December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Private property & the cypherpunks list(s)
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greg Broiles allegedly said: > > At 09:04 AM 2/13/97 -0600, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: > > > >This is where the distributed nature of the list comes in. > > > >if someone disagrees with Jim's AUP, he or she can use soem other > >mailing list host. > > Is this the policy of the majordomo network, that individual list operators > can make their own policies for their subscribers, but may not/cannot > impose them on other list operators or the other lists' members? It sounds > very reasonable, but it would be nice to be clear about whether or not this > is the case. > > Are there any rules (other than "no rules") which apply to all lists/list > operators/list subscribers? Can there ever be any? Who would write the > rules, and who must agree to them in order for them to take effect? > > Can individual list operators be forced to or forbidden to "peer" with > other machines, or are these "peer" relationships up to each list operator? Both realistically and idealistically speaking, the peer relationships should be up to each list operator. And, once again, both realistically and idealistically speaking, each list operator should set their own policies. The beauty of this scheme is that it gives maximum freedom to both the list operators *and* the list members -- if a list operator wants to filter out clever asci art, they can, and contrariwise, if the list members want to change list operators as a result, they can. In fact, I don't see why moderated versions of the list couldn't happily coexist as part of the distributed list. Let those flowers bloom! BTW, I am planning on an upgrade to majordomo 1.94.1 this weekend, and I will be setting up cypherpunks(a)songbird.com at that time. -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: 5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E 87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F

