December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: THE NEW YORKER on the V-Chip
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:57 PM 1/23/97 -0800, Alan Bostick wrote: >In the Jan. 20, 1997, issue of THE NEW YORKER, the "Comment", written by >Malcolm Gladwell, makes a powerful arguement about the unintended >consequences of the V-Chip, the programmable device to be included in >next-generation television sets sold in the US that supposedly will >allow parents to control their children's access to sex and violence on >TV. While I think it's always useful to consider unintended (or otherwise unexpected) consequences, Gladwell's argument sent a shiver down my spine with its shameless paternalism. This bit (from roughly the middle of his piece) is what I found creepiest: "According to one recent study, somewhere between twenty and twenty-seven per cent of the parents of four-to six-year-olds never restrict their children's viewing hours, never decide what programs they can watch, never change the channel when something objectionable comes on, and never forbid the watching of certain programs. It has apparently never occurred to these parents that television can be a bad influence, and it strains credulity to think that the advent of the V-chip is going to wake them up. Yet their families - mainly lower-income, ill-educated - are the very ones most in need of protection from television violence. Here is a rearranging effect with a vengeance: not only does the V-chip make television worse, it makes television worse precisely for those already most vulnerable to its excesses." I understood Gladwell's point to be, in essence, that the V-chip will allow TV producers to generate higher levels of morally impure content which he fears will pollute the minds of poor children because their parents are too stupid to protect them from the harmful content and too poor to buy new televisions which will include V-chips. While I think 95% of broadcast TV is crap which isn't worth the time expended watching it, even reading arguments like "poor people should be protected from harmful ideas they're too stupid (or too poorly educated) to avoid and too poor to purchase protection from" makes me feel dirty. I don't think Gladwell is, in any meaningful way, an opponent of government control of speech/expression - he's just an opponent of inefficient or optional forms of government control of speech/expression. He's a reasonable writer, but he's chosen to use his powers for evil instead of for good. (Some of his work is available on the web; apparently he once worked as a reporter for the Washington Post and is now on the staff of the New Yorker.) -- 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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ATTENTION HOMEOWNER
by CV Communications 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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RE: If you were unable to download UDCM V2.0 before....
by Mullen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: DataETRsch@aol.com[SMTP:DataETRsch@aol.com] >o Includes time and date locking features. How do you implement this feature? Where is the time/date information stored? Is this in that header you were talking about before? Is there some method which is designed to thwart simply changing the CMOS time? Thanks! ~ Patrick >---------- >From: DataETRsch@aol.com[SMTP:DataETRsch@aol.com] >Sent: Thursday, January 23, 1997 9:35 PM >To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com >Subject: If you were unable to download UDCM V2.0 before.... > >{If you were unable to download UDCM V2.0 before, we're extremely sorry.} >{UDCM's web site may have been under construction during the time you >visited.} >{UDCM's web site has finished undergoing its changes and will operate >correctly.} >{UDCM V2.0 has been extensively modified from its previous variation.} >{Digital signaturing and public key cryptosystem capabilities have been >added.} >{UDCM's DS and PKCS techniques do NOT make use of conventional PN factoring.} >{UDCM's source code is currently unavailable. PLEASE DO NOT REQUEST IT.} >{UDCM's on-line help documentation has also been extensively modified.} >{This advertisement has also been modified.} > >Hello, > >Greetings! I am Jeremy K. Yu-Ramos, president of DataET Research, Data >Engineering Technologies. I am sending you this message to let you know that >DataET Research has recently initiated the distribution of UDCM, Universal >Data Cryptography Module. UDCM implements a revolutionarily new, extremely >advanced and sophisticated, digital data encryption algorithm named IMDMP, >Integrated Mathematical Data Manipulation and Positioning. > >UDCM (the IMDMP algorithm)... > >o Is a royalty-free Windows DLL module featuring advanced cryptography. >o Contains more than 150 procedures and functions. >o Is a very cost-effective size of only 60 kilobytes. >o Implements the IMDMP encryption algorithm. >o Allows encryption keys as large as 2048 bits. >o Includes 18 sub-algorithms. >o Processes all forms of binary and ASCII files. >o Allows multiple encryption layer levels. >o Has absolutely no back-doors or magical keys. >o Includes time and date locking features. >o Includes file specific unique encryption features. >o Includes file authentication guard features. >o Includes digital signaturing capabilities. >o Implements the public key cryptosystem method of security. >o Includes data importance and sensitivity stamping features. > >UDCM, being a Windows DLL module, can be accessed through programs developed >with popular application and database programming languages and environments >such as: C, C++, Visual Basic, PowerBuilder, Delphi, OOP Pascal, Turbo >Pascal, dBase, Paradox, Access, Sybase, Oracle, etc. > >DataET Research has released a shareware version of UDCM named UDCM V2.0. > >To download UDCM V2.0 for free, please go to: >http://members.aol.com/dataetrsch/udcm.html. > >I hope you will consider applying UDCM in the software you develop. Thank-you >very much for your time. > >Sincerely, > >Jeremy K.Yu-Ramos >President >DataET Research >Data Engineering Technologies > >

