December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

FinCEN hates cybercash, who 'da thunk it...
by Derrick Storren 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Big brother, Morris, at FinCEN sees a criminal behind every cyber dollar. The sky is falling, the sky is falling, it's raining cyber cash! Artilce follows :) ****************** _G7 groups frets over electronic money laundering_ Copyright © 1997 Nando.net Copyright © 1997 Agence France-Presse PARIS (Feb 6, 1997 11:30 a.m. EST) - Money-laundering fighters from key industrial countries and leading Asian financial centers are looking into ways of countering use of the Internet and "smart cards" to clear proceeds from criminal activities, officials said Thursday. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), set up following a Group of Seven initiative at their l989 summit, called in a lengthy report for closer cooperation and coordinated efforts to fight money laundering, especially in regard to new electronic payments technologies. The report noted that these technologies were still "in their infancy" and said it was "premature to consider prescriptive solutions to theoretical problems." But Stanley Morris of the United States Treasury, who chaired a FAFT working group which drafted the report, told a news conference that law enforcement agencies would face 'very major new challenges' if new technology moves the world "to a cashless society, beyond banks, cash and borders." He said the group's meeting, held in Paris last November, was the first time an international organization has examined "the implications of e-money - electronic money - or cyber payments." The group had for the first time examined "not only criminal activity as we see it" at present, but "what kind of crominal activites might occur as we approach the new payments technologies relying on the revolution in microchips and .. changes in payments services generally." Morris, who heads the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), said cash had become "a significant problem" for criminal groups, which find it increasingly difficult to channel their criminal proceeds into the banking system, at least in FATF countries. "We find a clear move away from direct dealing with banks to non-bank institutions, including bureaux de change money order sellers, and even professional services like lawyers and accountants," he said. The group had also seen "the realities of economic globalization," he said, adding that financial activities are "poorly controlled by the nation states." Morris said the working group had therefore invited representatives of the high technology industry now working on the new payments technology which was still "in the prototype stage" without any clear indication as to the direction they might take. "We wanted to sit down with the industry as experts on money laundering enforcement.... to let them know now what kinds of systems would cause us problems and give the bad guys new opportunities," he said. The purpose was to seek to encourage development of these technologies "in ways that do not provide a new forum for money laundering," he said. The FATF was essentially a preventive business, Morris added. "We do not measure our success simply on arrests and (money) seizures." FATF chairman Fernando Carpentieri, the Director General of the Italian Treasury, said drug trafficking remained a key source of criminal proceeds which crime groups were seeking to "legalize." He said the Task Force, consisting mainly of OECD member countries, as well as Hongkong, Singapore, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the European Commission, was not at present considering admitting further members to preserve its efficiency. But it was working with the authorities of countries throughout the world to secure the broadest possible implementation of the anti-money laundering measures it has recommended.> G7 groups frets over electronic money laundering