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Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks" (fwd)
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:18 PM 2/12/97 -0600, Jim Choate wrote: [quoting Tim May] >> I was making the point that _any_ site distributing a list is likely to >> face legal pressures not to carry certain items. Read between the lines (or >> read the unedited list) the discussion by John Gilmore, Sandy Sandfort, and >> the products of Sandy's company, and legal pressures applied, to see what I >> mean. > >This is exactly the reason that my suggestion to anyone setting up a >remailer with any sort of controversial content should do it as some sort of >outreach of their business. It is too expensive in time, money, and hassles >to do for grins and giggles. I disagree strongly that a controversial or legally troublesome list (or other data stream) should be closely associated with a business. While I agree that it's important that a list be supported by a robust hardware/software/network infrastructure, businesses tend to be focused on making money and maintaining business relationships, not on abstract or philosophical goals like "free speech". (Also, what is the "right" thing to do where a particular exercise of free speech looks like it has serious potential to harm the business, thereby harming or eliminating the list which makes the speech possible? Isn't every choice a person could make in such a situation reducible to "censorship"?) Every "forum" for free speech occurs exists in the context of economic and political relationships - and there will always be some message which threatens (to some degree) the stability of those relationships, and by implication, the forum itself. Unless we can eliminate economics and politics (ha, ha) I think that will always be the case - and there will always be some messages which raise "conflict of interest" problems. But some forums rest on less stable relationships (like, for example, most small businesses) and are more easily threatened by difficult messages. It's much easier to disrupt the income stream of a small business than to disrupt the income stream from a portfolio of investments or savings. But even a system whose upkeep was funded by something as unremarkable as interest on a savings account or a CD would still theoretically be "conflicted" were someone to use the system to propose or carry out a scheme to, say, overthrow the U.S. Government, or eliminate the FDIC and loot various savings & loans. The threat(s) to systems providing transport/storage for controversial messages are not limited to liability after a judgement; it is becoming more common for civil plaintiffs to seek (and get) discovery of the actual hardware owned and used by defendants, in order to look through the storage media for discoverable information, including "deleted" files. The tactics the Co$ used against its critics were shocking but also legal (modulo some irregularities). It's certainly not unimaginable that similar tactics would be used against a remailer or majordomo operator were the list to pass traffic that someone didn't like. And if a computer system is the target of a search warrant in the criminal arena, you'll be lucky if you get to keep your electronic alarm clocks after the search. Count on everything with a chip in it going away in the police van. Most businesses don't want to expose themselves to the threat of civil or criminal seizure or discovery, especially not at random times and for non-business reasons. So, to the extent that they're paying attention, they may choose not to expose themselves to extra liability which carries little (or no) business value. -- 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: Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 13:50 EDT > From: "E. Allen Smith" <EALLENSMITH(a)ocelot.rutgers.edu> > Subject: Re: Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer (fwd) > Well, if you can't deliver mail because their mailbox is full, then > you should simply wait a few days before trying to deliver mail to that > address. If it's because the address isn't there any more, you should delete > it from the subscription lists. Otherwise, the instant people's mail quotas > overflow (e.g., they're on AOL and they haven't been able to get through the > clogged lines), they get bounced... or you're left with a lot of invalid > addresses. If their mailbox is full I might let it sit a day. If I still get a bounce after that I currently yank it. As I stated earlier, I am currently trying to decide if daily or weekly purges are in order. I personaly lean toward daily. I certainly am not buying disk space just so somebody else can use it for storing things they don't personaly have room for. > The address causing the bounce is not necessarily determinable > automatically from the bounce message; if it isn't, then you need to keep a > copy around for a human to look at. Hmmm, to date I haven't had a problem determining where the cause was from the bounces I see. I can't always tell why but it always seems to say whose email address was involved. > Given that there are pre-existing news-mail gateways, I'd think that > the programs should be available. My concern on the programming is more in > the realm of keeping the thing up and running. If you get it up and running there should be no programming involved. Unless you want to reconfigure. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Re: Private property & the cypherpunks list(s) (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 14:46:04 -0800 > From: Greg Broiles <gbroiles(a)netbox.com> > Subject: Re: Private property & the cypherpunks list(s) > Is this the policy of the majordomo network, that individual list operators > can make their own policies for their subscribers, but may not/cannot > impose them on other list operators or the other lists' members? It sounds > very reasonable, but it would be nice to be clear about whether or not this > is the case. There is no policy at this point. We have not even agreed to a means to institute the network or its basic architecture. The only point of mandatory agreement is between any two individual list operators and the mechanism they use to transfer between those two nodes. This sort of policy distribution won't work, as to reasonable I think not. If everyone does their own thing with no compromise then nothing will get done. > Are there any rules (other than "no rules") which apply to all lists/list > operators/list subscribers? Can there ever be any? Who would write the > rules, and who must agree to them in order for them to take effect? There are no explicit rules at this point. Yes there can be all sorts of rules, both implicit (eg copyrights) and explicit. Anyone can write rules. Nobody must agree to anything other than implicit agreements, course the concept of 'agreement' sorta goes out the window with implicits. > Can individual list operators be forced to or forbidden to "peer" with > other machines, or are these "peer" relationships up to each list operator? Don't see how anyone can force the remailer to do anything. Can't speak for anyone else but can say with some degree of certainty that no participant in cpunks can stop me from subscribing whoever I want. There is certainly no mechanism envisioned to authenticate subscriptions with the remailer operators. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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OTP
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim C[rook] May digs into his cesspool of a mind for his mailing list fertilizer. o \ o / _ o __| \ / |__ o _ \ o / o /|\ | /\ ___\o \o | o/ o/__ /\ | /|\ Tim C[rook] May / \ / \ | \ /) | ( \ /o\ / ) | (\ / | / \ / \

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Technology and the Electronic Economy
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We've put the IEEE Spectrum special issue on Technology and the Electronic Economy, with 13 articles previously listed here, at: http://jya.com/tee.htm

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Re: Dale-Further proof
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Huge Cajones Remailer wrote: > Yet another Dale day (blah): > :From: Dale Thorn <dthorn(a)gte.net> > :Another blood stain on Gilmore's shroud, as it were. > As further evidence that Dale is unworthy to participate in any socially interactive behaviour other than grinding (that is, grinding) his nose in the naysayers, collective ass, I submit that he posts mixed and otherwise unclear metaphores. > As difficult as the good doctor can be, Dale is not intellectually worthy to lick his boots, though he tries. Unlike crypto, metaphors are easier to "decode" than "encode", so it takes quite a bit less intellect for you to understand them than it takes for me to make them. But I don't see that as a "bad" thing for you. It's a savage, cruel world out there, and only when you shut yourself off to it (unwittingly in your case) do you feel "good".

