December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Private property & the cypherpunks list(s)
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(Readers curious about Jim Choate's list ownership/acceptable use policies might take a look at <http://www.ssz.com/ssz/conditions.html>.) Jim Choate wrote: > Please explain how making submissions de facto public domain censors > anyone? What the fuck is "de facto public domain"? It's public domain, or it's not. Your scheme imposes a cost (loss of intellectual property rights) against authors who would like to make themselves heard. It also prevents a certain class of messages (those messages whose status is "copyright claimed") from being distributed. Further, your suggestion that posters be required to include a "fair use header" is compelled speech. That's three flavors of "censorship" right there. I thought that the new list(s) were supposed to allow anyone to say anything they wanted. (Does "no fair use" count as a "fair use header"? It's not legally enforceable, but it seems like the easiest way to specify "minimum fair use required by law". If not, are you planning to moderate the list to make sure that people use only approved fair use headers? Hmm.) Even if the "copyright abandonment by implication" trick works (and I suspect it will not, given that an assignment or transfer of copyright must be in writing, 17 USC 204; and abandonment is essentially an assignment or transfer to the public domain), it will not apply to all text sent to the list. A person cannot abandon or assign something they do not have; so if someone sends a message to the list which contains text whose copyright is held by a third party, that copyright will still be valid. So what you've got is a list where you can't be sure that its contents are public domain, and a draconian rule requiring authors to give up their rights to what they've written. Do you imagine that all of the many-majordomo servers will implement your "public domain only" rule, or only yours? If the rule only applies to the ssz.com version, what's the point? If the rule is intended to apply to all servers, and servers aren't going to be allowed into the network without agreeing to implement it locally, um, tell me again about that "free speech" thing? Aren't you just taking advantage of your position as a person working on the many-majordomos project to impose your ideas about intellectual property on the rest of the list? Is such a strategy compatible with "free speech"? Also, how could a rule like this possibly be compatible with a Usenet gateway? There's no chance at all that you can expand a local rule on your system to all of Usenet through a gateway. And Declan McCullagh wrote: >I forward articles to cypherpunks that are copyrighted by my employers, or >magazines like Playboy and Wired for which I write freelance pieces. > >I like to think these articles have some value. I will not forward any of >them, nor would I be able to, if they magically became "public domain." Which are good points - also, don't forget that, from time to time, people have even posted code to the cpunks list, and many software authors like to retain copyright in their code so that they can insist on things like noncommercial distribtion or credit where the code is reused. If a work is truly "public domain", the author has no power to insist on those things. This proposed rule seems to limit postings to those which are perceived by their authors to be without commercial or reputational value. Is that a good idea? -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy gbroiles(a)netbox.com | in a nutshell: http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto.

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Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut u
by chefren 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 11 Feb 97 at 3:54, John Gilmore wrote: > I've come to the conclusion that I'm not willing to host the > cypherpunks list any more. It's not the true assholes that brought me > to this decision; it's the reaction from the bulk of people on the > list: suspicion, flamage, and criticism with every attempt to improve > things. I noticed few people volunteering some of their own time, > money, or machines to help out. Almost all the suggestions were > advice for *other* people to implement: Hm... In the year 1513 or 1514 someone who could be an Honourable Member of this list (if one could be one...) wrote: > There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more > perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, > than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order > of things. <Niccolo Machiavelli, Il Principe> Please stop at looking too much on how people scream about your new ideas and continue this list the way you like it!!! I think it's Your Machine and we have to respect your decision to pull the plug, nobody should blame you for that, but please listen a little to the 1000+ people who don't scream and are obviously happy with the list and respected your right to do the "sandy filter experiment". +++chefren

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key escrow & ttp
by Eric.Pinsard 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello I am a student in an engineer school and i have to find where and who are third trusted party for key escrowing all over the world. If you know such organisation or someone who can help me in my quest, please mail me back , i am not in a list. best regards Eric Pinsard