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Homosexuals
by Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

fuck you <satan_is_a_hacker(a)juno.com> writes in the censored list: > If anyone has any text files on the following topics please send them. ... > Anything underground Anything? My good friend TRRCJ3 reports from San Francisco that the city is much nicer now that so many homosexuals are 6 feet under. Thank God for AIDS. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: fingerd
by Peter M Allan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, These messages have been sent about fingerd. My preference for fiddling with remote fingers is to leave fingerd as supplied by the vendor (run by "nobody") and replace the finger program itself. It can be made to recognise when it is being run by "nobody" and behave differently from when run by another user. Source at the end of this file. (Bashed out fairly quickly starting from a utmp-eraser I made for a luser who wouldn't tolerate wall messages from shutdown.) I have (among other things) an extension to TCP-wrappers (a new hosts_access.c file), and a prog to find disk space wasted by duplicated files. (mail me with Subject: "send goodies" for these.) -- Peter Allan peter.allan(a)aeat.co.uk Date: 23 Jan 1997 17:22:10 -0800 From: Steven L Baur <steve(a)miranova.com> > cfingerd is not a safe program. It must run as root, and has some big > problems. > On Tue, 17 Sep 1996, Administrador da Rede wrote: > > I use the newest version of cfinger, setted to not allow general finger, just > > specific ones. Does anyone knows how this person did that ? I hope I can > > find out, otherwise, bye bye finger service. > Badly. > I have sent the author a letter, but never got any reply back (it's 3 > months later now!), so I just take the opportunity to warn the public > against its use. /* * * compile and test myfinger * * cc -C -o myfinger myfinger.c * * * (assuming the standard finger is /usr/ucb/finger) * cp /usr/ucb/finger /usr/ucb/finger.real * cp myfinger /usr/ucb/finger * * * (if using TCP wrapper reverse-fingers, make them NOT nobody, * but another id such as nobody2.) * * I disclaim any disasters........ * */ /* * * my finger program - local only, to be less informative than /usr/ucb/finger * */ #undef _utmp_h #define TRUE 1 #define FALSE 0 #define FAKE 1 #define WIPE 2 #define UTMP "/etc/utmp" #include <stdio.h> #include <pwd.h> #include "utmp.h" #include <lastlog.h> main(argc, argv, env) int argc; char **argv; char **env; { int i, listed; struct passwd *pwent; if (argc < 1) exit(0); /* beat sneaks */ /* If run by "nobody" (uid=65534) assume this is a remote finger */ /* otherwise run the standard finger command */ if (65534!=getuid()) { execv("/usr/ucb/finger.real", argv); /** if we get here exec failed, so we default to my finger **/ } printf("Login Name Where\n"); listed = 1; while ((pwent = getpwent()) != NULL) { if (argc > 1) { /* * if there are args, and name is NOT one of them, we skip * it */ listed = 0; for (i = 1; (!listed) && (i < argc); i++) { if (!strcmp(argv[i], pwent->pw_name)) listed = 1; } } if (listed) info(pwent); } } info(pwent) struct passwd *pwent; { long lpos; FILE *fp; int i; struct utmp *sp; struct utmp utmpentry; char *login,*gecos; login=pwent->pw_name; gecos=pwent->pw_gecos; sp = &utmpentry; if ((fp = fopen(UTMP, "r")) == NULL) { fprintf(stderr, "failed to open utmp for reading\n"); exit(1); } i = fseek(fp, 0, 0); if (i) { puts("failed to fseek start of file"); exit(2); } do { /* get current pos in file using ftell */ lpos = ftell(fp); /* fread the struct */ fread(sp, sizeof utmpentry, 1, fp); if (!feof(fp)) { if (!strcmp(login, sp->ut_name)) { if (!nonuser(utmpentry)) { utmpentry.ut_host[15]='\0'; printf("%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\n",login,gecos,sp->ut_line,sp->ut_host); } } } /* on error we close & exit */ if (ferror(fp)) { fprintf(stderr, " file error! so failed to find our session in utmp\n"); fclose(fp); exit(3); } } while (!feof(fp)); fclose(fp); } /* end */

