December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Another Article on Jim Bell from the Oregano
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rich Graves wrote: > On Sat, 5 Apr 1997, Alan Olsen wrote: > >>On Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency agents were at Bell's home with > >>a hazardous waste removal contractor analyzing chemicals found by the IRS > >>raiders. One of the chemicals reportedly was cyanide. Since the article doesn't mention the quantity, or other details, one has to wonder if it was a type of rodent or roach poison that many people commonly keep around the house. Did Ma and Pa Bell purchase a little something to take care of a mouse problem? Does this make them co-conspirators? Did the local hardware man suggest the product? Is he part of the plot against the government? I am reminded of the Campaign Against Marijuana Production in Northern California, where TV's and chainsaws were regularly seized as "articles used in marijuana production." At least in Northern California the small town newpapers were honest enough to poke fun at the federal bullshit rather than using it as an opportunity to overblow every minor aspect of the situation. > >They seemed to be unable to nail Jim on free speech issues, so they nailed > >him on "other things". > > No, they never tried to nail him on free speech issues. Read the Friendly > Affidavits at http://www.parrhesia.com/jimbell/ > > The government wasn't even aware of the AP essays until seven months after > they began legal proceedings on "other things." You have it backwards. The > government is using his speech in an attempt to nail him for tax evasion > and conspiracy. It's hard to get an all-encompassing search & seizure > warrant merely to fish for evidence of tax evasion and conspiracy to > harass IRS agents, but throw in an alleged Internet-based murder racket > and the judge will happily bend over and allow you to seize everything of > value. There was so much bullshit in the application for the search warrant that it had to be done by a real fisherman, practiced in the art of enlargening the size of the one that got away, in an attempt to justify asking the judge to let him use a net, instead of trolling. -- Toto "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html

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Re: Another Article on Jim Bell from the Oregano
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rich Graves wrote: > > On Mon, 7 Apr 1997, Timothy C. May wrote: > > > At 11:45 PM -0700 4/6/97, Rich Graves wrote: > > > > >I think there is a censorship issue in the way the government is using the > > >issue. I think AP is protected speech, just as the Unabomber Manifesto is. > > >I don't want to see such speech chilled. But I think you've got the > > >instrumentality wrong. > > > > I don't see any evidence either Bell's AP or Kacynski's Unabomber > > manifestos are being chilled. Tim's eyesight is getting worse in his old age. > There's plenty of evidence right here in this thread. See especially the > "Feds Reading This List" branch and Lucky's "First they came for..." > comments. Just because you don't feel chilled doesn't mean others don't. > Whether this paranoia is justified is, of course, another issue: Paranoia is always justified. We live in a predatorial universe, where you have to eat to survive. > > I've written elsewhere why I think Bell was raided. Tim sounded like an IRS aplogetist in that post. I'm beginning to think that the same people who got the dirt on Gilmore and forced him to bend over for C2Net's censors also have some pictures of Tim tucked away somewhere. Contrary to Tim's flimsy reasoning, the IRS did not confine themselves to seeking a search warrant based on the evidence they had regarding possible SSN violations, or even a stretching of logic on that evidence. Instead, they used a blatant misinterpretation of Bell's AP system and developed a train of conspiracy which was even more theoretical than Bell's writing, with absolutely no reference to any hard evidence of Bell having engaged in any illegal speech, despite having read hundreds of Bell's posts. It seems that Tim May despises those on the cypherpunks list who develop conspiracy theories in regard to those who are attempting to censor and ridicule list members, but has no shortage of support for large, powerful government organizations who wish to develop conspiracy theories, using obvious misrepresentations of a persons ideas to subject them to search and seizure on a fishing expedition. > what Inspector Gordon says about AP being in and > of itself evidence of an anti-government conspiracy really bothers me. > That's the kind of thing that does create a chilling effect. Exactly as it is meant to do. At least Rich Graves, snow, and others still have the ability to recognize suppression of speech when they see it. For all of Tim's blustering about Bell's other sins being the source of his problems, Tim could easily find himself in the same position as Jim, if a large government agency should ever decide to use Tim's words to add to his woes in a civil or criminal case. How many on the cypherpunks list are co-conspirators with Jim Bell in his evil plan to murder government officials? Those who replied to his posts? All who received them? I would like to see one of the legal eagles on the list write up an application for a search warrant on the cypherpunks list servers and various individuals (written from the perspective of a government agent/prosecutor), using the same stretch of logic used in Bell's case. TruthMonger

