December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1 0

No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1 0

Re: Keep it Simple and the Cypherpunk Way
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:57 PM 2/14/97 -0800, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: > ... >if cpunks had a formal way of making decisions, and some loyalty >to each other, instead of BAILING OUT at the slightest difficulty, >perhaps the situation would be different, eh? see how quickly people >who were once friends simply WALK OUT on each other in the cryptoanarchist >approach? where is the loyalty? the sense of working for the greater >good? it's gone. TCM simply ABANDONS the list at the first opportunity, >and ignores the years of hard work that J.G. has put into it. ... Not everyone has "bailed out". Amid the flotsam and jetsam of the sinking list, Igor Chudov Firebeard, and others have begun to fashion a trimaran. If they finish before the old vessel finally sinks in the storm, then we will have a ship more difficult to capsize. Others are anchoring that half finished craft to the great floating city/state Usenet. Still others are scheming as to the best way to keep the self appointed police from cutting the little craft adrift. No, we would have "bailed out" if we had each sit still to let our subscriptions run out. More will "go down with the ship", arguing against the shutdown right up to the day when the list is finally eliminated.

1 0

None Enigma
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy Mayonnaise must have been sharing needles with a rabid hedgehog. o-:^>___? Timmy Mayonnaise `~~c--^c'

1 0

FYI
by fjegan＠airmail.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This was posted to a financial information site on Friday: OPEN MARKET INC (OMKT) Yesterday, stock was given a modest lift from news that company received approval from the Department of Commerce to export its Internet-commerce software with a very strong version of encryption software, becoming one of the first companies allowed to do so without first agreeing to go along with a controversial White House requirement. Frank ********************************* **********Frank J. Egan********** *Chance Favors The Prepared Mind* *********************************

1 0

Re: Excerpt on SPAM from Edupage, 11 February 1997
by Roy M. Silvernail 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In list.cypherpunks, ichudov(a)algebra.com writes: > My opinion on this: I personally feel that this scheme is the way to > go for spammers. Obviously, it is possible to build mail readers that > would verify some kind of trusted signature on the attached postage, and > would highlight all such messages. The meaning of signature is "these > people are not crooks, there really is an encrypted dollar there". I much prefer the plan where a potential mail correspondant includes an e-cash dollar directly cashable by me. If I like the mail (and the sender), I throw the dollar away and the sender goes on the approved list. If not, I keep the dollar, and the sender goes on the twit list. Paper junk mail costs an advertiser more than $1 per piece, so they'd still be getting a bargain. And potentially, some receivers may throw away the dollar and welcome the spam. > Clearly, spammers who pay their readers to read their messages (and who > do get them to read) will have a very high response rate. That may > justify adding postage to their letters. It should also spur development of intelligent agents which can retrieve this cash without human intervention. Spammers will doubtless alter their pages to require more interaction to find the key to the cash. Then the IA's will be improved. Then... remember the copy protection wars? This isn't necessarily a negative point. > The advantages are obvious. The disadvantage is a possibility of someone > stealing the money on the way, if the letters are not encrypted. Or that the money wasn't there in the first place (absent a trusted signature system), or the key doesn't exist, or the wrong key is offered, or the sender put the same e-dollar on all 60000 mails sie sent and it's already been redeemed. - -- Roy M. Silvernail [ ] roy(a)scytale.com DNRC Minister Plenipotentiary of All Things Confusing, Software Division PGP Public Key fingerprint = 31 86 EC B9 DB 76 A7 54 13 0B 6A 6B CC 09 18 B6 Key available from pubkey(a)scytale.com, which works now -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMwXqzxvikii9febJAQHv7QP9HQ+S3dZ+MCOTfUJYZwQ/l7xDU83RUIZI IMve5eFvBbSHabXacwM//1dHmWVpMqVpfN7kchXm/N+vsEqpGMGgNkNj7dGZdoWn NN6cHkDHJywgnlhT62BZ0u6n2lb4wJcKMaGn63bnmHCRSUN9HwUCKFrFXi72s08r sxju8mXi8N0= =4Skg -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: Excerpt on SPAM from Edupage, 11 February 1997
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:19 AM -0600 2/15/97, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: >I much prefer the plan where a potential mail correspondant includes an >e-cash dollar directly cashable by me. If I like the mail (and the >sender), I throw the dollar away and the sender goes on the approved >list. If not, I keep the dollar, and the sender goes on the twit list. >Paper junk mail costs an advertiser more than $1 per piece, so they'd >still be getting a bargain. And potentially, some receivers may throw >away the dollar and welcome the spam. The basic flaw in all of these schemes is that they are "top-down" solutions, imposed on the market for invented reasons. The reason paper mail "spam" (advertisements, solicitations, whatever) costs whatever it costs (hint: less than a dollar...check the Bulk Rate prices, and look for the 8-cent and 16-cent stamps on many of the solicitations) is because this is what the Postal Service charges. Granted, the USPS is hardly a free market player, and uses force to keep out competitors, but the general principle is that some semi-market-based fee is charged, and larger packages will cost more, etc. The basic flaw with e-mail is that the senders of e-mail are not paying for carriage. However, just "making up" a fee--as Roy does here, and as Jim Bell and others have done before--is not a solution either. Nor does it stand any chance of being "enforced" (for a large number of reasons I won't get into here). I don't expect any solutions anytime soon, but I certainly will not push for "synthetic" prices which do not solve the underlying problem. --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."