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Re: THE NEW YORKER on the V-Chip
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 08:23 AM 1/24/97 -0500, Alan Bostick wrote: >Gladwell makes an analogy between V-Chipped TV content and >air-conditioned cars in the New York City subway system in summertime: >" . . . we need air-conditioners on subway cars because air-conditioners >on subway cars have made stations so hot that subway cars need to be >air-conditioned." Great analogy except that it's wrong. Subway tunnels were hot before the cars ever had air conditioning. The traditional method of controlling the amount of power delivered to an electric traction motor was to run the juice through a resistor array. As the motorman moved the controller up and down, the current would pass through fewer and more banks on the grid of resistors and the amount delivered to the motors would change. Well you might guess that at 600 V DC and I don't know how many Watts, those resistor grids had to dump a lot of heat. They were/are located on the tops or bottoms of cars and are quite apparent when the cars pass you on a winter morning. DCF -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQCVAgUBMujKnYVO4r4sgSPhAQHgmAQAh82IvjwPXFdDchT1JvOuwf0pHGyO1xzY FsuPo2ig696dnWfXEyRhAcCvK6MKpXyaXPwtsPvJD6o8VUY2kU9UB5oddPBG7Q65 KAEwF/CBAtk3qyGmbfsd1ax65vjSkqm/+D675g/kHjAgOfaNFoRdlEXi4TLFjZZO ocj3IrSqZSE= =U0/n -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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No Subject
by satan_is_a_hacker＠juno.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Are their any H/ P/ V/ A/ C ers on this list??

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Re: THE NEW YORKER on the V-Chip
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 08:23 AM 1/24/97 -0500, Alan Bostick wrote: >Gladwell makes an analogy between V-Chipped TV content and >air-conditioned cars in the New York City subway system in summertime: >" . . . we need air-conditioners on subway cars because air-conditioners >on subway cars have made stations so hot that subway cars need to be >air-conditioned." Great analogy except that it's wrong. Subway tunnels were hot before the cars ever had air conditioning. The traditional method of controlling the amount of power delivered to an electric traction motor was to run the juice through a resistor array. As the motorman moved the controller up and down, the current would pass through fewer and more banks on the grid of resistors and the amount delivered to the motors would change. Well you might guess that at 600 V DC and I don't know how many Watts, those resistor grids had to dump a lot of heat. They were/are located on the tops or bottoms of cars and are quite apparent when the cars pass you on a winter morning. DCF -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQCVAgUBMujKnYVO4r4sgSPhAQHgmAQAh82IvjwPXFdDchT1JvOuwf0pHGyO1xzY FsuPo2ig696dnWfXEyRhAcCvK6MKpXyaXPwtsPvJD6o8VUY2kU9UB5oddPBG7Q65 KAEwF/CBAtk3qyGmbfsd1ax65vjSkqm/+D675g/kHjAgOfaNFoRdlEXi4TLFjZZO ocj3IrSqZSE= =U0/n -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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No Subject
by fuck you 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Are their any H/ P/ V/ A/ C ers on this list??

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Re: seeds of our own destruction
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Attila T. Hun wrote: > at 01:13 AM, Kevin Stephenson <cts(a)deltanet.com> said: > +You wrote some very interesting articles. It is the UN. > if you want a real scare, read the UN "world constitution" on > human rights and privacy --their idea of a Bill of Rights. It just > happens that it is virtually word for word equivalent to the > mainland Chinese "rights" -in other words: rights as long as they > are consistent with the aims of the state (UN) and the security > needs of the state at the given moment. [snip] > +Read Revelations (if you haven't). > the best general reference on symbology, at least of what I > have seen so far: Opening the Seven Seals (The Visions of John the Revelator) > Richard D. Draper, Desert Books, Salt Lake City, ISBN 087579-547-1, SKU 2142298 Wendy Wallace (I think) has written something about the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse, and they've been running excerpts in Paranoia magazine. I really like Paranoia mag, check it out. If you like heavy-duty scary symbology writing (can't vouch for the exact content), check out Texe Marrs who has a recent book on the subject (can't remember the title, but pictures of the symbols on the cover, in paperback).

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