December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Threats of Legal Action and C2Net/Stronghold Issue
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(A copy of this message has also been posted to the following newsgroups: alt.cypherpunks, alt.privacy, comp.org.eff.talk) At 6:07 PM -0800 2/16/97, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >Curiously, in a subsequent telephone conversation, Tim May >proposed almost that exact suggestion as an alternative form of >moderation that he said would have been acceptable to him. Go >figure. The only phone conversation I had was with Doug Barnes, at the request of Doug that I urgently phone either him or Sameer. I called Doug as soon as I got the message. (Doug also said he was the only one in the room at the time, and that the call was *not* being recorded, so I have to surmise that Sandy got his version of things via a recap by Doug.) >> 21. Tim received a warning from C2Net's lawyers that if he did not >> desist from mentioning that Dimitri had posted an article criticising >> a C2Net product that he would be sued! > >Absolutely false. > What Doug told me was that Dimitri Vulis had already been served with a legal notice about his warnings about a security flaw in Stronghold, and that any repetition of Dimitri's claims by me or anyone else would result in similar legal action. Doug said that any repetition of the claims, even as part of a quote, would be seen as actionable by C2Net. "We'll vigorously defend our rights." (as best I can recall) He said he thought my messages, to the extent they merely _alluded_ to the claims were probably OK and that they would certainly go through to the list, as Sandy has already resigned from his role as moderator. (For the record, these messages DID NOT GO THROUGH, and have not gone through as of tonight, 8-9 days later. However, I have forwarded them to several people who requested them.) (I also did not have a recorder running, so I can't claim this is a verbatim summary of what was said. As to what I said about how the moderation thing might have been done differently, Doug and I chatted for a while about various alternatives. I raised the point I've made before, that having a "members only" policy, with some special provision for some amount of remailed messages, would probably best suit the notion of keeping the "community" running. What I told Doug was that my main objection was having Sandy sit in judgement to essays folks might have spent a long time composing, and I cited physical parties, where a host invites those he wants in attendance, but does not micromanage or screen conversations being held at the party. My sense was that Doug agreed, and agreed that the whole thing had been handled in a bad way...but Doug should comment to tell his view of things.) The next day, at the physical Cyperpunks meeting at Stanford, I briefly talked to Greg Broiles, working as a legal aide at C2Net. I told Greg he could "take his best shot," in terms of filing suit against me about my messages, as I'm prepared to fight C2Net in court on this matter, and have the financial resources to hire some pretty good lawyers. (I don't recall if Greg replied, or what his reply was.) In a message to Cypherpunks, I outlined my understanding of the Vulis report on security flaws in Stronghold, and put the claims in the context of messages not appearing on either of the two main lists, but none of my messages were sent to either the Main list or the Flames list. (I also had communication with several members of the list, some known to me and some only pseudonyms. I have taken the precaution of erasing these messages and copying files to the disk on which they resided to head off any attempts by C2Net seize my computer and disks as part of some "discovery" process.) I find it unfortunate that C2Net is behaving in such a manner, and their actions are generating far more publicity about the claimed security flaws in Stronghold than the original Vulis message ever would have generated. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as a Supreme Court justice averred. And suppression is a breeding ground for all sorts of bacteria, fungi, and ugly growth, as a less articulate person said. Reporters interested in this story have already contacted me. They're interested in the situation surrounding the claims of a flaw. I told one reporter I had no expertise in Stronghold, SSL, etc., and could not say, but that I suspected strongly that the claim was made just as a "tweak" of C2Net. "Truth is an absolute defence against libel claims." (P.S. To repeat, I doubt there is a flaw in Stronghold, either introduced by RSA (Republic of South Africa, of course) or by the NSA, or by C2Net, or by anyone else. I said as much in my messages which never made it to the list.) --Tim May -- Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we 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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Moderation experiment and moderator liability
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dale Thorn <dthorn(a)gte.net> writes: > Adam Back wrote: > > [summary of events] > > I believe your summary is very accurate except: > > I would add after the paragraph about Dimitri posting the warning > about C2, that C2's lawyers sent an immediate threatening letter > to Dimitri. Agree, that should be added: 15a. Dimitri received a legal notice from C2Net's lawyers about Dimitri's allegations > I would change the paragraph about Tim May receiving a warning from > C2's lawyers to say that Tim May received a warning second-hand that > anything Tim would say to support or reiterate Dimitri's claims > would be actionable by C2 as well. Let's see I wrote: > 21. Tim received a warning from C2Net's lawyers that if he did not > desist from mentioning that Dimitri had posted an article criticising > a C2Net product that he would be sued! Tim explained the situation in fair detail in his recent post, explaining, after Sandy's "Absolutely false." retort to my above claim. Perhaps my wording could be more accurately changed in the light of the further explanation from Tim to: 21. Tim was told by a C2Net employee that if he did not desist from discussing Dimitri's claims about C2Net's StrongHold product, C2Net would take legal action against him! 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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Re: Moderation experiment and moderator liability (fwd)
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, Adam has assembled a pretty good history of recent events. The following comments only cover some of the issues raised by Adam. It should not be assumed that I agree with all the statements upon which I do not comment. I have limited myself to commenting on only a few issues with which I am in dispute. On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, Adam Back wrote: > Events: > 9. John made a post to the list announcing that the list would be > moderated for one month from Jan 11 as an experiment, and included > Sandy Sandfort's proposed moderatation policy and offer to act as > moderator. It appeared that the moderation experiment was Sandy's > suggestion, and that John had agreed to go along with it. Moderation was my suggestion, but the moderation policy was not. My suggestion was quite different. In a nutshell I wanted to: a. Limit posts to list members only. b. Promote civility on the list by applying sanction to list members who repeatedly flamed or otherwise breached civil decorum. c. Provide for anonymous or non-member posts by having volunteers act as "gateways" who would forward anonymous--but civil--posts to the list. Curiously, in a subsequent telephone conversation, Tim May proposed almost that exact suggestion as an alternative form of moderation that he said would have been acceptable to him. Go figure. > 21. Tim received a warning from C2Net's lawyers that if he did not > desist from mentioning that Dimitri had posted an article criticising > a C2Net product that he would be sued! Absolutely false. S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

