December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Responses to "Spam costs and questions" (long)
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On or About 6 Jun 97 at 23:41, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > If you set up your mailbox to accept e-mail promiscuously from > anyone, then anything sent to it is "consentual". Exactly. And if you put an e-mail address on a web-site, it's fair game. You consent to have me, at least, comment. > The onus is on the recipient to filter out what they don't want (or And not the onus of the Government to save us from the nasty bad evil spammers. > to "filter in" only what they want, which is how I think we'll end > up). Such filtering takes less time+effort than "repeated > cease-and-desist notes". Like any spammer listens to those anyway. I was sent so many of those when I started, it didn't scare me at all. But now I'm a reformed, kinder, gentler spammer. Most times they don't even know they've been spammed. On or About 7 Jun 97 at 13:53, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > talk about this (and I do hope Ross will will this of interest!), > let's You bet. I'm bummed that I missed out on this whole conversation, it's a week old now. On or About 7 Jun 97 at 13:53, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > Also instead of just building the biggest possible list of e-mail > addresses, they build a targeted database, keeping track where a > particular e-mail address was found. That's right. I've got different lists for the different places that I harvested them from. > Suppose a person subscribes to > a "porsche owners" mailing list, and goes to an investment- related > channel on one of the IRC servers. In no time he'll be getting "junk > e-mail" related to the interests he expressed - possibly even saying > "I'm writing you because I saw you on the #invest channel on > Tuesday, and I want to tell you about this hot new penny stock" > > Left to itself, the market will stabilize and the occasional > unsolicited bulk e-mail will be even less of a nuisance than it is > now. Please. I beg all of you just to let it settle it's self. No regulation is needed, or wanted. It's not that bad. On or About 7 Jun 97 at 13:37, Declan McCullagh wrote: > Such a law would be unconstitutional, I believe, and unjust. It's > compelled speech: the government forcing you to say something. I don't want anyone telling me what I have to put into the subject field of my bulk e-mailings. > Depending on how it's worded, it could also impact core political > speech, something the courts generally don't like. > > -Declan On or About 8 Jun 97 at 5:36, Declan McCullagh wrote: > I don't think commercial speech should be treated as second-class > speech. But my position is hardly surprising. > Declan, thanks. You are right that speech is speech. On or About 9 Jun 97 at 23:45, Kent Crispin wrote: And here's where it degrades into discussions about ads and sales tactics and all that stuff that the general public is so frightened of. It's like salesmen are the reviled, untouchables in our society. Needed but hated. These topics always fall to the level of the morals of given marketing strategies. That's not what this is about. It's about freedom to tell people about a product in any way that you can. > > When a tobacco company says in an ad, "Joe Camel is cool", what > > kind of contractual obligations does it assume? > > None. I did not say that all ads were part of a contract. > > > Have you ever bought a used car, Kent? Have you seen the language > > in the contract that throws out whatever promises the saleguy made > > that are not a part of the contract? > > Yes, but never from a used-car lot, always from people I know. I > have =-=-=-=-=-=- Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: (408) 259-2795

1 0

Re: Impact of Netscape kernel hole
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On or About 13 Jun 97 at 18:35, Tom Weinstein wrote: > week for 4.0. A fix for 3.x will follow once we have 4.0 fixed. Saw this post to Cypherpunks. I hate to sound less than savvy, but I use 2.02. You guys are gonna help us who refuse to upgrade, right. Ross =-=-=-=-=-=- Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: (408) 259-2795

7 7

Netscape Update
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Robert Hettinga wrote: > All this reminds me of something Tim May, Eric Hughes, and others have said > before. Once you've gotten to the point where loss of security equals, in a > very literal sense, loss of money, the incentive to publicize any given > security hole starts to go away. The Netscape PR department is no doubt preparing to spin the "bug fix" into a "major update." The fact of the matter is, the software does exactly what it was designed to do. The fact that those who are "out of the loop" found out how to use that designed feature does not make it a "bug." When the list got spammed with email from 10,000 Laker fans named "Bubba," I blasted plaidworks.com for their rudeness in trying to place all the blame on "hackers" when the fact was that they left their system wide open to abuse for the sake of convenience and profit. Similarly, the government and corporations want systems designed to allow them access to all available information passing through the internet system and then cry "abuse" or "security bug" when individuals discover how to use the design to their advantage. Calling the Netscape feature a "bug" merely serves to draw attention away from the fact that the software was intentionally designed in order to facilitate snooping (ala Clipper chip?) and that indicates that there have been people who have known how to take advantage of the feature since its implementation. Do the people who instituted the design and development of this snooping feature all have "Good Guy" stamped on their forhead? Sure they do... TruthMonger