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Blessing in Disguise? (H.R. 98, the "Consumer Internet PrivacyProtection Act of 1997")
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This attempted legislation (see forward, below) is a blessing in disguise. It's just more proof that book-entry commerce isn't going to work on the net in the long run. SET looks like it's having problems with Japanese commerce rules, which is another example of this problem. Cash settlement between blinded pseudonyms fixes all of these problems. I like to joke that if digital commerce is flight, then book entry settlement is Boyle's Law, and cryptography is Bernoulli's law, viz, + Sending a credit card in the clear is jumping off a cliff. The height of the cliff you jump off is related to the number of times you send an unencrypted credit card number and the amount you charge. Credit card companies aren't going to be guaranteeing all those trades much longer if they lose too much money. + First Virtual is a tethered balloon. You're up in the air, but you don't know what for, because all the action is happening on the ground. ;-). + SET, Cybercash/coin, SSL, and other encrypted-channel book entry methods, is a derigeble. You're flying, but you're using minimally strong crypto like little aerodynamic fins to push the giant gas bag of book-entry settlement around. + Digital bearer certificate technology, like ecash, or MicroMint, or Millicent, is an airplane. It "flys" with "wings" of strong cryptography, which gives us reputation capital and enforcement, and instantly settled microintermediated transactions. Thus, like aerodynamic flight, it will be faster, cheaper, and easier to use than book-entry "derigible" transaction methods. Cheers, Bob Hettinga --- begin forwarded text Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 11:24:09 EST Reply-To: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM> Sender: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM> From: "Jonathan I. Ezor" <jezor(a)NEWMEDIALAW.COM> Subject: Congressional Bill worse for 'Net than CDA? (crosspost) Comments: To: wwwac(a)echonyc.com, noend(a)laguna.taos.com, isales(a)mmgco.com, imarcom(a)internet.com To: CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sorry for the crossposting, but I felt this one might be important enough to do it. The following is a shortened version of an article I've written for my firm's client newsletter about H.R. 98, the "Consumer Internet Privacy Protection Act of 1997", introduced by Rep. Bruce Vento (D. MN) on January 7, 1997. As the article describes, if the bill were enacted as drafted, Internet commerce could conceivably be stopped dead in its tracks, along with most of the reduced-fee-for-demographics online services. Privacy is quite important, and many of us have worked and are working extremely hard to protect privacy appropriately while still providing convenient services to users, but this bill is way beyond a reasonable approach. I haven't seen much discussion about this bill, but it's now in committee, and the time to act may be upon us. Feel free to e-mail/call/fax/talk to me with any further questions. I look forward to your feedback. {Jonathan} Jonathan I. Ezor New Media Attorney, Davis & Gilbert, 1740 Broadway, New York, NY 10019 Tel: 212-468-4989 Fax: 212-468-4888 E-mail: jezor(a)newmedialaw.com -----------------------------Cut here------------------------------- Congress Tackles Internet Privacy Recently, there has been significant press coverage over real and rumored revelations of personal information such as Social Security numbers by online services, including the alleged availability (later shown to be untrue) of mothers' maiden names and Social Security numbers on LEXIS' P-Trak database, and various governmental bodies have held hearings on issues of online privacy. On January 7, 1997, Representative Bruce F. Vento (D. MN) introduced the "Consumer Internet Privacy Protection Act of 1997," (H.R. 98) This bill provides that "an interactive computer service shall not disclose to a third party any personally identifiable information provided by a subscriber to such service without the subscriber's prior informed written consent." It requires online services to provide an express opt-out for subscribers at any time, prohibits services from knowingly distributing false information about users, and also mandates giving subscribers access to the information maintained about them for review, updates and corrections, as well as the identity of the party receiving the information, at no charge. The bill authorizes the Federal Trade Commission to "to examine and investigate an interactive computer service to determine whether such service has been or is engaged in any act or practice prohibited by this Act," and to issue a cease and desist order. Notably, it also provides that an individual may sue the violator directly without having to go through the FTC. As a general matter, this bill enacts the practice of many online services and sites, and the position of most self-regulatory industry groups, by asking consent before revealing personally-identifiable information. But the bill goes well beyond the ordinary industry practice by requiring "prior informed written consent," which is defined in this bill as "a statement-- (A) in writing and freely signed by a subscriber; (B) consenting to the disclosures such service will make of the information provided; and (C) describing the rights of the subscriber under this Act." What this could conceivably mean is that services which have all of their registration online may be unable to fulfill this requirement. Additionally, the bill is unclear about which online services will be subject to its provisions. It defines "interactive computer service" as "any information service that provides computer access to multiple users via modem to the Internet." This certainly covers dedicated Internet service providers (ISP's) and combination proprietary/Internet services like America Online and MSN. The bill may also cover services which depend on their ability to reveal certain information to advertisers in exchange for offering free Internet e-mail to their users. Beyond that, purely Web-based services may fall into the purview of this bill, depending on whether providing access via modem requires that the modem dial directly into the service in question or not. Theoretically, this bill could even prevent online purchases absent a signed authorization form from each purchaser, because a service would have to reveal the name and address of the purchaser to the seller in order for the goods to be delivered. Even more troubling, the bill does not even provide an exception for information shared between a service owner and the company owning the computer hosting the service, regardless of whether there is a contractual obligation for confidentiality, since the hosting company has access to the information collected by the service about its users. As with other bills of this type, it is important for any company intending to offer Internet-related services to individuals to follow and perhaps attempt to affect the path of the Consumer Internet Privacy Protection Act of 1997, since it could have significant impact on planned services, revenue sources and per-subscriber costs. For those interested in forestalling this type of governmental action, the best response may be to accelerate self-regulatory initiatives to deal with the valid concerns of consumers who may be providing information about themselves and their buying habits, either in the process of registration or while using the service. At the same time, the self-regulatory bodies can create rules based on the actual business practices and realities of their members, rather than drafting with a broad brush as Congress does in so many instances. If companies are going to be able to take the greatest economic advantage of the interactivity of the Internet as opposed to traditional broadcast and print media, there needs to be some way of legally and ethically utilizing information provided by subscribers in order both to enhance the subscribers' experience and to gain revenue through appropriate business relationships with advertisers, retailers, and others who may wish access to consumers. Copyright 1997 Jonathan I. Ezor, Davis & Gilbert. All rights reserved. Jonathan I. Ezor is an attorney with Davis & Gilbert in New York City, practicing new media and computer law, focusing on the advertising industry. Mr. Ezor can be reached at jezor(a)newmedialaw.com. --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity." -- Jerry Pournelle The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/ FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://www.ai/fc97/