17 Dec '03

At 6:36 PM -0500 2/16/97, Cynthia H. Brown wrote: >My understanding is that the legislation restricts commercial >solicitations by phone to: > >- certain times of day (not after 9 PM? unsure) >- one initial call, and no follow-ups if the person explicitly asks >the caller to never phone this number again (again, unsure of legal >details) > >I don't consider this scenario overly restrictive, since it gives >_them_ a chance to sell their product, and _me_ a chance to have them >delete my name from their database. Unfortunately, without some >formal means of redress, very few telemarketers seem to remember that >they are unlikely to find new customers if they call at 7 AM Saturday >for the third time this month. I despise telemarketing calls as much as the next one, and I now let my answering machine do the answering whenever possible, only picking up if it's a call that sounds interesting. (And my cellular phone number I give to only a very few people, as I get charged for incoming calls before 7 p.m.) So, I'm sympathetic to the "problem." However, I try to always "deconstruct" governmental/regulatory "solutions" to see if statist encroachment is lurking in the bushes. In the case of the notion of "have them delete my name from their database," here are some of the issues: * The Armour Spam Company buys its data bases from direct marketing firms, so whose data base is one's name supposed to be removed from? The instance used by Armour in its February 17th contact, or the "parent index" (which is itself an instance) controlled by someone else? How does Armour insist that the data base company from which it bought the data base handle the removal? * If the argument is only that Armour Spam Company not repeat a call, this is generally not a problem, as few companies repeat their telemarketing pitches; counterexamples doubtless exist, but the general trend is not for repeat calls, but, rather, for the same data base to be bought by multiple telemarketing firms. * And there are "freedom of speech" (important in the U.S., though not perhaps in other countries lacking an explicit provision in their constitutions or charters) issues in forcing sellers of legally obtained data bases to reveal internals, to modify them, etc. (Again, it is Armour Spam Company that made the offending call, but they, for this example, only made the call _once_. The fact that N other companies make similar calls, based on the same data base, is a separable issue. Unless the collection and sale of legally-accumulated data bases is regulated, no real remedy exists. I am not, of course, a fan of regulating data bases, but that's a long and involved issue to discuss.) >What means of redress would you suggest, in the absence of >legislation / fines, to someone who has been called repeatedly by a >telemarketer? This person is not a current customer and so cannot >withdraw his/her business. As I said, I believe the case of repeated calls by the _same_ telemarketer is unusual. Perhaps others have had different experiences. And if a particular telemarketer is banned from calling twice, their solution will be obvious: they'll change their company name, farm out the calls to a subcontractor, etc. That is, they'll become a different "corporate instance." It'll be very tough for any law to keep up with such changes (without trampling severely on what most of us think of us as basic freedoms). --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."

