December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Cypherpunks Mailing List
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mr. Gilmore I know that this list has become something of a dead albatross with you, but I was wondering if you would be willing to do the whole of us another favor. As you have stated that this list will no longer reside on your machine any longer. And as several people have put forward thier own machines upon which to host this forum in the future. And as there are people who, though not currently subscribed, know about the list and may wish to subscribe to the list in the future. Could you please maintain at least the semblence of a list on your machine. Not the actual list, but a pointer triggered by a post or majordomo request concerning cypherpunks. In this way, persons not currently subscribed but knowledgeable about the list can find it in the future. Such a system should be easy to set up, given that you probably already have autoresponder bots in your hard drive, and would be a great service. Would you please rig such a system after your deadline in place of the list to point to which ever system currently has the most alternate traffic? This would only need to be an interim measure as after a reasonably short length of time people would get the idea that the list has moved. Thank you for entertaining this request.

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Re: Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 14:22 EDT > From: "E. Allen Smith" <EALLENSMITH(a)ocelot.rutgers.edu> > Umm... because you'll eventually accumulate _lots_ of addresses > that don't work, which will slow things down tremendously in sending > mail out? The current subscription is between 1,000 and 2,000 I don't think that is _lots_. All we need to do is count the number of bounces per address in a given period, the SSZ end is trying to decide between weekly or monthly cleanings, and then clear that address. At no point would I need to archive the original bounce. > >I can verify this. If I was not already having to deal with these problem > >as a current mailing list operator I certainly would not take on the > >job. It is one of the reasons I STRONGLY suggest anyone serious about this > >should use the resources to make money as well. Anyone capable of setting up > >and operating such a remailer system is at least capable of basic skills. > > Well, loki(a)cyberpass.net has made the offer to host the entire > list... and Lance is certainly making money at it. While this would have > some problems in comparison with the distributed list idea (namely more of > a choke point), it would decidedly help. I certainly hope they get a cpunks address made available. I will certainly subscribe cpunks@ssz so that the distributed remailer will benefit from that input. However, one of the major realizations is that as long as one anything is involved in the list it is capable of being shutdown at any time with no warning. It also makes it much easier to compromise. I would like to see servers in several countries myself. > >Is anyone interested in acting as a mail-to-news gateway? Want to volunteer? Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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House Science Subcommittee...
by Lile Elam 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi folks, I am looking for more info on the ongoing House Science subcommittee which is about computer technology and national security. I heard they have folks talking about encryption and why it's important to use technology and not legislation to protect people's privacy... Theres a short article in the nando.net paper today about this committee at URL: http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/info/021197/info5_430.html Dan Farmer talked yesterday... thanks, -lile