2 1

Re: We need more surveillance--a morality play about terrorism
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May wrote: > I've been watching an HBO movie, "Path to Paradise," about the bombing of > the World Trade Center in February 1993. It's quite well-done, as most HBO > movies of this sort are. > > However, it is fairly heavy on a propaganda message which may give some > insights into the likely changes in political freedoms in the United > States. > In short, a morality play about the hazards of letting people plot their > crimes without proper surveillance. > > Not to sound conspiratorial, I suspect that this changed climate is > consistent with the views of the FBI and White House, and that HBO is > playing some role (unofficially, of course, and maybe not even consciously) > in this new emphasis. The movies have long been a source of propaganda for LEA's of all types and descriptions, as well as the military. You want co-operation? You want to get bargin rates on access to city (or military) facilities, streets, vehicles, etc? If so, then you'd better be prepared to present an "acceptable" script to those who make the decisions. The military and LEA's know that they are in a position to save movie producers millions of dollars through their co-operation and producers know that an acceptable script is the ante that may well make the difference between their movie being produced or canned. Cop shows are the rage on TV at present, and if you can find a major force of real-life cops that call everyone "Sir" and treat them like humans, I'll kiss your ass, but that's what we see on the Tube, anyway. It would cost a fucking fortune to produce a similar show which reflected the reality of how LEA's treat the citizens. I have a friend who was casting director for "Miami Vice" and I recall her telling me at an early point in the series that they were being forced, for financial reasons, to "clean up" the scripts so as to make the cops more sympathetic and reputable characters. Face it, we live in TV World. We didn't get an actor as our President by "accident." We elect "sound bytes" and "charisma." We elect "plausible deniability" and "non-smoking guns." We are sold fear and violence both as news and entertainment, and we "buy" it as our reality. Then our fear is used to sell us products such as loss of privacy and freedom. This is the consumer age, and it is driven by advertising and profit. In the Media Age the marketing term "find a need and fill it" has become "_create_ a need and fill it." There's big money in fear and violence. TruthMonger

1 0

Re: Netscape Exploit
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tom Weinstein wrote: > Lucky Green wrote: > > > > >Here is a sample it isn't complete but you get the basic idea of what > > is > > >going on > > ><HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Evil-DOT-COM Homepage</TITLE><HEAD> ... > Yeah, that's pretty cool. Too bad it doesn't work. If you wanted a version that works you should have checked out the RCMP site that one of the Truth Mongers (or spin-offs) pointed to on the list a while back. It had a nifty bit of code which showed you the contents of your own hard drive and grabbed a copy for their own use. There was also a site on sympatico.ca which had the same code, only the link read "Click here to read the Whitehouse hard drive." If you followed further links on the site some would take a long time to load and if you paid attention you could guess that your hard drive was being accessed. I turned a friend onto the files I saved from the sites and I assume he hacked at least one of them to get the executables that they were running since he bought me a case of Budweiser for sharing the information with him. I have noticed in surfing a variety of hacker URLs that sometimes it takes an awfully long time to load what turns out to be a fairly simple screen and there is invariably a lot of disk activity going on in these instances. I don't worry about what may be taking place since I bought a used computer specifically for internet cruising so I can enjoy myself instead of fretting about security issues. I put a lot of files and directories on my hard drive with names like "Offthepigs" and "assass.plot" and cruised around the RCMP site from an anonymous account. I used the name of a local cop as the ostensible owner of the machine and author of the files. (I _do_ hope they were paying attention!) There was an article on computer security on the RCMP site which spoke quite openly about the potential of technology in general and remailers in specific for mounting sting operations. (I will try to dig up the URL for it and pass it along. It should be in the list archives too.) ~~~~~~~~~ Not a cop ~~~~~~~~~

1 0

Re: e$: Skins vs. Shirts
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tom Weinstein wrote: >Just to be clear, we didn't give the blackmailer any money. As Mike >Homer put it: "We don't bargain with terrorists." That's rather inflammatory name-calling. Sounds a bit Kallstromish, no? Surely Homer hasn't been hanging with the CT-hypers. However, it confirms Tim's surmise that we're facing an inflation of terrorist-spin to whatever feeds nightsweats of monsters coming to Ballmer our babies -- of flesh, markets or surveilling features. Still, is it any surprise to the burgeoning snoopers (prurient, commercial or law) that most personal computer disks are as empty of content as those of data banks, government, military, corporations and other XXX sites? They're stuffed with make-work idleness, slightly Dilberted with lonely-guy infowar & -love games of fantasies of what will never be. Recall Mitnick's find on The Well, Shimomura, the telcos and the feds -- lots of empty data and wannabe-prattle. In that case, the Feds and the victims conspired to script a film to make the nothingness seem valuable, when what they really feared that it would be shown to be worthless junk. Not that NSCP would sink to that kind of RSA Schwartau TLA insecurity.