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We Will Send Your Bulk Email
by Product Link 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

*If you want to be removed from our mailing list, please respond to this email and put "Remove" in the subject line. We will send out your bulk E Mail. Period. No qualifiers, no conditions, no nonsense...and we'll do it at the best prices. We are Product Link. We are a business partner with a marketing company which develops buyers for its clients' products through electronic marketing; primarily broadcast fax. Together, we have over a hundred clients, almost 10% of which are Fortune 500 companies. We have numerous staff, and have just begun, at client request, to send high volumes of E Mail. If you're new to bulk E Mail marketing, as we were a short time ago, I can confirm that all the E Mails you've been getting from E Mail software companies about how great E Mail marketing is; well, they're true. However, as those of you who have already purchased software and have tried bulk E mail know, nothing good ever comes easy. Our staff has spent millions of advertising dollars on our clients' behalf; everything from commercials on the Superbowl to ads in the New York Times, to full page spreads in Scientific American.; not to mention the sending of over 1,000,000 marketing faxes a year for major corporations. Bulk E mail has been quite an eye opener. The Internet, the on line services and ISP providers are full of shrill, self appointed "net cops," whose mission in life seems to be dumping on those who have the audacity to sell product via E Mail. I don't wish nor intend to debate the issue here, except to say that if you've purchased bulk E Mail software (or intend to), you've already found out that when you attempt to use it, your ISP provider will shut you down, your E Mail account will be bombed, and electronic flames will become a way of life. Since we have a low tolerance for allowing small groups of vocal fanatics to dictate our business life, we set up our own system to send out Bulk E Mail. This system will be greatly expanded in 30 days or so (we're installing more T lines), but we currently have room on our system to send out Bulk E Mail for a limited number of companies or individuals other than ourselves. We'll send out your order, large or small. We'll do it quickly, and we'll do it at a really great price. You can supply the list, or we'll supply the list. Place an order with us, and we'll give you advice on how to set up your E Mail so your on line service won't shut you down, how to write your material, and much more. We will also write your marketing material, if you so desire. If you supply a list, we can run it through our computer program to sort out all duplicates and bad AOL or CompuServe addresses. If you buy a list from us, we will guarantee that the exact number of names you order will go out; if we send a list for you and a number of addresses are not delivered, we will send out more E Mails until you get delivered exactly what you ordered. We can even tell you how to confirm that your list was sent. We also have programs that can filter out E Mail "bombs" and other irritating toys played with at your expense by people who don't have a life. When we first began exploring bulk E mail, we contacted numerous firms advertising that they would send out bulk E mail. What we got was answering machines, disconnected numbers, and no call backs. The one firm that did contract us would only send limited numbers of E mails for us, and then only if we had already sent the list out once and taken off all the removes (go figure...if we could send out the list once, what did we need them for?). We finally got so exasperated, we set up our own system. And are we glad we did. Speaking as a marketing man with over 30 years experience in major advertising, E Mail marketing will change the face of advertising and cost of sale forever. I do not believe that has ever been a vehicle like it in history to allow anyone of any size and any budget to advertise and sell their products literally overnight. We employ 18 people, and I guarantee you that when you E Mail us back, you'll get a call. Right away. And the office phone number we give you, will have a live person at the other end. Following is a price list to give you an idea of the quality of our company. Please bear in mind that Bulk E Mail is effective in large numbers; i.e., 25,000 and above. Price List To Send Bulk E Mail: Amount Cost Set Up (One Time Fee) 25,000 $150.00 $50.00 50,000 $275.00 $50.00 75,000 $400.00 $50.00 100,000 $550.00 $50.00 Bulk E Mail amounts above 100,000 per sending will be bid on a case by case basis. If you wish to modem us a list, there may be a small charge for down load depending on list size. If you wish us to "clean" your list (remove all duplicates and bad addresses), we will supply a bid on a case by case basis as with writing your marketing materials and other services. If we may be of service to you, please call us directly at (805) 654-4042. Thank you.