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Re: AP Revisited
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin wrote: > > If we had anonymous betting pools which ABSOLUTELY shielded the > > identity of the people transferring money to and from them, > > There are many other weak points in the security of a system besides > the cryptographic techniques. The major problem with the scheme is that rat-choice is a theoretical abstraction and not graven on tablets of stone by the supreme being. Its a bit like Marxism, discover one small aspect of the way that economies work then assert that it is the _only_ effect. Unfortunately for Bell he underestimated the scope for state intervention. He's lucky he lives in the US, in France he would have been silenced long ago. > Suppose there was an international treaty banning such betting > pools, with penalty of death for running one? I think its more likely that the states involved would start using covert operations using their own personel rather than contracting out the job. Recently a bunch of UK entepreneurs with significant political backing (brown envelopes?) attempted to start a private lottery. They managed to continue for a few months until the government was forced to close them down. But for their ex-cabinet minister on the board the directors would probably have gone to jail. > Anonymous betting pools are an extremely contrived way of funding any > positive social good. Indeed they were merely one in a long line of schemes each of which had three things in common, cryptography, anti-government sentiments and murdering people. I think that people are giving Jim too much credit. I seem to recall that Tim May or Perry Metzeger took Bell's original scheme apart, made it into something like a coherent argument and then dissmissed the strengthened scheme. The problem with AP is that to make it work you have to assume that the public at large accept some particular normative ethical standard. If this were true you wouldn't need AP. > The political implications are far from obvious. Don't forget that > Hitler didn't kill 6 million jews by himself. Civil forfeiture laws > have supporters. Clinton did win an election. I seem to recall that the War on Drugs was a Bush proposal originally. Dole supported it and as with the CDA I would not expect a single member of congress to stand up against charges of "drug dealers friend". I think its quite wrong to see Clinton as someone who believes in the authoritarian position, the real problem is he cuts his cloth according to the popular whim. In fact Clinton demonstrates precisely the type of outcome AP would produce but without the murders. Basically AP is mob law or lynch law at best. > This is purely wishful thinking on your part. People from all sides > of issues could end up contributing money to all kinds of bets. Hitlers supporters would probably have set up a bounty for killing Jews, Communists and homosexuals. The British Government spent considerable amounts of effort attempting to assasinate Hitler. It proved impossible. The CIA offers considerable rewards for "information" on certain individuals but the takeup rate is much lower than rat-choice would indicate. If anyone wants to make a quick couple of million I can give them the names of a number of people the CIA would like to see "out of the game". If the sum on offer is insufficient a higher one can almost certainly be agreed. I doubt that there will be many takers however. > > Nuclear weapons would go away, the hole in the ozone > > layer would close up, and whales would be safe and happy again. > > All hogwash, of course. If these problems could be solved through > the application of volunteer money they would have been solved long > ago. I think the author might have been being sarcastic. > *No* government will support them. Since AP only works if > you have a sizable fraction of the population participating, some > participants will get caught. If the penalties are stiff there will > be very little incentive to play -- should I risk 10 years in jail so > I can donate $10 to get some dictator killed? Not likely. Interestingly enough the politics of Iran demonstrate why no government could afford to allow an AP type scheme to be enacted. The Iranian government is actually a composite of several power centers. As well as the government proper there are a number of "independent" theocratic organisations that are built on the former state industrial combines. The various groups that formed an alliance to topple the Shah each got a payoff in the form of "guardianship" of one or more of the combines. These combines have the resources to create what is effectively a state within a state. The government would like to move towards a more accomadating situation with the West but it cannot because of the threat from the private states within the state. The infamous fatwah against Salman Rushdie was issued by one of the combines. Similarly the Lebanese crisis involved multiple often opposed "Iranian" supported groups funded by different state factions. Eliminating the leadership of the combines is futile. Death is not a usefull deterent against suicide bombers. Assasination would at best spark off a civil war. Attempting to apply a US constitutional analysis based on the cult of the individual to other cultures is futile. > Of course, it is much easier to aviod getting caught, and the > probability of success is much greater, if the victim is a relative > unknown. So the prize hits would actually be small ones -- someone > might offer $10000 to kill you or me, for example, or a local > political rival, and that would be a good deal for a professional > assassin -- no bodyguards, police protection, or other safeguards to > worry about; and the pursuit will be a small effort. $10,000 is about the market rate for a hit man at present. In places like Columbia the price is considerably lower - $1000 perhaps. Phill