2 1

I love http://www.intraday.com/spam/spam/spam
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It's hilarious!! Many thanks to whomever put it up --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

1 0

Key Ass-crow
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Paul Bradley wrote: > > Can someone explain the difference between key recovery and key > > escrow? > Key escrow is where your keys are held by one or more trusted and > supposedly independent third parties, on reciept of a court order they > would release the keys. Kind of like trusting a friend not to bugger you while you are drunk and passed out. (But he can't prevent the police from hauling you in for public intoxication and locking you up with someone who might do so.) > But in the end it all comes down to GAK (government access to keys), same > shit, different name. This is much like having a Dominatrix who chains you to the toilet and brings out a mixed bag of utensils and instruments which are about to be used for purposes that are a far cry from what they were created for, and to access areas that Nature never intended to be subjected to large amounts of sunshine. Perhaps someone should come out with a GAK T-shirt which has a citizen "assuming the position" while a GAK cop stands behind him with a crowbar stuck halfway up the citizen's ass, and saying, "If you don't have anything to hide, then you have nothing to worry about." AssMonger

2 1

Re: IBM sues critics?
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <1.5.4.32.19970614201321.009a8b38(a)pop.pipeline.com>, on 06/14/97 at 04:13 PM, John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com> said: >Secret Squirrel wrote: >>According to a usually reliable contact in a position to know, IBM Friday >>filed a liable suit against the 11 authors of the study >>titled "The risks of key recovery, key escrow and trusted third-party >>encryption" plus their employers and the Centere for Democracy and >>Technology, which sponsored the report. According to my contact, IBM >>feels that the report directly targets their own key recovery system, >>and falsely implies that it isn't reliable. They are asking for >>unspecified damages. >If this report is true it's worth taking a look at IBM's policy paper >"The need for a global cryptographic policy framework" to understand why >the key study report is such a threat to >Blue's global market strategy: > http://www.ibm.com/security/html/pp_global.html >IBM's economic incentive to attack the report is substantial, not least >because it hopes to garner the lion's share of global GAK -- >not that that's news. Has there been any conformation on this? I would like to get in touch with some of my contacts at IBM but would like to have some info on this first. Thanks, - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBM6VncI9Co1n+aLhhAQE7VQQAuDOBM3aqTCbaK/5nPLl1TLaAkHWSIC4h /eOJFw7/EJ1ZQWGj5lxHg2es6+MFSrue5/KnOn0evsJtLnQjX4icYyhzhao2cXYY 9EPaew0FMLHRtJrB0sXlWOeyteRqFstVEkQb7jtqUqxbjNU1A/FZlbr7dclRZ56B nVTBAqZBOzA= =tD2h -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

2 1

eDrugs / Re: e$: Skins vs. Shirts
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Robert Hettinga wrote: > At 8:21 am -0400 on 6/15/97, John Young wrote: > > > ... Sounds a bit Kallstromish... > > Surely Homer hasn't been hanging with the CT-hypers. > > ...an inflation of > > terrorist-spin to whatever feeds nightsweats of monsters coming to > > Ballmer our babies -- of flesh, markets or surveilling features. > > .......slightly Dilberted with lonely-guy > > infowar & -love games of fantasies of what will never be. ... > > Not that NSCP would sink to that kind of RSA Schwartau TLA insecurity. > > Wow. I actually understood all that... > > The scent of the cogs is unmistakable hereabouts. Hetting and Young both pass on a variety of highly informative and exceedingly normal, reality-based material for the most part. Then, out of the blue, they post Taoist-Kerouac, acid-flashback missives which indicate that the Orphan Zombies roaming the computer Nether- world have not yet managed to steal their souls. Since John and Bob's psyche-meanderings often seem to occur within the same time-frame I have concluded that they both have the same drug connection. So...did you bring enough for everybody? DrugMonger

2 1