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Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks"
by Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"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. > > > >A comp.* or sci.* newsgroup, if created, has the following advantages > >over an alt.* newsgroup: > > > >1) There is usually less spam in sci.* or comp.* > >2) There are virtually no completely irrelevant flamewars > >3) The propagation will be a lot better > >4) More people will be able to read it because of the issue of providers > > not carrying alt.*. > > > >I see nothing that would make a sci.* or comp.* newsgroup worse than > >alt.* newsgroup. > > Sure, and this has come up in every past discussion of creating > "alt.cypherpunks." > > But the creation of alt.cypherpunks is _easy_, and needs little permission > or support, whereas the creation of "soc.culture.cypherpunks" or whatever > takes work, requires a vote, blah blah blah. And so it never gets off the > ground. > > (Nor is it clear to me, and perhaps not to others, that it belongs in the > the various places Igor mentioned. Comp.org.cypherpunks probably is the > best fit, but then many would cite the "comp" part to try to insist that > only _computer_ topics be discussed. Likewise, the "soc" domain would skew > discussion...etc. "Alt" has the nice advantage of explicitly not be part of > sci, or comp, or soc, or even talk.) > > Since posting my comments I've just seen the proposal that tivoli may host > a list. Fine with me. But I wonder how long Tivoli and its parent company, > IBM, will tolerate such things as postings of dumpster divings at Mykotronx > and RSADSI, of deliberate slams against Tivoli products (a la the case John > Gilmore referred to this morning), postings about assassination markets, > and so on. > > I still feel that the time has come to move virtual forums such as ours out > of U.S. jurisdictions. Given that most European nations are worse in some > ways (no Holocaust denial posts allowed in "cypherpunks(a)foobar.de"?), I > recommend the alt.cypherpunks as the best overall compromise. (I apologize to everyone whose e-mail has gone unanswered this week - I've had a bunch of other stuff to do, but I'll get to it eventually. Also, I posted the Anshel+Goldfield zeta function paten number - do check it out.) Random thoughts: 1. A newsgroup like comp.privacy.cypherpunks will be carried on a lot of corprate news servers that don't carry alt.* (or even soc.*). Note that soc.org.cypherpunks is inappropriate since cp is *not* an organization. :-) Another possibility is sci.crypto.cypherpunks. (True, people whose corporate newsservers don't carry soc.* and talk.* can use dejanews - provided their firewall lets them.) 2. It takes more work to create a comp.* newsgroup than an alt newsgroup. It takes a vote. I'm willing to be one of the proponents and generally help with the process. (Both I and Igor have been co-proponents of major Usenet newsgroups - don't know about other people onthis list. :-) 3. An unmoderated Usenet newsgroup would have even ore crap than this mailing list. I've been thinking of how to deal with crap, and with the obvious desire by some people to delegate their decision what to read and what not to read to other people. While cpunks@toad worked, one could subscribe to a filtered version offered by at least 2 people. There was no easy way to get those articles that either filterer considered worth reading: if you subscribed to both lists, you'd get most articles twice. Here's a proposal: anyone should be free to issue 'highlight' NoCeM's for the unmoderated cypherpunks newsgroups. Perhaps there will be a 'bot immediately highlighting submissions from well-known posters. Someone reading the newsgroup with a nocem-enabled newsreader (such as gnu) can choose to read only those articles that one of the filterers he trusts has already marked as worthy of his attention. (E.g. Sandy can issue NoCeMs to his heart's content.) However the filterer can't stop someone from not using NoCeMs and reading the entire newsgroup traffic without incurring moderation delays. Most people don't have nocem-enabled newareaders yet... Which is where the network of cypherpunks majordomos Igor's been busy creating comes in very handy. When one of the nodes in the distributed cpunks2news gateway gets a submission, it should xmit it to the other known gateways and post it to Usenet. Also it should grab postings from the Usenet newsgroup and forward them to its mailing list. However in addition to the unedited mailing list, some gateways can choose to offer a filtered list controlled by one or more nocem issuers: i.e. one might be able to subscribe to cypherpunked-filtered-by-either- ray-or-sandy and receive articles only when the gateway receives a nocem from one of the two listing their message-ids. (Better yet, one might specify in the subscription which filterers to use.) I don't think this is a very hard thing to hack up. Sorry for the typoes: now Imust run, but I'd beinterested in the feedback on these thoghts. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"ravage(a)EINSTEIN.ssz.com" "Jim Choate" 12-FEB-1997 11:59:08.20 >> Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 19:18:46 -0600 (CST) >> From: ichudov(a)algebra.com >> Subject: Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up" >> John Gilmore wrote: >> > A pentium is definitely up to this task. I've been running it the >> > whole time on a slower 40MB SPARCstation-2 (that also runs netnews and >> > general computing). Give it a big /var/spool partition (mine is 60MB) >> > because every message will sit in the queue for days (*somebody* on >> > the list will have an unreachable name server or MX server until the >> > msg times out). Give it lots of RAM and paging space, since each >> > sendmail process takes about 2MB virtual, 1.4MB physical, and you will >> > have dozens running at the same time. >My approach to this problem has been to use a 1G drive and mount the entire >file system on it. Swap and MS-Dos each get their own partitions. This >allows the use of the entire drive as a buffer. I am in the process of >adding another 1G in approx. two weeks with the intent of moving /home off >the main drive. This not only gives the system more space but the users as >well. I set swap to 4x main ram. I use Linux and have it as one giant >partition even though suggested is blocks of 16M, works for me (YMMV). Would >be minor to monitor df and alarm when it gets to 200M or something. >I must admit however that I am looking at a faster mbrd. and a bigger hard >drive in the immediate future to make up for the extra load I expect. Had >not really planned on the remailer project however... >> > You'll need a BIG mailbox for the bounce messages, and someone (or >> > some unwritten software) to scan it every day or two and delete the >> > lusers whose mailboxes are full or who dumped their account without >> > unsubscribing. The bounce mailbox on toad gets between 1 and 4MB of >> > email a day; more when the list is under attack. >How about dumping the bounces to /dev/null? I shure don't care if some >bozo's (other than mine that is) mailbox goes away. Umm... because you'll eventually accumulate _lots_ of addresses that don't work, which will slow things down tremendously in sending mail out? >> > The real issue is how willing you are to put your own time into >> > dealing with problems. Not only do things go wrong by themselves, but >> > there are malicious assholes in the world who will deliberately make >> > trouble for you just because they like to. Spending a day or two >> > cleaning up the mess is just part of the job. Check your level of >> > committment two or three times before taking on the task -- so you >> > won't end up getting disgusted after a month or two and putting the >> > list's existence into crisis again. It's not a "set it up and forget >> > it" kind of operation. >I can verify this. If I was not already having to deal with these problem >as a current mailing list operator I certainly would not take on the >job. It is one of the reasons I STRONGLY suggest anyone serious about this >should use the resources to make money as well. Anyone capable of setting up >and operating such a remailer system is at least capable of basic skills. Well, loki(a)cyberpass.net has made the offer to host the entire list... and Lance is certainly making money at it. While this would have some problems in comparison with the distributed list idea (namely more of a choke point), it would decidedly help. >> Another suggestion may be to set sendmail expire option to one day >> instead of five so that messages that cannot be delivered would bounce >> faster and not clog the queue. >I like this idea very much. Myself I would set it for like 4 hours or so and >if it couldn't be delivered then bye bye. Another motivation for selective >sites to operate as archives without themselves being remailers. >Another issue related to this is at what point to unsubscribe accounts. It >seems to me that if the address times out some number of times it should be >deleted. >Is anyone interested in acting as a mail-to-news gateway?