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revised FC97 program
by R.Hirschfeld＠cwi.nl 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Financial Cryptography '97 February 24-28 1997, Anguilla, BWI PRELIMINARY PROGRAM (Revised 6 February 1997) General Information: Financial Cryptography '97 (FC97) is a new conference on the security of digital financial transactions. The first meeting will be held on the island of Anguilla in the British West Indies on February 24-28, 1997. FC97 aims to bring together persons involved in both the financial and data security fields to foster cooperation and exchange of ideas. Original papers were solicited on all aspects of financial data security and digital commerce in general. Program Committee: Matthew Franklin, AT&T Laboratories--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA Michael Froomkin, U. Miami School of Law, Coral Gables, FL, USA Rafael Hirschfeld (Program Chair), CWI, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Arjen Lenstra, Citibank, New York, NY, USA Mark Manasse, Digital Equipment Corporation, Palo Alto, CA, USA Kevin McCurley, Sandia Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA Charles Merrill, McCarter & English, Newark, NJ, USA Clifford Neuman, Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA, USA Sholom Rosen, Citibank, New York, NY, USA Israel Sendrovic, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York, NY, USA Preliminary Conference Program for FC97: Monday 24 February 1997 800 -- 820 Breakfast 820 -- 830 Welcome 830 -- 905 Anonymity Control in E-Cash Systems George Davida (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA), Yair Frankel (Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA), Yiannis Tsiounis (Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA), Moti Yung (CertCo, New York, NY, USA) 905 -- 940 How to Make Personalized Web Browsing Simple, Secure, and Anonymous Eran Gabber, Phil Gibbons, Yossi Matias, Alain Mayer (Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies) 940 -- 1015 Anonymous Networking and Virtual Intranets: Tools for Anonymous Corporations Jim McCoy (Electric Communities, Cupertino, CA, USA) 1015 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 Unlinkable Serial Transactions Paul F. Syverson (Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA), Stuart G. Stubblebine (AT&T Labs--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA), David M. Goldschlag (Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA) 1120 -- 1155 Efficient Electronic Cash with Restricted Privacy Cristian Radu, Rene Govaerts, Joos Vandewalle (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium) 1155 -- 1230 The SPEED Cipher Yuliang Zheng (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia) 1230 -- 1330 Lunch 1800 -- 1930 Cocktail Reception (at Mariners Hotel) Tuesday 25 February 1997 800 -- 830 Breakfast 830 -- 930 Invited Speaker Evaluating the security of electronic money; the view of a European central bank Simon L. Lelieveldt (De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam, Netherlands) 930 -- 1005 Smart Cards and Superhighways The technology-driven denationalisation of money David G.W. Birch, Neil A. McEvoy (Hyperion, Surrey, England) 1005 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 Fault Induction Attacks, Tamper Resistance, and Hostile Reverse Engineering in Perspective David P. Maher (AT&T Labs--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA) 1120 -- 1155 Some Critical Remarks on "Dynamic Data Authentication" as specified in EMV '96 Louis C. Guillou (CCETT, Cesson-Sevigne, France) 1155 -- 1230 Single-chip implementation of a cryptosystem for financial applications Nikolaus Lange (SICAN Braunschweig GmbH, Braunschweig, Germany) 1230 -- 1330 Lunch Wednesday 26 February 1997 800 -- 830 Breakfast 830 -- 930 Invited Speaker Ronald Rivest (MIT Lab for Computer Science, Cambridge, MA, USA) 930 -- 1005 Auditable Metering with Lightweight Security Matthew K. Franklin, Dahlia Malkhi (AT&T Labs--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA) 1005 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 SVP: a Flexible Micropayment Scheme Jacques Stern, Serge Vaudenay (Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France) 1120 -- 1155 An efficient micropayment system based on probabilistic polling Stanislaw Jarecki (MIT Lab for Computer Science, Cambridge, MA, USA), Andrew Odlyzko (AT&T Labs--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA) 1155 -- 1230 On the continuum between on-line and off-line e-cash systems - I Yacov Yacobi (Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA) 1230 -- 1330 Lunch Thursday 27 February 1997 800 -- 830 Breakfast 830 -- 905 Towards Multiple-payment Schemes for Digital Money H. Pagnia, R. Jansen (University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany) 905 -- 940 Applying Anti-Trust Policies to Increase Trust in a Versatile E-Money System Markus Jakobsson (UCSD, La Jolla, CA, USA), Moti Yung (BTEC/CertCo, New York, NY, USA) 940 -- 1015 Cyberbanking and Privacy: The Contracts Model