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SSZ Test [No Reply]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Test Sunday - No Reply

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Re: Cypherpunks afraid of spam?
by Cynthia H. Brown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, camcc(a)abraxis.com (Alec) wrote: > :> I put a spam-busted address in my .sig and give root(a)127.0.0.1 as my email > :> in the from: header. Sure, somebody out there is going to be unhappy with > :> me, but if they have a clue they'll figure it out. Meantime, the SpamBots > :> are bouncing mail to the admin of the site instead of to me. > : > For the less computer articulate (me), please rephrase what you just > said more in the form of basic instructions. For starters, root is the all-powerful system administrator account on UNIX machines, and 127.0.0.1 is the "loopback" or "localhost" IP address, generally used for testing. A connection to loopback amounts to a software connection back to the originating host, and e-mail sent to loopback won't even go out the Ethernet card / modem / whatever. So, if I put root(a)127.0.0.1 in the "From:" field of my news reader's configuration, all of my posts will give this as my e-mail address. Depending on the news reader, I may have to set options like "override default domain name", which would override my service provider's name. Since many commercial mailer programs ("SpamBots") scan Usenet news posts for potential target e-mail addresses, these programs will pick up my phony e-mail address and send their junk to their own system administrator instead of me :-) The smarter programs will also scan the bottom of posts for e-mail addresses in people's signatures (or .sig files). The "spam-busted" address described above could be anything that is not a verbatim copy of my e-mail address, for example: c.y.n.t.h.b(a)i.o.s.p.h.e.r.e.dot.n.e.t cynthb[at]iosphere.net cynthb(a)[NOSPAM].iosphere.net Any reasonably computer-literate human will be able to figure out what my real address is, but a cut-and-paste by a software robot won't work. Hope this helps, Cynthia -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: cp850 iQCVAwUBMwfYOZOg7xGCJGQtAQFysQP/VBvuOqZnuQd/1PKz2eApuKUFhUSqWcMe L0W44yFEhMF/vsSz9cZ1fY6ge72Mc1M6UaFPW109rkrmlT9Y0rytelmE+IVr5U92 Q0b+5t/SZAs2HTX8brF6XnqY+1kCcQCv20Yv1dUyWrHM/MOe6RUObSSS2uxqC7tf r4TWCnQ6y7c= =bet0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- =============================================================== Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng. E-mail: cynthb(a)iosphere.net | PGP Key: See Home Page Home Page: http://www.iosphere.net/~cynthb/ Junk mail will be ignored in the order in which it is received. Klein bottle for rent; enquire within.

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Re: Threats of Legal Action and C2Net/Stronghold Issue
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The story about Stronghold security flaws reminds me of The Right Reverend Colin James III (puke). CJ3 also started his kook career when he was accused of being stupid and not knowing what he was talking about in his announcement about performance of BSAM, his "invention". He immediately reacted to the accusers and promised to sue them, their employers, their providers, the Inspector General, and more. He really went after his enemies, trying to get them fired, etc. As a result of his long struggles, most enlightened minds on USENET realized that he was an excellent candidate for Kook of the Month award. A nomination followed. When he was elected Kook of the Month last January with a record-breaking vote, he threatened to sue anyone who mentions his new Kook status. That only added fuel to the fire, as more and more posters "dared" to expose him as a lying forger and kook. - Igor.