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Cuba and AP
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If people want to see the effect of an AP society have a look at Cuba. Under the Batista regime $50 was sufficient to have someone killed. There was anarchy, the police were corrupt, the mafia ran most of the few parts of the country that worked - even they found the lack of order a problem. The result was Fidel Castro. The Batista regime could neither reform nor survive. Any society that was threatened by AP would likewise collapse. It is important to distinguish liberty and libertines. The libertine recognises no check on individual rights, even when they affect the rights of others. The inevitable result of libertinage is authoritarianism. Phill

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Bell case and the liability of information...
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: pswire(a)pop.service.ohio-state.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Mon, 7 Apr 1997 09:54:35 -0400 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: Peter Swire <swire.1(a)OSU.EDU> Subject: Re: America Online and liability for dissemination of informatio To: CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM At 09:23 PM 4/6/97 -0700, Bob Stock wrote: >Someone said: >>>Look at it this way: what if this anonymous one had gone to his >>>local library, went through the newspapers and collected >>>classified ad forms. Then sent them all in, publishing >>>classifieds which said the same thing in 20 newspapers across the >>>country. > >>the newspapers which published those ads would have >>potential liability if they were negligent in their fact checking >>before publishing them. > >Newspapers are legally required to check the facts of classified ads >before publishing them in order to escape any potential libel >liability? You can't be serious. Sorry. Check out the cases that Soldier of Fortune magazine lost for failing to check its classified ads. The cases involved "gun for hire" classifieds, someone got shot, and the estate was permitted to sue the magazine. The tort analysis used a Hand test, in which the cost of screening the classified (on its face an invitation to commit a deadly crime) was found to be less than the cost to society of allowing the magazine to run such ads. The facts of SOF are very special, but they show at least one scenario where courts have found liability for running a classified ad. Regards, Peter Prof. Peter Swire Ohio State University College of Law e-mail: swire.1(a)osu.edu web: http://www.osu.edu/units/law/swire.htm (in early stages of construction) --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA Lesley Stahl: "You mean *anyone* can set up a web site and compete with the New York Times?" Andrew Kantor: "Yes." Stahl: "Isn't that dangerous?" The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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(Fwd) Re: AP Revisited
by Charles Anthony 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Mon, 07 Apr 1997 11:48:48 -0400 From: Hallam-Baker <hallam(a)ai.mit.edu> To: Kent Crispin <kent(a)songbird.com>, cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: AP Revisited I think its quite wrong to see Clinton as someone who believes in the authoritarian position, the real problem is he cuts his cloth according to the popular whim. Think again. Clinton and his administration are rabid when it comes to cryopto policy and the expansion of the FBI and others ability to pry into the lives of innocent citizens.. The draft of the crypto legislation is a good example of how, when given an opportunity to act out of the general public's sight and grasp, he's in there seeking even more ridiculously easy ways to get into everybodies business. I mean the current draft requires only a govt request in order to obtain access to your email. NOT a court ordered/appproved warrant- They may as well ask to be allowed to open and read every letter and pkg at the post office too.(and if this draft becomes law they probably will) All of these 'new' and neccessary' intrusions are Clinton proposals, not hold overs from some other admininstration. If he were opposed in principle he could certainly 'cut his cloth' along less authoratarian lines, following the lead of many of the administrations own committee reports that have come out against key escrow plans, but he will not budge on the issue. In fact, each time it is put back out there it gets worse. Clinton's ability to coopt left energy and appear to be less than he is is- earning appologistic comments like the one above- is what is really frightening. When it comes to US citizens civil liberties, Clinton is more dangerous than Reagan and Bush put together and I wouldn't call either of them friends of the people. Since it has been thrown around so much, remember that Hitler was a most powerful speaker, who connected well with the masses, couching nazi policy in the terms that gave the people what they wanted to hear. They too thought he was a most sincere and earnest fellow, with only the good of the country at heart. A 'Nixon' would never get away with this sort of proposal- but a telegenic, non-enhaling, sax playing, mcdonalds eating, aw shucks, (they lay it on thick you think?) well meaning bubba? --C ********************************************************************** Charles Anthony canthony(a)info-nation.com http://www.info-nation.com -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.3a mQBtAzM63W8AAAEDAMRi15+AIXC0j2R7IrdeNhM7AQXPGAYAd2mCNhKrQa09fICZ 4jEpTd0biV+3nMAL6/6pWUm1AmFPS/FngecmXkrmMPlbgv3O0dapbJ2/FQf3XUtH Z5AEOdKL9xK5Ml7dCQAFE7QIY2FudGhvbnmJAHUDBRAzOt1wi/cSuTJe3QkBAemw AwC1DGxodXVPkA1D6uLdqFvP5H3/98i/gM2x9IvvfZscWszwrJuOhkYyd71TF7K5 gy55OqPp+Rf77On0XhmHoi98Y4HOSTHYPhN9o9zQQ+pn/4HmxQ4Tbtih2sCDNvmG b2g= =0pHR -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Re: AP Revisited
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:48 AM 4/7/97 -0400, Hallam-Baker wrote: >I seem to recall that the War on Drugs was a Bush proposal originally. >Dole supported it and as with the CDA I would not expect a single >member of congress to stand up against charges of "drug dealers friend". The War on Drugs was first declared by President Nixon. It has been a failure ever since. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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Re: Helping Prof. Jim Bell
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Secret Squirrel wrote: > > If the FBI story is not yet another hoax, I think that it is > a good diea to call jimbell and maybe donate him some $$ for > lawyers or something like that. I'm not sure sending him money for lawyers would be most helpful. I was thinking another type of profession entirely. Until Jim actually gets charged for something I don't see that freedom of speech is the issue. Jim appears to be in trouble for reasons not associated with his AP rants. The AP manifesto has made it worse and attracted the opinion of the press but it does not appear to have caused his trouble, merely affected the way he was dealt with. AP probably caused there to be 20 heavilly armed cops rather than two unarmed ones. It probably meant that casual comments were taken rather more seriously than otherwise. Bell was always much more wacko off list than on. Phill