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

17 Dec '03

"Against Moderation" writes: > Your bigotry seriously undermines the effectiveness of any > anti-censorship arguments you make. Are you just trying to get > everyone to hate those who oppose censorship on cypherpunks. The relevance and applicability of an anti-censorship argument has nothing to do with the non-related personal positions of advocates or opponents of that argument. Arguments should not be won or lost by the reputation of the arguer or one risks one's own manipulation by irrelavent data. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet He who has made a door and a lock, has also made a key.

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Cypherpunks@Cyberpass.net New List
by Lance Cottrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I am gratified to see that several people have stepped forward to offer their services to host this list. I have been contacted by various list members to host the list here at Infonex. I think there are several reasons I was approached to do this. As a long time remailer operator I am used to taking heat for the services I offer, and dealing with attacks on the services I run. As the owner and President of Infonex, the list is in no danger of being pulled by the administration of this site. As the author of Mixmaster I am reasonably well known (and I hope respected) member of the list. I have been completely uninvolved in the politics which have plagued the list of late. I personally favor the multi-node list model, where no one site can censor the list, the loss of any one node is not catastrophic, and the load on any one machine is not excessive. Unfortunately I don't think it will be up and functional in time for the transition. I have already set up the list on my majordomo server and subscribers are welcome now. The list address is cypherpunks(a)Cyberpass.net and the subscription address is majordomo(a)Cyberpass.net. The list on my server is subscribed to the unedited version of the current cypherpunks list. Once the multi-node list system is perfected I will integrate this list with the other nodes. Having dealt with the abuse heaped on remailer operators, I think I have an inkling of what John Gilmore has withstood for years. He has agreed to forward his list to mine (and possibly others) for a while after the 20th. It is my opinion that the primary Cypherpunks list should be completely uncensored and unfiltered. An ecology of filtered lists has developed in exactly the way many predicted they should. For the record I regularly read only a filtered version of the list, and subscribe to the full list only to be able to read referenced articles which were filtered. -Lance Cottrell -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMwIyFMogYxMMzklZAQFTzAf+Jya8WIdWpZhyialw6GtGbj3D4mQp0PRJ +J4cBn3qCXX4sLkPcO9Cn0+3Sea20yclvZh9KXXlVM8RxGwzOhVeDDzuQ8dX+LwG QQDdjYfzUAyoSk3OJjWj92DXEZmyEGerahYdoIB7HkIkFw+OY6lJ56cTYUZvKlHe XkJakJ7F5zKdZitvx3wl7Qj6j2lMUh3SegDKz4Ig+WoOe7odbN2F6FDbp1t8WlvI b5YjhwsaOXJ56/ZuWDUuK/yjgq7obPHCtdR3jANIq+Ch01HD+idsU/CH4GCwgiNU 7/GLO+FWlrjL3QIVrl13GiixJFu70Ng37KMAbkoaPqL1Cnip1A4g/g== =fcW6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ---------------------------------------------------------- Lance Cottrell loki(a)obscura.com PGP 2.6 key available by finger or server. http://www.obscura.com/~loki/ "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come." --Nietzsche ----------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Network of majordomos
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Paul Bradley <paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk> writes: > > Greg Broiles wrote: > > > I sent a proposal to alt.config last night and intend to newgroup > > > alt.cypherpunks in a week or so > > > Greg. > > Don`t bother, I have already drawn up a draft charter and newsgrouped > it. Wouldn`t have bothered if I knew you were already on it but I > didn`t see your post in alt.config... > > Seeya there... What was your chater? Could you Cc a copy to the list? Adam -- print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

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anonymity and e-cash
by Lee Tien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The NSA's research report on e-cash says: "The ideal situation (from the point of view of privacy advocates) is that neither payer nor payee should know the identity of the other. This makes remote transactions using electronic cash totally anonymous: no one knows where Alice spends her money and who pays her. "It turns out that this is too much to ask: there is no way in such a scenario for the consumer to obtain a signed receipt. Thus we are forced to settle for payer anonymity." Keeping in mind I am only a lawyer, my skim of Schneier (2d ed.) didn't illuminate. The discussion of digital cash seemed to assume no payee anonymity. But the immediate previous section of dining cryptographers involved (it seemed) recipient untraceability. Is payee anonymity technically possible? Under what conditions? If so, is the issue social, e.g., as NSA notes, the lack of a signed receipt? Thanks, Lee

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

17 Dec '03

ISP_Ratings writes: > I hate censors Dr. Grubor. Dave says hate is a destructive > emotion but when properly channeled it can be quite valuable. I didn't exactly say that. Hate is merely an absence of harmony, and destruction is sometimes appropriate. What I did say was that the best way to strengthen an enemy is to hate them. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet The King decided to force his subjects to tell the truth. Nasrudin was first in line. They asked him, "Where are you going? Tell the truth or be hanged" "I am going," said Nasrudin, "to be hanged on that gallows." "I don't believe you." "Very well, if I have told a lie, then hang me!" "But that would make it the truth!" "Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth."

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