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Threats of Legal Action and C2Net/Stronghold Issue
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(A copy of this message has also been posted to the following newsgroups: alt.cypherpunks, alt.privacy, comp.org.eff.talk) At 6:07 PM -0800 2/16/97, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >Curiously, in a subsequent telephone conversation, Tim May >proposed almost that exact suggestion as an alternative form of >moderation that he said would have been acceptable to him. Go >figure. The only phone conversation I had was with Doug Barnes, at the request of Doug that I urgently phone either him or Sameer. I called Doug as soon as I got the message. (Doug also said he was the only one in the room at the time, and that the call was *not* being recorded, so I have to surmise that Sandy got his version of things via a recap by Doug.) >> 21. Tim received a warning from C2Net's lawyers that if he did not >> desist from mentioning that Dimitri had posted an article criticising >> a C2Net product that he would be sued! > >Absolutely false. > What Doug told me was that Dimitri Vulis had already been served with a legal notice about his warnings about a security flaw in Stronghold, and that any repetition of Dimitri's claims by me or anyone else would result in similar legal action. Doug said that any repetition of the claims, even as part of a quote, would be seen as actionable by C2Net. "We'll vigorously defend our rights." (as best I can recall) He said he thought my messages, to the extent they merely _alluded_ to the claims were probably OK and that they would certainly go through to the list, as Sandy has already resigned from his role as moderator. (For the record, these messages DID NOT GO THROUGH, and have not gone through as of tonight, 8-9 days later. However, I have forwarded them to several people who requested them.) (I also did not have a recorder running, so I can't claim this is a verbatim summary of what was said. As to what I said about how the moderation thing might have been done differently, Doug and I chatted for a while about various alternatives. I raised the point I've made before, that having a "members only" policy, with some special provision for some amount of remailed messages, would probably best suit the notion of keeping the "community" running. What I told Doug was that my main objection was having Sandy sit in judgement to essays folks might have spent a long time composing, and I cited physical parties, where a host invites those he wants in attendance, but does not micromanage or screen conversations being held at the party. My sense was that Doug agreed, and agreed that the whole thing had been handled in a bad way...but Doug should comment to tell his view of things.) The next day, at the physical Cyperpunks meeting at Stanford, I briefly talked to Greg Broiles, working as a legal aide at C2Net. I told Greg he could "take his best shot," in terms of filing suit against me about my messages, as I'm prepared to fight C2Net in court on this matter, and have the financial resources to hire some pretty good lawyers. (I don't recall if Greg replied, or what his reply was.) In a message to Cypherpunks, I outlined my understanding of the Vulis report on security flaws in Stronghold, and put the claims in the context of messages not appearing on either of the two main lists, but none of my messages were sent to either the Main list or the Flames list. (I also had communication with several members of the list, some known to me and some only pseudonyms. I have taken the precaution of erasing these messages and copying files to the disk on which they resided to head off any attempts by C2Net seize my computer and disks as part of some "discovery" process.) I find it unfortunate that C2Net is behaving in such a manner, and their actions are generating far more publicity about the claimed security flaws in Stronghold than the original Vulis message ever would have generated. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as a Supreme Court justice averred. And suppression is a breeding ground for all sorts of bacteria, fungi, and ugly growth, as a less articulate person said. Reporters interested in this story have already contacted me. They're interested in the situation surrounding the claims of a flaw. I told one reporter I had no expertise in Stronghold, SSL, etc., and could not say, but that I suspected strongly that the claim was made just as a "tweak" of C2Net. "Truth is an absolute defence against libel claims." (P.S. To repeat, I doubt there is a flaw in Stronghold, either introduced by RSA (Republic of South Africa, of course) or by the NSA, or by C2Net, or by anyone else. I said as much in my messages which never made it to the list.) --Tim May -- Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we 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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: The EFF
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

aga wrote: > On Sat, 15 Feb 1997, Dale Thorn wrote: > > Toto wrote: > > > Timothy C. May wrote: > > > > At 9:36 AM -0800 2/14/97, Declan McCullagh wrote: > > > I have a brother-in-law who gives seminars to the Nouveau Riche in > > > the Bay Area, teaching them how to give their money away to 'good' > > > causes. I believe that one of the prime considerations in separating > > > the 'good' causes from the 'bad' causes has something to do with the > > > the proper wine being served with the cheese and cracker offerings > > > during their cocktail parties. > > Wine and cheese are the key. You hit that one on the head. I tried > > those Mensa parties in Beverly Hills a few times, but the girls want > > you to kiss their hands like some kinda princesses or something, > > whereas I think a simple handshake would suffice. So I just quit > > going. Maybe this has something to do with why there are no c-punks > > meetings in the L.A. area. > Dale, so you are in mensa? Did you have to take a test? I joined in 1986 at the urging of my sort-of lawyer (not a real lawyer, but much better actually) from Beverly Hills. He liked the parties since he was trolling for babes; recent (1986) divorce and all. Anyway, Mensa was accepting U.S. Military GT scores prior to 1980, and I scored 153 in 1966, which was the highest at the several posts I did duty in (Ft. Benning GA, Ft. Ord CA, Ft. Lee VA, 4th A.D. Europe). I gave up on it after a few meetings, since I didn't care for the parties, and there didn't seem to be any really active/interesting people there. There was a "rational sig" I wanted to attend, but never got around to. Mensa did put on some good speakers every now and then, but you could do as well by checking in with the Masons or the other local civic groups.

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