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

17 Dec '03

At 2:17 PM -0800 2/13/97, Leonard Janke wrote: >That being said, I fully support the idea of a comp.* newgroup, >over an alt.* group. The important advantages are the greater >propogation many have described, and the reduction in "outsider" >noise. I also think that people interested in computing >in general might be more likely to stumble onto the newsgroup, >since the comp.* hierachy is so much smaller than the alt.* >hierachy. Given that _political_ discussions of crypto are now encouraged in _talk_.politics.crypto (emphasis added) rather than sci.crypt, do you think political and social essays dealing with crypto anarchy, offshore databases, undermining governments, etc., will be welcome in the "comp" hierarchy? I rather doubt it. And I would bet that if comp.org.cypherpunks is ever approved, those who dislike crypto anarchy and sociopolitical chatter will use the "comp" name to try to suppress such discussions. And thus comp.org.cypherpunks will be mostly a duplicate of sci.crypt and other such groups. >To be fair, though, I doubt that anyone would seriously try to >disrupt the creation, given the dedication I am seeing people putting >into finding a new home (or homes!) for the list, and that there does not >seem to be anyone dedicated to distrupting that process as John Gilmore >worried there would be. (And I am on the unedited list, too!) Sorry, Leonard, but this is one of the most naive statements I've ever heard. You really think whoever is spamming the list with ASCII art and broke into Paul's account to post hundreds of "John Gilmore is a cocksucker" posts will back off because of the "dedication" of some? To the perverse personality, this is merely a greater challenge and temptation. --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: alt.cypherpunks
by Jeremiah A Blatz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- John Pearson <john(a)cognac.apana.org.au> writes: > In this case, the people you have to convince are the news admins who must > permit your control message to be honoured; time was most sites ran on > autopilot, but joke and badly-named groups mean that most news admins > now drop most newgroup messages on the floor. These people hang out in > alt.config, and you should propose the group's creation there, followed > by a couple of weeks of discussion, hopefully featuring many more > supportive messages than non-supportive ones. After that, a newgroup > message stands a much better chance. alt.cypherpunks has been newgroup'ed, and I belive rm'grouped. Smart, consiencous newsadmins probably did not honor the rmgroup, as alt.cypherpunks should be acceptable, but most newsadmins are too overworked to actually look at most of the crap that comes through. For example, it hasn't received any messages on my news server, probably because the one upstream removed it. Therefore, it would be a Good Thing to continue any discussion on alt.config, and convince any cabal'ers who rmgroup it to re-new it. Sending out boosters every couple of weeks wouldn't hurt, either. alt.cypherpunks'less, 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 iQB1AwUBMwPWcskz/YzIV3P5AQEEOgMA1YEqI4VN6CbUg+MNHXpoLgzLWVDvCw/m gwiZbwOnXqXl6prS/mj1HIExqRt3AC1b1QIZmHktWvt2rAa1ERuQgkLPhcUzqHzh 5KbcB9XZ/raNELW9YAmXByav0yc/FD+r =rbHX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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More on digital postage
by John C. Randolph 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim may says: >By the way, I think the "junk fax" and "junk phone call" laws are clearcut >violations of the First Amendment. I understand why the herd _wants_ these >laws, as it reduces the costs involved in replacing fax paper, running to >the telephone only to find someone trying to sell something, etc., but it >is quite clearly a prior restraint on speech, however well-intentioned. I have to disagree here. The junk fax law is a restraint on unauthorised use of property, i.e. *my* fax machine, *my* phone, etc. That tort of unauthorised use of property applies, whether someone's sending me a fax to sell me spamming software, or whether it's some kid ringing my doorbell and running away. It's not the speech that I'm fighting, it's the misuse of my property. Freedom of speech does not confer a right to use other people's property. -jcr

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