December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Dissolving Choke Points (fwd)
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: ####### ### <###(a)###.com> > To: ichudov(a)algebra.com > Subject: Re: Dissolving Choke Points > > ichudov(a)algebra.com writes: > > i do have unix (linux) and stuff, but i can't take a lot of subscribers > > -- maybe 200-300 or so. > > > > i actually wrote a proposal for a mailing list without a central control > > point, with several advantages being impossibility of control, absense > > of a single point of failure, and cryptographic verification of honesty > > of moderators. > > > > if there is any interest, i will post it here. > > Please do. > > Regards, > > ####### ### Here, I propose a new scheme for the Cypherpunks mailing list that would 1) Ensure that no one person is able to take over the control over the list 2) Ensure that there will be no single point of failure, i.e., shutdown of any single computer will not kill the list 3) Ensure that even people with relatively small Net resources can help keep the list afloat. The idea is as follows: even though Cypherpunks is one group, the group will be based on multiple mailing lists with identical content. These lists may be named, for example, cypherpunks(a)algebra.com, cypherpunks(a)toad.com, and cypherpunks(a)netcom.com (obviously, these names are used as an example only). Any user is free to subscribe to any of these lists. All of these lists will interact with each other in the following way: 1) Each node would forward ALL incoming submissions to a) all other nodes and b) to all subscribers "attached" to the node 2) Each node will send information about all new subscriptions to each other node. The following procmail recipes for cypherpunks@ accounts may be used to ensure quick forwarding: # is it sent to cypherpunks (some spams will be trashed here) # and is it not a mail loop? :0 * ^TOcypherpunks * !^X-Loop: { # # This recipe removes duplicates! # :0 Wh: msgid.lock | formail -D 32768 msgid.cache # forward it to other cypherpunks lists :0 c !cypherpunks(a)netcom.com cypherpunks(a)toad.com # send it to all local subscribers :0 c !majordomo -some -arguments # store the checksum and message-id for honesty verification (see below) :0 |accounting } # suSCRibe/unsuSCRibe recipes go here This scheme ensures that the list is run in a cooperative fashion and can be maintained by a number of individuals without any one of them having an expensive internet connection or being "in charge". It also ensures that even if one node fails, traffic can be re-routed to other nodes. Just as well, it ensures that any attempts of cheating will be noticed: it is easy to write a bot that would subscribe to all of these lists and see if any messages get "lost". Users can send their articles to only one node, or, if they feel paranoid, to several nodes at once. All we need is to make sure that all Message-IDs of outgoing messages are unique at every node. Honesty verification: I suppose that there may be some more elaborate, crypto-based schemes to control and monitor article distribution. For example, there can be another list, cypherpunks-control, where each of the nodes posts a publicly available signed summary of checksums of articles that went through, and individual users would be able (with the help of s simple client program) to verify that 1) They received these articles 2) That summaries received from all nodes are identical 3) That all articles were received by all nodes They do not HAVE to do it, but they can if they want. If they do, there will be no way for list maintainers to censor anything. If a node goes down or if the users' verification scripts indicate a potential for cheating, they can resubscribe to some other node and let everyone else know what's going on. My proposal strikes me as fairly simple and potentially workable. Even though 90% of the users will never get to usnig the verification mechanism, it will ensure honesty. Note also that this mechanism is a gross simplification of the way USENET works, so some may vouch for a usenet group instead. Your opinions will be appreciated. - Igor.

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:55 AM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: ... >Another lesson is the danger of choke points. We can see how >tempting it is for people to exercise their control. Even John Gilmore >was unable to restrain himself from involuntary social engineering >experiments. Who would we have considered to be more trustworthy? > >Toad.com is a choke point, not just in terms of moderation but in >terms of the rate at which it can distribute messages. Let's >replace it. > >What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list. A >message posted to any machine goes to all of the others. Each >machine sends messages to its subscribers only once. Some of >these machines should be across borders. > >The mail loop and multiple posting problems are solved by observing >the message IDs. > >Fast implementation: use moderated mailing list software. Put a >filter in the .forward file of the "moderator" account which looks >at the message ID and forwards the message if it hasn't been seen >already. The mailing list machines all subscribe each other. ... What you are suggesting is reminiscent of IRC. Except, I think that each IRC network has a central computer which could be controlled. On your idea for fast implementation, this could be hacked by would-be censors. A message comes into the list, the censor sees that the post is from a regular enemy. The censor then copies the header information onto a new message, one containing garbage, or snippets from old posts, reads the new post to see if it is acceptable, and if it is, adds a new header, probably only the time would be changed, and transmits it out. If the would be censor was the sysop of a machine near the origin of the message, and if the censor operated the censorship either by bots, or monitored the feed 24 hours a day, (not likely), then the actual message would get to few.