Peter P. Swire (Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA) 1015 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 Legal Issues in Cryptography Edward J. Radlo (Fenwick & West LLP, Palo Alto, CA, USA) 1120 -- 1230 Panel Discussion Legal Issues of Digital Signatures Michael Froomkin (U. of Miami School of Law, Coral Gables, FL, USA), Charles Merrill (McCarter & English, Newark, NJ, USA), Benjamin Wright (Dallas, TX, USA) 1230 -- 1330 Lunch 1930 -- 2015 Invited Speaker Money Laundering: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Peter Wayner (Baltimore, MD, USA) 2015 -- 2200 Rump Session Friday 28 February 1997 800 -- 830 Breakfast 830 -- 905 The Strategic Role of Government in Electronic Commerce Paul Lampru (Verifone, Atlanta, GA, USA) 905 -- 940 Using Markets to Achieve Efficient Task Distribution Ian Grigg, Christopher C. Petro (Systemics, Amsterdam, Netherlands) 940 -- 1015 The Gateway Security Model in the Java Electronic Commerce Framework Theodore Goldstein (Sun Microsystems Laboratories/Javasoft) 1015 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 Highly Scalable On-line Payments Via Task Decoupling David William Kravitz (CertCo LLC, Albuquerque, NM, USA) 1120 -- 1155 GUMP; Grand Unified Meta-Protocols Recipes for Simple, Standards-based Financial Cryptography Barbara Fox, Brian Beckman (Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA) 1155 -- 1230 Secure Network Communications and Secure Store&Forward Mechanisms with SAP R/3 Bernhard Esslinger (SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany) 1230 -- 1330 Lunch Updates of the conference schedule will be available at the URL http://www.cwi.nl/conferences/FC97/. The conference will run from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM for five days, February 24-28 1997. Breakfast and lunch are provided at the conference. The conference organizers have left the afternoons and evenings open for corporate sponsored events, for networking, and for recreational activities on the resort island of Anguilla. Participants are encouraged to bring their families. Workshop: A 40-hour workshop, intended for anyone with commercial software development experience who wants hands-on familiarity with the issues and technology of financial cryptography, is planned in conjunction with FC97, to be held during the week preceding the conference. For more information on the workshop, please see the URL http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~iang/fc97/workshop.html. For workshop registration, see the URL http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/. Venue: The InterIsland Hotel is a small 14-room guest house and a large, comfortable 150 seat conference facility with additional space for a small 10-booth exhibition. The Inter-Island is on Road Bay, near Sandy Ground Village, in the South Hill section of Anguilla. The conference, workshop, and exhibition will have TCP/IP internet access. The rooms at the InterIsland itself have sold out, but there are many other hotels and guest houses on Anguilla, and shuttle service to the conference will be available. Air Transportation and Hotels: Air travel to Anguilla is typically done through either San Juan or St. Thomas for US flights, or St. Maarten/Martin for flights from Europe and the US. Anguillan import duties are not imposed on hardware or software which will leave the island again. There are no other taxes--or cryptography import/export restrictions--on Anguilla. Hotels range from spartan to luxurious, and more information about hotels on Anguilla can be obtained from your travel agent, or at the URL http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/. General Chairs: Robert Hettinga, Shipwright/e$, Boston, MA, USA; rah(a)shipwright.com Vincent Cate, Offshore Information Services, Anguilla, BWI; vince(a)offshore.com.ai Conference, Exhibits, and Sponsorship Manager: Julie Rackliffe, Boston, MA, USA; rackliffe(a)tcm.org Workshop Leader: Ian Goldberg, Berkeley, CA, USA; iang(a)cs.berkeley.edu Registration: You can register and pay for conference admission via the World Wide Web at the URL http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/. The cost of the FC97 Conference is US$1,000. Booths for the exhibition start at US$5,000 and include two conference tickets. For more information about exhibit space, contact Julie Rackliffe, rackliffe(a)tcm.org. Sponsorship opportunities for FC97 are still available. The cost of the workshop is US$5000, and includes meals but not lodging. You can register for the workshop, which runs the week prior to the conference, at the URL http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97. Financial Cryptography '97 is held in cooperation with the International Association for Cryptologic Research. It is sponsored by: The Journal for Internet Banking and Commerce <http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/JIBC/> Offshore Information Services <http://www.offshore.com.ai/> e$ <http://www.shipwright.com/rah/> C2NET <http://www.c2.net/> See Your Name Here <mailto: rackliffe(a)tcm.org>

