December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Militarily Critical Technologies
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:37 PM 4/20/97 GMT+0200, you wrote: >> Unique Equipment: Computers of 10,000 CTP, or greater, > >Pardon my igorance: What is CTP? >Who is the author of that list? > CTP is an acronym for Composite Theoretical Performance, a definition of computer capability used in the Export Administration Regulations. See EAR Section 740.7 Computers (CTP) at: http://jya.com/740.htm The US Department of Defense, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, is the author of the Militarily Critical Technologies List (MCTL). See attribution at: http://jya.com/mctl08.htm This should not be contrued to mean that I'm not also ignorant of what I quote and quack about weird lists of holy-shit technology.

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Re: SSL weakness affecting links from pa
by azur＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>| That would only work until someone abuses it. People could create web >| robots to run around selling referers and several gigabytes of >| worthless cookie space. Worthless, because nobody cares about the web >| browsing habits of J. Random Robot, and they certainly don't want to >| blow $50 e-bucks on the bot's repeated visits. > > Thats true, but can they avoid it? I'm considering writing a >database pollution bot, which runs around, claiming to be Mozilla or >IE, and randomly following a link once per minute. Why? Database >pollution. If there are a few thousand of these randomly collecing >links and creating arbitrary (or perhaps biased) viewing habbits in >the databases of the advertisers, then their individual data becomes >worth less. They'll need to actively solicit peoples permission to >collect data before doing so, to avoid people polluting their >databases. > > Similarly, putting a randomly generated email address in those >sign up fields produces pollution in the data used by spammers, which >costs them (and no one else) money. If you run your own site, you can >even bit bucket the email, trading their bandwidth for yours, and >making them think they're delivering more junk email than they are. > >Adam Now that's the CP spirit! Whenever you wish to influence policy, follow the money. --Steve

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Re: David Friedman and assassination politics
by jimbell＠pacifier.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 14:13 4/20/97 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Jim, >For the record: I doubt everyone agrees with your "libertarianism is >intertwined with assassination politics" line... I suggest that one can >believe in minimal government and other libertarian mainstays without >seeing a need to kill off those whom we dislike, be they IRS agents or >surly supermarket clerks. >-Declan Sure, they can BELIEVE in those things without seeing the need, etc, but then again they can believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. Their position would be overly optimistic, in my opinion. I think a more realistic way to phrase it is this: "If a society is sufficiently defective so as to contain those flaws (ones which could have been corrected using AP), that society will also contain flaws which make it impossible to be called libertarian." Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Nietzsche and Crypto Anarchy (fwd)
by snow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I forwarded Mr. May's post to a buddy of mine, Ronald Carrier, who is getting his Piled Higher and Deeper in Continental Philosophy. I asked for comments, and recieved permission to forward his comments to the list. Here it is: Forwarded message: > From rcarrier(a)suba.com Sat Apr 19 18:02:57 1997 > From: "Ronald M. Carrier" <rcarrier(a)suba.com> > Good afternoon. > Thanks for forwarding this to me. I've taken a look at it, and it seems > to me to be a good introductory indication of what Nietzsche was up to. > There are just three points on which I'd like to offer a bit of > clarification. > > (1) Nietzsche as "anti-systematic" thinker: this is something that is > also referred to when Nietzsche is called a "perspectival" thinker. > Nietzsche thinks that thinking was an activity that is ultimately in the > service of life, where "life" is a process of discovering and developing > one's capacities for acting to the fullest. (And on this understanding > of life, thinking would itself be one of these capacities for acting.) > For Nietzsche, to develop a system is to develop a perspective, and so to > develop a certain way of living. Indeed, he regards systems primarily as > _symptoms_ of various ways of living. > > What he dislikes about systems is that they are perspectives that are, so > to speak, monopolistic--they are ways of thinking (and, in the end, ways > of living) to which everyone must submit themselves and which deny that > there are other ways of thinking and living that may be better suited for > someone. Nietzsche is anti-system in that he thinks that life is best > served if one is able to develop in oneself the capacity for multiple > perspectives, multiple ways of thinking and living. Nietzsche himself > attempts to do this in his own writing--hence the aphoristic style of > which he was fond. (This is not to say that Nietzsche was not capable of > developing a sustained argument--_On_the_Genealogy_of_Morals_ does > precisely this.) > > For Nietzsche, thinking best serves life and is symptomatic of life at > its best (i.e. a life that is active and deals creatively with the > circumstances that chance throws up for it, rather than one that is > reactive and tries to minimize the role of chance and change in living) > if it is the interplay of as many different perspectives as one can handle. > > (2) Nietzsche and evolution: I think it's good that the author pointed > out the connections that can be made between Nietzsche and contemporary > evolutionary biology. Nietzsche did not think much of Darwin, but this > is not so much because he disagreed with what Darwin wrote (I'm not sure > whether he had read Darwin himself or not) as because he disagreed with > what others tended to make of what Darwin wrote (or what they supposed he > wrote). Nietzsche disagrees, not with Darwin's notion of natural > selection, but with the popular notion of evolution (a notion which > Darwin did not himself employ in his works). > > "Evolution" presupposes that what organisms there are and what they are > like is something that is predetermined and that inexorably unfolds > across time. Natural selection, even in Darwin, is incompatible with > evolution in this sense because natural selection posits chance and > change as both ineliminable and necessary to the process of speciation. > And as I pointed out above, Nietzsche thinks that chance and change are > ineliminable from life and necessary for the development of life at its > best. "Evolution" also involves the idea that there is some one best way > of life that is the unavoidable outcome of evolution, namely whatever way > of being human that the "evolutionary" thinker thinks is best. This is > for Nietzsche a reactive way of thinking. > > But while Nietzsche's way of thinking is compatible with contemporary > evolutionary biology, I think it's misleading to claim that his > understanding of life is "biological." Nietzsche thinks that biology > plays an ineliminable and necessary part in life, but he also thinks that > life is more than just a matter of biology. (Nietzsche was suspicious of > science because he thought that it too aspired to be a system in the > sense of a monopolistic perspective. In other words, he disliked scientism.) > > (3) Authoritarian v. libertarian: The author claims that these are > contradictory positions in Nietzsche. I don't think they are. They > would be contradictory if Nietzsche held that everybody was equally > capable of attaining to life at its best. Nietzsche is _very_ clear in > his denial of this. He thinks that reactive thinking and living is > typical of the great mass of people and suitable for them. They are able > to live as well as they do precisely because a confinement to one > perspective suits them--expose them to the possibility that their > perspective is not suitable for all, and they will fall into despair > (because from their perspective the way of life they lead must be > suitable either for all or for none). > > Only a very few are, in Nietzsche's view, capable of thinking and living > actively. Insofar as the ideal political arrangement would be one that > would discover and cultivate these active few and put them in positions > where they could do their best, while letting everybody else get along > more or less as their reactive lives permit, it would be libertarian for > the best and authoritarian for the rest. To the extent that > libertarianism presupposes equality of nature, Nietzsche is not a > libertarian; to the extent that authoritarianism is based on a reactive > way of life to which both master and slave are beholden, Nietzsche is not > an authoritarian. His politics are, if anything, those of Aristotle in > the _Politics_. (This is not terribly surprising--Nietzsche was a > philologist by training and so had a wide familiarity with ancient Greek > writings.) > > HTH. > > Later... > > -- > Ronald M. Carrier -- rcarrier(a)suba.com > Graduate Student in Philosophy, Northwestern U. > "Philosophy--I'm only in it for the money."