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Re: GAK cracking?
by thad＠hammerhead.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

TIS's press releases, and the article in the paper, imply that TIS has been approved for 128 bit (uncrackable, except by prior arrangement) cryptography...not just 56 bit. They say, and they should know, that you can export 56 bits now with just a "plan" of key escrow, and that you can export more if you have a system... which, what do you know, they have! thad -- Thaddeus Beier thad(a)hammerhead.com Visual Effects Supervisor 408) 287-6770 Hammerhead Productions http://www.got.net/people/thad

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Re: Embarrass a Marylander, Go to Jail
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:04 PM 2/3/97 -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote: > >--- begin forwarded text > Excerpted from... > > ============================================================= > AOP Bulletin Friday, February 3, 1997 Volume 97:05 > ============================================================= > > The following is information distributed to members of the > Association of Online Professionals and others involved in the > online communications industry. Contacts and other information > about AOP may be found at http://www.aop.org. > > > ***************************************************** > Maryland Recycles Law On "Annoying" E-Mail > ***************************************************** > > A Maryland bill that would make it illegal to send "annoying" or > "embarrassing" e-mail was introduced this week by Democratic General > Assembly member Samuel Rosenberg. I would find any email "annoying" that supported such a bill. Maybe we ought to send emails to Rosenberg, stating that we find his entire proposal "annoying," and ask him when he's going to turn himself in for his misdeeds. Another good argument for AP. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: GAK cracking?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:45 AM 2/3/97 -0500, tmcghan(a)gill-simpson.com wrote: >But under a controversial new Clinton administration policy that took >effect Jan. 1, companies may receive permission to export stronger >programs. > >"I'm happy that we've been able to do this within the first month >without rancor or difficulty," Under Secretary of Commerce for Export >Administration William Reinsch told Reuters in a telephone interview. > >To export stronger programs immediately, companies must agree to >incorporate features within two years allowing the government to >decode encrypted messages by recovering the software keys, however. This ought to be challengeable. (equal-protection violation?) And while the government's actions are normally phrased in this way, another way to describe them is to argue that the government is: 1. Wanting a product or service to be developed. 2. Wants private companies to do this. 3. Wants to do so without Congress appropriating the money. (And they're doing it by, in effect, "paying" for it by allowing certain companies to export freely, with the requirement that the company does the work "gratis".) 4. Wants to do so without any sort of competitive bidding process. (The terms of the contract have not gone through any of the normal procedures.) I assume there are laws and/or rules which prohibit exactly this kind of behavior. Would it be possible to file a lawsuit, and then file for an injunction to prevent this de-facto deal from going through? Might this constitute an anti-trust violation, because multiple companies are acting in concert to restrict access to the foreign crypto market by agreeing to develop ONLY A CERTAIN KIND OF ENCRYPTION, namely GAKked encryption? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:55 AM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I >can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. I don't think it's reasonable to expect an increase in signal within 2 1/2 weeks of the start of moderation. Improvement in the s/n ratio, yes. But (at least if my speculation is correct), the good posts driven away by bad posts (because some good authors are too busy to wade through lots of crap, and some good authors are reluctant to publish their work amidst crap) would take a much longer time to return. (I'm working on a message re moderation and the list which will better explain what I think about that - but I'm not trying to argue, above, that we *must* have moderation for a long time - simply that it's too early to call it a failure for failing to significantly increase the number of useful messages.) >There are lessons to be learned here. One is that censorship does >not promote a stimulating and creative dialogue. No, that is a silly lesson to draw from this experiment. There are lots of useful and interesting "moderated" (on paper, it's called "editing") publications/lists/digests where the content is intentionally controlled for content and style. This particular implementation is imperfect. However, just as it would be overreaching to conclude from the relative uselessness of the pre-moderation list that "every list must be moderated, unmoderated lists cannot succeed", it overreaches to conclude from the current results that moderated lists cannot succeed. >Toad.com is a choke point, not just in terms of moderation but in >terms of the rate at which it can distribute messages. Let's >replace it. > >What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list. A >message posted to any machine goes to all of the others. Each >machine sends messages to its subscribers only once. Some of >these machines should be across borders. > >The mail loop and multiple posting problems are solved by observing >the message IDs. I think you misspelled "Usenet". Hope this helps. Seriously, if you want a distributed no-choke-points "flooding" message distribution system, you're talking about Usenet. Robust software exists for clients and servers, and it's already supported worldwide on many operating systems. No need to write more software to graft that functionality onto E-mail. If the list is going to turn into Usenet (we've already got most of Usenet's better kooks), we might as well just move the damn thing over to alt.cypherpunks and be done with it. (Anyone care to guess who founded alt.* as a way to route around censorship?) (Of course, Usenet is a technical success and a spectacular failure, content-wise. So opponents of moderation will be forgiven for failing to mention this sparkling example of an unmoderated, anything-goes forum for discussion.) -- 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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New X-Ray Imager
by azur＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