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My apologies...
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm very sorry. I just committed a major breach of nettiquette. I just accidentally sent out the last FC97 Revised Program to this monsterous cc list, instead of using the bcc: field. Again, please my most sincere apologies. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity." -- Jerry Pournelle The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/ FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://www.ai/fc97/

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NOW_ire
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

2-5-97: "FCC Bandwidth Forum Panelist Says Wireless Is Potential 'Wild Card' in Planning for Future Broadband Access" Suggests that wireless is the better than wire, cable, or satellite for future communications by bypassing their technological and environmental limitations. "GTE Wireless Launches Long-Anticipated CS-CDPD Service; Other Cellular Carriers Continue to Reject Hybrid Approach" A variation from CDMA and TDMA. ----- NOW_ire And the FCC Broadband Forum report cited in the first article at: http://jya.com/fcc970123.htm (322K)

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True story, Fly the Obsfucted Skies (fwd)
by Ray Arachelian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 00:18:18 -0500 From: Salvatore Denaro <sal(a)panix.com> To: 'Ray Arachelian' <ray(a)earthweb.com> Subject: True story, Fly the Obsfucted Skies I was at the airport, checking in at the gate. An airport employee asked me (and I quote) "Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?" I thought about it. I scratched my goatee. I said: "If it was without *my* knowledge... how would *I* know about it?" He smiled. He nodded his head, knowingly. He then gave me this cryptic reply, "That's why we ask." -- Salvatore Denaro "The only difference between me and a madman sal(a)panix.com is that I am not mad." -- Salvador Dali

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Re: Moderation, Tim, Sandy, me, etc. * Strong crypto == DES?!
by Firebeard 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'd just appreciate it if someone would explain to me just why I'm being completely censored from the cypherpunks list. I accept that I have no right to be carried by toad.com, but I'd appreciate the courtesy of at least a response to my request for an explanation. Absolutely none of my recent postings are even going to cypherpunks-unedited, I've received no response to my mail to gnu(a)toad.com asking why, and I've received absolutely no bounces indicating that there are delivery problems. Given that my subscribe requests for cypherpunks-unedited and cypherpunks-flames succeeded, I think I can discount delivery problems, so I have to wonder - how many other people are being completely blocked from any of the cypherpunks lists hosted on toad.com? -- #include <disclaimer.h> /* Sten Drescher */ ObCDABait: For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. [Eze 23:20] ObFelony: President Clinton, you suck, and those boys died! Unsolicited bulk email will be stored and handled for a US$500/KB fee.

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Re: mail-to-news fun
by Scott V. McGuire 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 5 Feb 1997 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com wrote: ...snip... > If I were going to restart a remailer, and to offer news posting, > I'd probably limit it to posting to moderated newsgroups only, > so a human can trash things that look like SPAM or abuse; > the abuse that caused me to kill my remailer wasn't something > a simple filter would catch. (I'd also prefix each posting with a > header about this message having been received from an anonymous source, > not verified, not guaranteed to be worth the electrons it's printed on, > probably not written by anybody whose name's at the bottom, etc.... > People don't read mail headers or disclaimers at the bottom, > and putting disclaimers like that into message text for > email exposes the message to traffic analysis.) How does putting it in the message expose it to traffic analysis but not putting it in a header? > ...snip... > > # 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.) > -------------------- Scott V. McGuire <svmcguir(a)syr.edu> PGP key available at http://web.syr.edu/~svmcguir Key fingerprint = 86 B1 10 3F 4E 48 75 0E 96 9B 1E 52 8B B1 26 05