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Re: Procmail during the transition, anyone?
by Anil Das 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote: > > At various stages in the transition, we will be getting multiple copies of > the same messages as the are re- cross- whatever-posted to lists, > newsgroups and anything else handy. > > Anyone have a procmail script that will show me just ONE copy of messages, > even if the headers are not identical (e.g. one looped, another was > forwarded, etc.)? > # Remove duplicate messages :0 Wh: .msgid.lock | formail -D 8192 .msgid.cache It detects duplicates by Message-Id. -- Anil Das

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Cypherpunks-announce? Do we need to recreate this?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Now that cypherpunks is moving, to both a newsgroup and one or more mailing lists, there's still a need for cypherpunks-announce or something like it. So far it's carried 1-2 announcements per month. Should we create it as a mailing list, moderated or unmoderated, or as a newsgroup? (It's been a moderated mailing list, run by John and Hugh.) Perhaps the right implementation is a mail exploder going to several moderators in parallel, any of whom can forward to the list, just to cut down delays? # 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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Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks"
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dale Thorn wrote: > Igor Chudov @ home wrote: > > Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > > > "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> writes: > > > > 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. > > > It is too late to stop alt.cypherpunks, but if I had to make a > > prediction again, I would predict that soon posters will BEG to help > > them create comp.*.cypherpunks, because of spam and alt.flamage. > > I would lean toward sci.crypt.cypherpunks myself. Are there any > implications in the use of that name as to restrictions, etc.? > Not really. All you have to do is to go through a formal newsgroup creation process, post a RFD, second RFD, a CFV, and supposedly impartial votetakers will record the votes. You must get > 100 votes YES, and the number of YES votes should be more than twice (thrice?) the number of NO votes. - Igor.

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Security (Re: Encryption for DNS registration)
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Donald Eastlake posted this on the IAHC-discuss list. Cool stuff. >Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 10:14:05 -0500 (EST) >From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <dee(a)cybercash.com> >To: iahc-discuss(a)iahc.org >Subject: Security (Re: Encryption for DNS registration) > >People may want to note that yesterday (Feb 11th) the IESG approved the DNS >dynamic update and DNS secure dynamic update (draft-ietf-dnssec-update-04.txt >and draft-ietf-dnsind-dynDNS-11.txt) as Proposed Standards. The base DNS >security protocol was approved some time ago and is now out as RFC 2065. TIS >is working on a government funded implementation which will be in the public >domain (http://www.tis.com/docs/research/network/dns.html) Their current >Beta implementation of the base DNS security has been approved for export. I >believe there is an independent implementation effort underway at Microsoft. > >While this was primarily motived by wanting to be able to securely do dynamic >updates of the DNS in connection with DHCP, it is a general facility and >could be one element of securely implenmeting a shared TLD. You would, >however, still need a way of sending general authenticated messages. PGP >seems like an excellent candidate for this as it is the de-facto standard >available world wide. > >Donald [ quotes from previous messages deleted -- Bill ] >===================================================================== >Donald E. Eastlake 3rd +1 508-287-4877(tel) dee(a)cybercash.com > 318 Acton Street +1 508-371-7148(fax) dee(a)world.std.com >Carlisle, MA 01741 USA +1 703-620-4200(main office, Reston, VA) >http://www.cybercash.com http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html > > >