New X-ray gun trades privacy for safety Reported by Andy C Seen in The Nando Times on 13 August 1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Passive Millimeter Wave Imager can X-ray through clothing to "see" a concealed weapon, plastic explosives or drugs. A police officer can surreptitiously aim it into a crowd from as far away as 90 feet. The new X-ray gun is becoming a symbol for an unlikely alliance of civil libertarians and gun owners who fear the fight against crime and terrorism may be waged at the expense of personal freedoms. "I'm incredibly concerned," said John Henry Hingson, a past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, meeting here this past week. "The entire nation could become a victim of illegal searches and seizures and the law is powerless to protect them from these police abuses." But in these nervous times following the the crash of TWA Fight 800 and bombings at the Olympics, Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center, many Americans are now willing to trade some of their privacy and civil liberties for greater security. A poll last week by the Los Angeles Times found that a majority of people -- 58 percent -- said they would curtail some civil liberties if it would help thwart terrorism. Thirteen percent said it would depend on what rights were at stake. The poll didn't ask people to single out any rights. The Clinton administration has proposed increased wiretapping and other anti-terrorism steps, and is doling out research grants for cutting edge anti-crime technology that once may have been intended for only military use. Last year, the National Institute of Justice awarded $2.1 million to three companies to develop weapon detectors for airports, stores and public buildings. Two models are being developed of the Passive Millimeter Wave Imager, a creation of Hadley, Massachusetts-based Millimetrix Corp. The larger one, about the size of a shoebox, is mounted on a patrol car and pointed at the unsuspecting person. The gadget doesn't send out X-rays; instead, it picks up electromagnetic waves emitted by human flesh. Anything that stands in the way of those waves -- like a gun -- or anything that emits weaker waves -- like a bag of cocaine or a plastic explosive -- will show up on a little screen in the patrol car. Clothes emit no waves. Neither do walls, allowing the device to be used from even outside a room. A second model is a smaller, battery-operated version that an officer can operate by hand, like a radar gun. Millimetrix hopes to field test the larger model soon at a police agency. Hingson argues the device runs roughshod over bans against illegal searches and seizures. The law says police can stop and frisk a person only when an officer has a "reasonable suspicion" the person is armed or involved in a crime. Millimetrix points out that while the imager can see through clothing, it still leaves people some privacy. The device's display screen, the company says, "does not reveal intimate anatomical details of the person." Chip Walker, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, noted that devices like the imager threaten the legal rights of people in 31 states who are allowed to carry concealed weapons with proper licenses. "We certainly support efforts to disarm criminals, but we need to be careful that we're not painting with too broad a brush here," he said. Walker said that as troubling as terrorism is, people may be playing into terrorists' hands by giving up their privacy. "One of the broader issues is that if we start giving up certain civil liberties, that essentially means that the terrorists are starting to accomplish one of their goals," he said. Contact email address: acobley(a)mic.dundee.ac.uk --------------------- (From a TRW development program description) The Passive Millimeter Wave sensor detects thermal energy, which is radiated from objects and reflected from other objects such as the sky in the 94 Giga Hertz frequency band. The advantage of this frequency is that there is little attenuation of the energy by water particles in the air (fog). The camera operates very much like a television camera except that it operates at mm-wave frequencies (near 90 GHz) instead of in the visible spectrum. It has components analogous to a television camera: optics to focus the image, a readout device to convert the electromagnetic energy into electrical signals, signal processing electronics to prepare the signals for display, and display unit to view the scene. The optical system images the blackbody radiation emanating from the scene on the Focal Plane Array (FPA), which consists of an array of small antennas, each coupled to a very small MMIC W-band (90 GHz) direct-detection receiver. ---------------- >From a description of the National Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology Center/Northeast (NLECTC) at Rome Laboratory (more on that later). The Millimeter Wave Imaging Radar Consortium seeks development of a suitable technology and effective, affordable products for concealed weapon detection (CWD) and through-the-wall surveillance (TWS) application --- well-established objectives for both military operations other than war and civilian law enforcement agencies. Consortium members include Millimetrix Corp., South Deerfield, Mass.; Technology Service Corp., Trumbull, Conn.; and Riverside Research Institute of Lexington, Mass. They will contribute $2,035,087 to the research program, while the government's share will be $2,018,491. Military applications of the envisioned technology, in addition to operations other than war, would include use by military police and special forces personnel, all weather aircraft operation, shipboard and airborne missile warning, helicopter obstacle avoidance, battlefield surveillance, fire control, and missile seekers. Civilian law enforcement agencies would be able to use the technology in curtailing terrorist acts and juvenile handgun crimes that frequently involve the use of concealed weapons, bombs and other contraband that cannot be detected using currently available technology see <http://www.nlectc.org/E144T127/june.htm> --Steve