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Re: "alt.cypherpunks" people?
by John Pearson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back: > > What do people think of starting an alt.cypherpunks USENET newsgroup? > > It has some advantages: > > [...] > > And some disadvantages... > > 1. Cross-posting in USENET is a problem, especially in alt newsgroups > > 2. Commercial spam is a problem with newsgroups > You may want to check out alt.sysadmin.recovery; they use the moderation mechanism to produce a group that is unmoderated, but spam-resistant. It would be impolite to describe the technique, but it should be apparent if you browse a few articles. Another way to avoid crossposts is to have a robomoderated group, where a bot automatically rejects articles which are crossposted, and approves all others. > 3. USENET distribution is likely less efficient of overall bandwidth > > 4. News propogation times are often poor (Exeter univ. receives news > about a week late) This is a real killer in my view. I have > another news server I can access at the moment, but not everyone > may have access to a reasonable news server. > > 5. News access is more complex for some people. Some alt newsgroups > are not carried by some servers. Perhaps news-to-mail and > mail-to-news gateway would solve these problems. > > 6. Some have argued in the past on this topic that the mailing list > medium is better because it is more exclusive, as it requires more > technical competence, and an active enough interest to subscribe. > This is an elitist argument. Perhaps it is relevant though, if we > are trying to maintain a mailing list where technical discussions on > how to improve privacy are to take place. I wouldn't call this > attitude censorship though. > 7. Usenet traffic, at least in remote regions (looks around), is often assigned less bandwidth/lower priority than mail, so a reader may not see all of the messages (AFAICT, I normally see about half or less of what actually gets posted to the groups I read), even if the group is "well propagated". >[...] John P. john(a)huiac.apana.org.au

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Cypherpunks spread chain letters
by Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Now the punks are sending me "good luck" letters... What a bunch of losers. No wonder they bend over for Gilmore. > St. Jude > > Kiss someone you love when you get this letter and make magic. This > paper was sent to you for good luck. The original copy is in New England. I > has been around the world nine times. The Luck has been sent to you. You > will receive good luck in four days. This is no joke. You will receive it i > the mail. send copies to people that you think need good luck. Don't send > money as fate has no price. Do not keep this letter. It must leave your > hands in 96 hours. An Air Force officer received $70,000 in four days. Joe > Elliot received $40,000 and lost it because he broke the chain. While in the > Philippines, Gene Wolf lost his wife six days after receiving this letter. H > failed to circulate the letter. However, before he death, she won $50,000 in > a lottery. The money was transferred to him four days after he decided to > mail this letter. Please make twenty copies of this letter and see what > happens in four days. The chain comes from South Venezuela and was written b > Saint Anthony Decroc, a missionary from South America. Since the copy must > make a tour of the world, you must make twenty copies and send them to your > friends and associates. After a few days you will get a surprise. This is > true even though you are not superstitious. So note the following: > Constantine Dens received the chain in 1958. He asked his secretary to make > twenty copies and send them out. A few days later he won the lottery of 2 > million dollars. Andy Doddit, and office employee, received a letter and > forgot it had to leave his hands within 96 hours, he lost his job. Later, > after finding the letter again, he mailed out twenty copies. A few days late > he got a better job. > Please send no money. Please don't ignore this. IT DOES WORK. > > > > St. Jude > > Kiss someone you love when you get this letter and make magic. This > paper was sent to you for good luck. The original copy is in New England. I > has been around the world nine times. The Luck has been sent to you. You > will receive good luck in four days. This is no joke. You will receive it i > the mail. send copies to people that you think need good luck. Don't send > money as fate has no price. Do not keep this letter. It must leave your > hands in 96 hours. An Air Force officer received $70,000 in four days. Joe > Elliot received $40,000 and lost it because he broke the chain. While in the > Philippines, Gene Wolf lost his wife six days after receiving this letter. H > failed to circulate the letter. However, before he death, she won $50,000 in > a lottery. The money was transferred to him four days after he decided to > mail this letter. Please make twenty copies of this letter and see what > happens in four days. The chain comes from South Venezuela and was written b > Saint Anthony Decroc, a missionary from South America. Since the copy must > make a tour of the world, you must make twenty copies and send them to your > friends and associates. After a few days you will get a surprise. This is > true even though you are not superstitious. So note the following: > Constantine Dens received the chain in 1958. He asked his secretary to make > twenty copies and send them out. A few days later he won the lottery of 2 > million dollars. Andy Doddit, and office employee, received a letter and > forgot it had to leave his hands within 96 hours, he lost his job. Later, > after finding the letter again, he mailed out twenty copies. A few days late > he got a better job. > Please send no money. Please don't ignore this. IT DOES WORK. > > > > --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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