December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Network of majordomos
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 10:45 AM 2/11/97 -0600, Firebeard wrote: >[...] I've already taken steps, along with Jim Choate, to >start a network of majordomos hosting a Cypherpunks mailing list. >[...] Our intention is to have a set of majordomos which >are intersubscribed to a cypherpunks list on each one, with measures >taken to ensure that mail loops don't develop. I still think you're just rediscovering Usenet technology. Instead of installing Majordomo, why not install INN, pass traffic as newsgroup(s) (if you don't like alt.cypherpunks, you could simply start your own top-level cpunks group(s)), and leave your NNTP port(s) open (or read-only, if you're an evil CIA brain-stealing censor) so that cpunks at large could connect with newsreaders or their own servers and send/rcv newsgroup traffic? Many cpunks could do this (instead of using Majordomo) locally, connecting to each other to achieve wide propagation and low latency. And, if you must, run mail-to-news gateway(s) which send the newsgroup to people who want it as E-mail. Usenet technology does exactly what you're describing: it's a distributed database of messages designed to facilitate each server getting its own copy of every message, and holding it locally for distribution to interested readers. Other people have been kind enough to write, debug, and document the software - all you have to do is install it. This could be running tonight. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQEVAgUBMwDefP37pMWUJFlhAQGg8wf/R/XcPI7UTmiktI0ce0cR0x54O2pTr2ju WRZ3OXNV7X8xOmU8zhvj/Q6Rg0etZRmDfj9wM51mCZuOx6uh94IlFvBTpFnEz8Vg tM3zeWSt/SukyGfxRLkrRYF4GMU5eKEYBYI7p/3q6WioYBk4JI22EeAyr5Cn+1IA icMJhCpfUE6P1YoC+7zPh+Kbp8Ny3tCtry/axsSZfVRsBZr2M33VONe47quC1l5A CBEEllkeSZey6VfAhrBxLOGiD42evx/TYU1yeR2bhcHUcQ0e5MTR8o8eDBoreuXF ntT9vD0Ov0BEhP2j5r6xC6WcFX0iEynxwErC3nNURPE5CPCoRXws/w== =w4Av -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles(a)netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |

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Re: Shade Disk Encryptor for NT Registration key
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>SoftWinter Support >softwinter(a)post1.com >http://softwinter.bitbucket.co.il Shade looks like an interesting product, and anything that fits into 64K these days (even if that is the size of the zip file) deserves some respect :-) For cypherpunks - it's using MDC as its crypto algorithm, with 160-bit SHA as the hash. I can't tell if that's the original SHA or the revised SHA-1. The readme.txt is adapted from Peter Gutmann's MDC documentation. The demo version runs for 21 days, and doesn't do encryption, so perhaps the real thing is a bit larger. List price is $149 US. I couldn't get it to run - I'm using NT 3.51, which you haven't tested it on, rather than NT 4.0; it complained about not being able to find Image_List_SetImageCnt in COMCTL32.dll or something like that. Perhaps that's related to not having installation instructions with the demo? there's a SecDisk.sys that looks like it wants something done with it... Or perhaps it's just a 3.51 vs. 4.0 difference. Oh, well... > Shade allows you to create encrypted disk device inside a file. > Such a device can then be formated using any file system > (like NTFS or FAT) and used as a regular disk. The only difference > is that Shade will encrypt the data on every write operation > and decrypt it on every read operation. I assume it's possible to use this for TEMP directories for applications like word processors. I'm not sure I'd want to use it for swap, but do you know if that would work? # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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alt.cypherpunks
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hey, folks, I thought all you had to do to create an alt.group was to have a news admin somewhere just make a group; send out a control message of somekind. I thought that alt groups didn't have to go through a charter, or voting process, or anything else. They just happened. Then, everyone just has to tell their local news admin that they went to see it, or they can wait until their news admin sees it flying by, and adds it to the available groups list at his own discretion. It's not like we want comp.cypherpunks or something, with a voting process, right? Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- 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/

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Re: Network of majordomos
by Peter Hendrickson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:09 PM 2/11/1997, Greg Broiles wrote: >At 10:45 AM 2/11/97 -0600, Firebeard wrote: >> [...] I've already taken steps, along with Jim Choate, to >> start a network of majordomos hosting a Cypherpunks mailing list. >> [...] Our intention is to have a set of majordomos which >> are intersubscribed to a cypherpunks list on each one, with measures >> taken to ensure that mail loops don't develop. > I still think you're just rediscovering Usenet technology.... > And, if you must, run mail-to-news gateway(s) which send the newsgroup to > people who want it as E-mail. > Usenet technology does exactly what you're describing:... How about this? The people who like Usenet should race ahead and set it up. The people who like networks of majordomos should race ahead and set those up. Just so long as the tracks meet somewhere in Utah. The more people are involved with distributing the "list" the more robust it will be. Peter Hendrickson pdh(a)best.com