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Re: Nietzsche and Crypto Anarchy (fwd)
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

snow wrote: > > From: "Ronald M. Carrier" <rcarrier(a)suba.com> > > Nietzsche is anti-system in that he thinks that life is best > > served if one is able to develop in oneself the capacity for multiple > > perspectives, multiple ways of thinking and living. Nietzsche himself > > attempts to do this in his own writing--hence the aphoristic style of > > which he was fond. Of course, if Nietzsche posted his multiple perspectives to the CypherPunks list anonymously he would probably be castigated for being too cowardly to maintain a consistent list persona, and thus contributing nothing of value to the list. TruthNietzsche

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crypt(3) questions
by frisbee＠nni.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I believe that the crypt(3) function for unix password encryption is called a one-way function.. in that it is not reversible. Why is this? IE what makes it one way.. Adam

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Re: Short AP Rant [POLITICAL NOISE]
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:27 AM 4/20/97 +0800, jamesd wrote: >The election of various unpleasant Islamic Fundamentalist regimes. >In particular, it seems likely that had the generals not violently >overthrown democracy in Algeria, the democratically elected >representatives of the people would have proceeded to kill off >everyone they deemed insufficiently Islamic, a very substantial >minority, a minority which would doubtless have included most of >the generals and their families. The Islamic party didn't start killing off foreigners until the French and other Westerners supported the generals who overthrew them. It's funny how a modern liberal democracy like the US will go to war and kill 6000 people in Panama just because one of their ex-employees is embarassing them by not leaving the Presidency after his term is up ("We had to protect democracy"), but when a military junta takes over from a non-pro-CIA government, they support the military. >American Civil war. (We've done that rant here a few times :-) # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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Days 3 Took It
by FSBO-3.COM＠mail1y-int.prodigy.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: David Friedman and assassination politics
by jimbell＠pacifier.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 19:51 4/20/97 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Bell sees AP as a means to a freer society. But libertarianism is all >about how means (Hillary's health care plan) don't justify the ends >(everyone has health care). AP is not about libertarianism, it is about >anarchism. I disagree with the implications of that last sentence. For as long as I can recall, there has been an ongoing debate in libertarian circles between "minarchists" (those that believe in a minimal government) and "anarchists" (those who believe in no government.) I was once a "minarchist," simply because I couldn't figure out a logical way to totally obsolete government functions. Then, I did, so I became an anarchist. It sounds like you are still a minarchist. Now, I could just say, "go ahead, be that way", but the thing to acknowledge is that there is, at least, a DEBATE on this issue. I didn't deny it back when I was a minarchist; I don't deny it today, as an anarchist. Neither should you. AP is, implicitly I believe, an anarchy-producing system. That is (or at least, may be) a libertarian position, particularly for an anarchist-libertarian. _Minarchists_ may be bothered by it, but that doesn't (necessarily) make it non-libertarian. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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SNL/NSA Crypto Security
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cryptographer William Payne has shared afidavits that describe SCIF procedures at Sandia National Laboratory for its NSA crypto work. One affidavit cites Payne's claim to knowing how to "easily break public key encryption" but refused to tell NSA, thus harming SNL's customer relations. http://jya.com/nsasuit4.htm

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