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Private property & the cypherpunks list(s)
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(Readers curious about Jim Choate's list ownership/acceptable use policies might take a look at <http://www.ssz.com/ssz/conditions.html>.) Jim Choate wrote: > Please explain how making submissions de facto public domain censors > anyone? What the fuck is "de facto public domain"? It's public domain, or it's not. Your scheme imposes a cost (loss of intellectual property rights) against authors who would like to make themselves heard. It also prevents a certain class of messages (those messages whose status is "copyright claimed") from being distributed. Further, your suggestion that posters be required to include a "fair use header" is compelled speech. That's three flavors of "censorship" right there. I thought that the new list(s) were supposed to allow anyone to say anything they wanted. (Does "no fair use" count as a "fair use header"? It's not legally enforceable, but it seems like the easiest way to specify "minimum fair use required by law". If not, are you planning to moderate the list to make sure that people use only approved fair use headers? Hmm.) Even if the "copyright abandonment by implication" trick works (and I suspect it will not, given that an assignment or transfer of copyright must be in writing, 17 USC 204; and abandonment is essentially an assignment or transfer to the public domain), it will not apply to all text sent to the list. A person cannot abandon or assign something they do not have; so if someone sends a message to the list which contains text whose copyright is held by a third party, that copyright will still be valid. So what you've got is a list where you can't be sure that its contents are public domain, and a draconian rule requiring authors to give up their rights to what they've written. Do you imagine that all of the many-majordomo servers will implement your "public domain only" rule, or only yours? If the rule only applies to the ssz.com version, what's the point? If the rule is intended to apply to all servers, and servers aren't going to be allowed into the network without agreeing to implement it locally, um, tell me again about that "free speech" thing? Aren't you just taking advantage of your position as a person working on the many-majordomos project to impose your ideas about intellectual property on the rest of the list? Is such a strategy compatible with "free speech"? Also, how could a rule like this possibly be compatible with a Usenet gateway? There's no chance at all that you can expand a local rule on your system to all of Usenet through a gateway. And Declan McCullagh wrote: >I forward articles to cypherpunks that are copyrighted by my employers, or >magazines like Playboy and Wired for which I write freelance pieces. > >I like to think these articles have some value. I will not forward any of >them, nor would I be able to, if they magically became "public domain." Which are good points - also, don't forget that, from time to time, people have even posted code to the cpunks list, and many software authors like to retain copyright in their code so that they can insist on things like noncommercial distribtion or credit where the code is reused. If a work is truly "public domain", the author has no power to insist on those things. This proposed rule seems to limit postings to those which are perceived by their authors to be without commercial or reputational value. Is that a good idea? -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy gbroiles(a)netbox.com | in a nutshell: http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto.

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Re: anonymity and e-cash
by Hal Finney 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Sean Roach <roach_s(a)alph.swosu.edu> > Here is another idea. > The merchant and customer agree on a price, with the merchant knowing that > the "bank" will take a cut for their services. > The merchant and customer both LOG IN to the bank seperately, each type in > their agreed upon price and cut & paste in the services rendered > information. If they match, the bank makes the necessary transaction > between the accounts, e-cash stash, etc. This provides no anonymity with respect to the bank, right? The bank knows who is paying whom. That's not very valuable IMO. The bank is still a centralized place where all this transaction information exists, a fat target for privacy opponents. I'd say that anonymity to the bank is more important than anonymity to the merchant for this reason. So I think you're going at this backwards. > Another idea that has been festering. If we could get a CPA involved in > this forum, I would be willing to have h[im/er] sign my key, (which is > seldom used, mostly because this is the only place I use e-mail), for that > reasonable fee that CPA's can charge. I know that it is not a standard, or > even legally recognized, post for CPA's, but I think that enough people > would trust them. The big question with identity certificates is what procedures were followed in verifying the identity when the cert was issued. If the CPA publishes some standard method, and his reputation is strong enough that people will trust him to follow it, then it might well be worth money to you to have him sign it. This is the traditional role of the Certification Authority. > This would take care of some of the "newly minted" key problems. Since > getting someone who is trusted to sign your key is a recognized method of > getting people to believe you are who you say you are. It depends on the circumstances where you expect to use your key. Within a small to medium circle of associates there may be some group members who sign keys and are trusted by other members of the group. There is no particular reason for it to be difficult. If you want a signature which will be accepted by everyone in the U.S. you have a harder problem. Hal

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Re: 40-bit RC5 crack meaningless??
by ca3sal＠isis.sunderland.ac.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Strassmann wrote: >In summary: The claim of exportable cryptography being totally >insecure, because it can be cracked in 3.5 hours is not >realistic. The three clues announced in the contest >would not apply under infowar conditions. As the UK gets a lot of desktop PC software from the US, ie MS & Lotus we unfouantly have to live with the 40-bit limit. What the RSA Chalange and Ian Goldberg have achived is a couple of aritcales in the broad sheet papers http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000145546611023&rtmo=33032622&atmo=3303… P4_FOLLOW_ON=/97/2/4/ecfilm04.html&pg=/et/97/2/4/ecfilm04.html (ouch) and http://go2.guardian.co.uk/archive.html The competion has shown to the general populs and not just "experts" what a crap deal were getting. Three and half hours gets people thinking. Ste

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