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Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

i have already set up majordomo(a)algebra.com and cypherpunks(a)algebra.com and can join. igor Firebeard wrote: > > >>>>> John Gilmore writes: > > JG> Sandy has agreed to continue moderation through the end of the > JG> original 1-month experiment (through Feb 19). And it's a good > JG> thing, too, because the "cypherpunks community" had better get off > JG> its whining butt in the next ten days, or it will no longer exist. > > [...] > > JG> This is a "put up or shut up" to the cypherpunks community. > > This appears to be as good a time as any to announce that I'm > "putting up". I've already taken steps, along with Jim Choate, to > start a network of majordomos hosting a Cypherpunks mailing list. I > didn't intend to announce this until Jim and I had gotten the first > pair of 'domos working properly, but this means that we'll need to > speed things up. Our intention is to have a set of majordomos which > are intersubscribed to a cypherpunks list on each one, with measures > taken to ensure that mail loops don't develop. As the resulting > mailing list from each 'domo will be identical, periodically > (initially weekly), the subscriber lists of all of the participating > majordomos will be compared, with any duplicate subscribers being > removed from the 'domo(s) with the longest subscriber list. There > will be no filtering done of any mail to the collective list, although > anyone interested in providing a filtered list will be welcome to > subscribe to the list. Anyone interested in joining the 'domo network > with the conditions described (duplicate subscriber checking and no > filtering) is welcome. > > John, I'd appreciate your permission to use your Cypherpunks > welcome message as the basis for the welcome message of this new list. > Also, while we will make every effort to have this new list available > for subscriptions by Feb 20, I'd appreciate it if you could consider > making the current list available for a short period longer if we > encounter unanticipated difficulties. > > -- > #include <disclaimer.h> /* Sten Drescher */ > ObCDABait: For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the > flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. [Eze 23:20] > ObFelony: President Clinton, you suck, and those boys died! > Unsolicited bulk email will be stored and handled for a US$500/KB fee. > - Igor.

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Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks"
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:20 PM -0600 2/11/97, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: >If the people decide for creation of a new USENET newsgroup, >we need to think very hard about actually moving it to a different >hierarchy from alt.*. I would propose comp.org.cypherpunks, >comp.cypherpunks, sci.crypt.cypherpunks or something like that. > >A comp.* or sci.* newsgroup, if created, has the following advantages >over an alt.* newsgroup: > >1) There is usually less spam in sci.* or comp.* >2) There are virtually no completely irrelevant flamewars >3) The propagation will be a lot better >4) More people will be able to read it because of the issue of providers > not carrying alt.*. > >I see nothing that would make a sci.* or comp.* newsgroup worse than >alt.* newsgroup. Sure, and this has come up in every past discussion of creating "alt.cypherpunks." But the creation of alt.cypherpunks is _easy_, and needs little permission or support, whereas the creation of "soc.culture.cypherpunks" or whatever takes work, requires a vote, blah blah blah. And so it never gets off the ground. (Nor is it clear to me, and perhaps not to others, that it belongs in the the various places Igor mentioned. Comp.org.cypherpunks probably is the best fit, but then many would cite the "comp" part to try to insist that only _computer_ topics be discussed. Likewise, the "soc" domain would skew discussion...etc. "Alt" has the nice advantage of explicitly not be part of sci, or comp, or soc, or even talk.) Since posting my comments I've just seen the proposal that tivoli may host a list. Fine with me. But I wonder how long Tivoli and its parent company, IBM, will tolerate such things as postings of dumpster divings at Mykotronx and RSADSI, of deliberate slams against Tivoli products (a la the case John Gilmore referred to this morning), postings about assassination markets, and so on. I still feel that the time has come to move virtual forums such as ours out of U.S. jurisdictions. Given that most European nations are worse in some ways (no Holocaust denial posts allowed in "cypherpunks(a)foobar.de"?), I recommend the alt.cypherpunks as the best overall compromise. --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: List! No Way: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks"