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No Subject
by Mix 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Embedded in Tim C[rook] May's babblings are preposterous lies, wild distortions, child pornography (both as graphic descriptions and in JPEG format), ethnic slurs, and racial epithets. \\\\\|///// \\\\|//// < * | * > | * | \( . )/ \___/

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Re: Cuba and AP
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hallam-Baker, counting on cypherpunks readers to be unwitting victims of ten second sound-byte mentality, wrote: > > If people want to see the effect of an AP society have a look at Cuba. > Under the Batista regime $50 was sufficient to have someone killed. > There was anarchy, the police were corrupt, the mafia ran most of the > few parts of the country that worked - even they found the lack of order > a problem. > > The result was Fidel Castro. The Batista regime could neither reform nor > survive. Any society that was threatened by AP would likewise collapse. So Hallam-Baker recognizes the AP system as a valid way to bring about the collapse of unpopular, corrupt dictatorships. > It is important to distinguish liberty and libertines. The libertine > recognises no check on individual rights, even when they affect the > rights of others. The inevitable result of libertinage is > authoritarianism. The result of men living together on the face of the earth leads to the inevitable result of authoritarianism. Systems such as "Assassination Politics" can aide in fighting against unbearable corruption of power by lowering the cost of assassination and thus raising the cost of corruption. The stench in Cuba was so bad under the U.S. backed Batista regime that Guerva and Castro were a breath of fresh air for the majority of Cuban people. Despite years of harassment, invasion, and economic attack on Cuba by the shameless 'free' countries <yuk,yuk> of the world, Castro is still a better option for the Cuban people than other options. When this ceases to be the case, then another variation of the Cuban AP system will arise (perhaps Bell's?), and we will see the rise of a new Cuban government. Despite the grand support the IRS is receiving from the government- owned members of the cypherpunks list, it can hardly be argued that the U.S. government has a problem with "Assassination Politics," since they have availed themselves of it in the past, but only with the power of AP being in the hands of the citizens instead of their own ruling hands. TruthMonger (#7)

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