1 0

Re: More on digital postage
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:40 AM -0600 2/15/97, snow wrote: >Mr. Bell wrote: >> However, you connect that fax machine to a phone line, when you know full >> well that should it be enabled to do so, it will automatically pick up the >> phone when it "hears" a ring, and will print out a fax based on information >> provided. It isn't clear why sending a fax is any "wronger" than mailing >> junk mail, or making a (voice) phone call to somebody. > > That is a ridiculous argument. The door to my home is connected >to the street,m and I know full well that that makes it easy for anyone >to come wandering in to my home. Is it legal, just because I have my >home hooked to the street, for someone to come in and help themselves to >a beer out of my fridge? The proper parallel is to _knocking on the door_. Talking about "unwanted phone calls" or "unwanted faxes" as being equivalent to entering a house and wandering around is incorrect. Consider a door with a doorbell or knocker. It is set up (by millenia of tradition in our society) as a means of contacting the residents and keeping them from entering. Similarly, a listed phone number, or a phone number gotten through various means, is a means of contacting those owning the number. Anyone is free to call anyone--no permission is needed. Our society fairly reasonably allows tort relief for, say, having one's doorbell rung frequently or at odd hours. On the fax issue, similar tort relief could be obtained if a person or business was truly "under attack." (Purists, like me, would probably prefer technological solutions even in these cases. Leave a phone on answering machine mode, only switch on the fax mode when a fax is expected, etc.) These tort actions are a far cry from proposals that anyone whose knock on the door, or phonecall, or e-mail, or fax is subject to criminal prosecution under proposed new laws. (I think the courts are already clogged enough, and I have faith that no court in the land will accept a case where no real harm was done. A friend of mine got mailbombed with 25,000 e-mail messages in one day, shutting down his account until the mess could be cleaned up, and it's not even likely he'll ever get any relief.) What CompuServe did was quite different, as CompuServe decided that some e-mail would not be delivered. This is essentially comparable to the Postal Service deciding that mail from the National Rifle Association is, to them, "junk," or to the phone company deciding that phone calls from Libya or Iraq or some other unfavored nation will be fed to a dead number. Getting the courts and the regulators involved in deciding what speech is junk and what is not junk is unconstitutional, which was my earlier point. --Tim May On the f 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."

1 0

Re: DES and RSA crypto hardware from the free world
by John Ioannidis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I believe uti-Maco (a belgian company) has been using the Pijnenburg chips for their boards. However, last I checked with them (about half a year ago) the price of the boards was pretty steep -- of the order of $1K. Anyway, if the boards Peter is referring to are ready in the next couple of months, I volunteer to write drivers for Linux and *BSD*. /ji

1 0

Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > Here I can agree, I personally discriminate on the basis of sex, not > > in that I believe women inferior to men but rather that I believe > > each sex better suited to different tasks and vocations. > > That is not, however, to say that I believe women should be prevented > > from taking up lines of work that men traditionally hold. > > They are free to do so, but as in the example you give later > > I would feel uncomfortable having my car serviced by a woman. > > <flame-retardant suit on> > > Normally I would ignore this sort of comment (which probably belongs in > some soc. newsgroup), but I feel obliged to point out that: > > - The female <mechanic / scientist / engineer>, in addition to passing the > same exams as her male classmates, has probably had to put up with a fair > load of B.S. questioning her right and ability to be there. The ones that > keep at it long enough to graduate are the ones that *really* want to do > whatever it is, and IMHO are more likely to try harder. Not my point, I didn`t say I would refuse, as in my example, to have my car serviced by a woman, rather, that I would not feel comfortable doing so. This is not prejudice, it is a statistical judgement based on the fact that, as a percentage, I know few women who are competent car mechanics but I know a number of men who, by the same criteria, I would call competent. > Chicken and Egg: How much of "each sex [is] better suited to different > tasks" is due to little girls being pulled away from the Lego and toy > trucks, and encouraged to play with Barbies? Being told that they are > *pretty* not *smart* as a form of approval? Very much so, I did not intend, even though my post may have appeared that way, for one minute to suggest that women were *unable* to carry out certain tasks, just that they seem less suited to certain vocations that others. For example, I know a number of good female History or English students but very few good female mathematics or computer science students. This is not, I believe, because women are not "suited" to computer science rather that they have never been encouraged at high school etc. to learn about such subjects which are seen as male preserves. I wholeheartedly believe this should not be the case, and my original post may have been misleading, I just believe that in the current system very few women do become good at science/technical subjects. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

1 0