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:11 PM +0000 2/11/97, Attila T. Hun wrote: > tim: > > two points you make: > > 1. the propogation is slow... > > 2. some sites do not carry alt. groups > > are enough to kill an active discussion list. of course, it does > slow down excessive volume. Good points. However, I'm used to fairly robust debate on Usenet, and the prop delay does not seem too stifling to me. As you note, it cuts down on immediate replies; this may not be a bad thing. I see any site which can be identified with a corporate or institutional entity--like C2Net, toad, Tivoli, Primenet, Netcom, whatever--being targetted if a controversial mailing list is hosted at that site. (This may not have been the case when the list was full unmoderated, and was only a "reflector" or exploder of incoming messages. As soon as a moderator started passing on some messages and rejecting others, the precedent was set (somewhat) for charges that a site or sysadmin is now liable. This has not been tested in court, of course, but I fear this is how things will go. As I mentioned in another message, had the traffic in alt.religion.scientology instead flowed through a site such as "scientology(a)primenet.com," the operators of Primenet and the sysadmin of that mailing list almost certainly would have received "decease and cyst" orders. Remember that Netcom was hit with similar orders. Usenet cannot be stopped in this way. A major strength.) > I vote we just set up a new majordomo with some additional antispam > filters including knocking out exploding mail headers, etc. I would > accept excluding non-members as long as we take the remailers which > are listed with either JP or RL. This is a suggestion I have long thought to be a good one. Only allow posts from list subscribers, and make a special exception for remailers by adding them to the approval list. Figure if a spammer is smart enough to know what a remailer is, at least see her traffic for a while. Drop the inclusion of remailers if volume is too high. (Or, put remailer messages in a special place. An ftp or Web site, for retrieval. Or have list members "vet" the remailed messages, as someone was suggesting a few months back. Or....) > Likewise, Jim Choate and Sten Drescher apparently are trying to > establish a multi-site majordomo. the extra work of maintaining > non-duplicates and sychronization makes the task non-trivial and > questionable... Yeah, it seems to be one of those potentially good ideas that will just never get done, due to the difficulties, the maintenance, and the press of other projects. (And even if it gets done, which I hope for of course, I doubt many of us will want anything with added complexity, new commands for our posting software to deal with, etc. So, it will have to look just like an ordinary mailing list, with the mirroring handled transparently.) (Speculation: Isn't some of this talk about distributed mailing list sites and mirroring beginning to echo the structure of FidoNet?) --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Cocksucker Gilmore's Big Adventure
by Jeremiah A Blatz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- mpd(a)netcom.com (Mike Duvos) writes: > John Gilmore <gnu(a)toad.com> writes: > > Sandy has agreed to continue moderation through the end of the > > original 1-month experiment (through Feb 19). And it's a good > > thing, too, because the "cypherpunks community" had better get > > off its whining butt in the next ten days, or it will no longer > > exist. > > Ten days notice to relocate a high volume mailing list is > insufficient. This is yet another ultimatum by a whining coward > who does not yet realize he is in a battle he is not going to win > by escalation of reciprocal pissing. <big, disgusted, snip> You know, I was vaugley offended by John's comments about whiny cypherpunks, until I read this message and realized who he was talking about. John, thank you for your years of service to the cypherpunk community 9such as it is), and Sandy, thanks for your well-intentioned (but doomed from day one) efforts to take some resopnsibility for our current mess. It's too bad things had to end in such a pissy way, but anyone who wants to dole out blame should realize that in an anarchy, all members are responsible for the maintainence of freedom. 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 iQB1AwUBMwEAm8kz/YzIV3P5AQHEagL8Co832vJ75u3U0zfEYp8ixZ1yGM1sx4jQ Aybf55rSeeCUVIOpxgWL03NHEm2+5l9eIAg6qxbne4UZpURu79suMJGe1i5p8ekT UIJsRRZTpq6OVr9w86uJHl3HDvaM9CnK =SeWH -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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NEW CYPHERPUNKS LIST (was Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up") (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 18:49:46 GMT > From: Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> > > > This appears to be as good a time as any to announce that I'm > > "putting up". I've already taken steps, along with Jim Choate, to > > start a network of majordomos hosting a Cypherpunks mailing list. I > > didn't intend to announce this until Jim and I had gotten the first > > pair of 'domos working properly, but this means that we'll need to > > speed things up. Our intention is to have a set of majordomos which > > are intersubscribed to a cypherpunks list on each one, with measures > > taken to ensure that mail loops don't develop. > I'll contribute what I had planned: > > As a stop gap measure you could create a standard majordomo at the > beefiest of your 'domo hosts. While it is true I was planning on bringing the Austin Cpunks remailer back (kourier.ssz.com) this rather unexpected expansion has got me backpedalling. So it looks like it will take about 3 weeks to get the intial site ready for public access. Right now my ISDN based site is all we have working. We have another site through another ISP in the process of registering and configuration. I have currently created a 'cypherpunks(a)ssz.com' but still have a couple of other issues to work out. The most relevant one is that I will be upgrading both Linux and Majordomo in approx. 