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Re: concerning Ben Franklin
by David Farber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My favorate Ben Franklin quote is "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin, ~1784

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Scott V. McGuire 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I've been quiet about the moderation experiment (and I never posted frequently anyway) but something Sandy wrote requires comment. In responding to Tim, Sandy points to the number of people on the censored list as evidence of the acceptance of the filtering. I am included in that group and object to my silence being interpreted as support. As Tim has pointed out, the bulk of the 2000 or so people who have remained on the filtered list have never been active participants on the list. As we have never heard from them, we don't even know that they were bothered by the flames and noise of the pre-filtered list. And, even if we did know, I don't think that there opinions should count as much as those of the more active participants to the list. A subscription to the list does not make one a member of the Cypherpunks "community". It is the opinion of the members of the community and not the observers of it which should matter. (Even within the community, some people are more a part of it than others, and nobody is more a part of it then Tim.) As for the rest of us on the filtered list who are active (or occasionally active) participants, our remaining on the list still can not be taken as support for censorship. Moderation of the list was announced as a one month experiment. I didn't change my subscription from the filtered to the unfiltered list because I expected this to end in a month and I was willing to participate in the experiment. You can't ask someone to try something for a month to see if they like it and call there use of it in that month evidence that they like it. As long as I am writing, I may as well write the rest of my thoughts. While there was a period between the announcement of moderation and the start of it during which people could (and did) comment on the change, the announcement was clear that there would be moderation. It was indeed a fait accompli. The moderated list should have been offered but not imposed. Then the experiment would have determined how many people thought the list was so bad that they would seek moderation, rather than determining how many thought moderation was so bad that they would seek to avoid it. Sandy, you said that you thought the list had improved since you began moderating. How could you think otherwise? When you send an article to the flames list its because you think the list would have been worse otherwise. I don't think the moderators opinion should be considered in determining if moderation is a good thing. I think there is a conflict of interest there. - -------------------- Scott V. McGuire <svmcguir(a)syr.edu> PGP key available at http://web.syr.edu/~svmcguir Key fingerprint = 86 B1 10 3F 4E 48 75 0E 96 9B 1E 52 8B B1 26 05 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBMvZ3lN7xoXfnt4lpAQGjbgQAs9qqrOZCgHeT19yh6LOS8rsXVAglssVI 2VLCiKb/X0Ny1+p3kzTiit42uykv5IhoCn+GdJF0X08zW02ymRf6JIv2sLksW2ln E+SZuUoLFk18emLIJMEVGNPW7cJEl7/a75IdETrU14RcdBN8F86bm5VK36kyNMIY kPfB825uWxU= =N3va -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by tmcghan＠gill-simpson.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

on or about: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 14:51:47 -0800 in a message allegedly from: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> {snip} > the really important issue is this: is the _physical hosting_ of the > Cypherpunks mailing list coterminous with the "Cypherpunks"? { much thoughtful and well-phrased commentary elided } > I would have had no problem had John announced that he was creating > a new list, the "Good Stuff" list, with Sandy has his Chooser of > Good Stuff. > But by making the _main list_ the censored one, this skewed things > considerably. > * Why, many reasonable people may ask, did I not simply unsubscribe > from the "Cypherpunks" list and subscribe to the"Cypherpunks-Unedited) >(or whatever it is called) list? Because of my overall anger > But the clear message by having Sandy censor the > main list (the default list, the list name with the main name, the > list we all know about, etc.) {snip} Now that the horse is out of the barn, ( or maybe not? ), I can't help but ask whether one specific 'change to the change' would have satisfied most of your objections: retaining 'cypherpunks' as the name of the unedited, all-the-crud-you-can-read-and-then-some, version, and adding an 'cp-worthwhile' list for those of us who prefer not to wade thru mountains of garbage to glean a few precious tidbits. What's in a name? Is perception more important ( to you ) than reality? If just swapping names between cp and cp-unedited would make such a large difference, I humbly suggest to you that you consider how much labels need to matter. Is the title of the group more important the the content? From where I sit, this looks a lot like a style-over-substance complaint. Of course, I don't have my trifocals on just at the moment. It may also be worth noting that the current 'status quo' is a transient experiment, with a fairly short time limit. When JG, Sandy, et al. evaluate the results with an eye to future direction(s), they may well consider an 'inverted default' for the two list names (i.e.: cp / cp-unedited) In any event, please accept my .02 in the spirit in which it is intended ( constructive criticism ). /* */

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