'untangle' certain message threads seems to stem from the fact that you have chosen to receive only a cypher-world-view that has been censored before you receive it. The purpose behind censorship on the list is for the censoring party to be able to spoon-feed you only what they deem fit for you to read. Given the haphazard methods with which the censorship is being instituted, it is not in the best interest of the censors to make it easy for the list members to track the course of the various postings. Toto

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