2 weeks. We will be discussing this issue further on Saturday at the Austin Cypherpunks meeting. If all goes well with our discussion and my upgrade we should have the SSZ cypherpunks site available in about 2 weeks. Sten and I hope that we can pursuade some others to get involved both running remailers as well as modifying the various scripts. At this point everything we do will be released to the public domain. We also are expecting to add a proviso that all submissions to the cpunks distributed remailer will be de facto public domain unless a specific 'fair use' header is included in each submission. Finaly, another issue that will slow me down is the upcoming SRL show here in Austin. I have committed time and effort so I don't know yet how the conflicts will come or how I will resolve them. The next SRL planning meet is Thu. nite so I will have a clearer idea of my upcoming schedule. > Or you could create a quick 'n dirty mail exploder, by taking the > current subscribers, and putting 100 mail addresses in a .forward file [much good comments cut out] > Final comment: perhaps you've investigated this, but what Perry > Metzger has for the majordomo running cryptography(a)c2.net is excellent > at stopping people forging subscribe and unsubscribe messages. > > And would really cut down the nuisance of people subscribing others > without their knowledge. These are several of the issues that we will be discussing this Saturday. We will also be looking at various means to distribute the subscriber list. The current lead suggestion is to have subscriptions at any of the cpunks be evenly distributed among them. This would somewhat complicate the subscriber process. Another aspect that I am hot to trot on is setting the system up so that some of the cpunks sites could be anonymous, crypto, or combo remailers as well. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Re: Cocksucker Gilmore's Big Adventure
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A Gilmore Supporter writes: > You know, I was vaugley offended by John's comments about whiny > cypherpunks, until I read this message and realized who he was talking > about. John, thank you for your years of service to the cypherpunk > community 9such as it is), John Gilmore's only contribution to Cypherpunks has been to provide a box. I can't even remember the last time he contributed something of interest to the list, and he certainly ranks as one of the least frequent contributors of substance over the years. Any goodwill John might have built up by letting us all use his box has certainly been eradicated over the last few weeks by his takeover of the list, and the series of edicts which followed. Yes, it was nice of John to donate the use of his box, back in the days when he did not feel the urge to exercise unilateral editorial control. But if it hadn't been his box, it would have been someone elses box, and our gratitude towards him shouldn't be so great that we are willing to sit back and let him do major damage to that which "Cypherpunks" is supposed to stand for, lest someone claim we are unappreciative. > and Sandy, thanks for your well-intentioned > (but doomed from day one) efforts to take some resopnsibility for our > current mess. It's too bad things had to end in such a pissy way, but > anyone who wants to dole out blame should realize that in an anarchy, > all members are responsible for the maintainence of freedom. Sandy, unlike Herr Gilmore, has been a major contributor of substance to the list since its inception, and hopefully he will continue to be in the future. The idea that he should moderate the list was of course a silly one, but for reasons which do not reflect badly on him in the least. What Mr. Blatz fails to realize is that the "problem" which certain people tried to solve never really existed. The quality of the Cypherpunks list is determined solely by the amount of signal, not by the amount of noise, unless one is getting ones feed of the list via 1200 baud long distance UUCP. Anyone can create signal by writing about relevant topics, and if you feel signal is lacking in your particular area of interest, feel free to add some. The notion that the list was ever threatened by the humour of Dr. Vulis, or the one line bot-spammed insults about Tim May's heritage, is an absurd one. No one should have had any problem ignoring such material, and only a politically naive fool would buy this as the excuse for the blatant usurpation of the list by Gilmore and crew. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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