December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Something of interest...
by IRSNWPR＠net.insp.irs.gov 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Oregonian, Wednesday, April 2, 1997 20 armed federal agents raid home in Vancouver - The occupant is investigated for an Internet essay he allegedly wrote on killing government officials By John Painter Jr. of The Oregonian staff VANCOUVER, Wash. - About 20 armed agents from at least three federal agencies in four states raided a Vancouver home Tuesday, apparently looking for evidence of a plot to kill government officials. Sources said James D. Bell, who reportedly lives with his elderly parents at the home at 7214 Corregidor Road, was the subject of an investigation involving an essay he allegedly wrote and circulated on the Internet. The essay promotes a way to win money by correctly predicting the time of death of selected government agents. The essay - "Assassination Politics" - has been the subject of both serious discussion and pointed derision in Internet forums. One critic described it as "nothing more than a plan to commit murder for political purposes." Agents, guns drawn, boiled from a dozen-vehicle caravan before it stopped rolling just after 9 a.m. and entered the McLoughlin Heights neighborhood home to search it. The FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms raiders were accompanied by members of the Portland Police Bureau's bomb squad. Bell, described in a federal document as armed and dangerous, was seen chatting with agents outside the house after agents entered the home. The raid reportedly was planned by the IRS Inspection office in Walnut Creek, Calif., which does criminal investigations for the agency. Most of the agents at the scene drove cars bearing Oregon plates. Others had plates from Washington, California and Nevada. The Internet essay speculates on a complicated procedure to kill government agents who violate the "Non-Aggression Principle," which was not explained. The essay suggests creation of an organization that would manage a list of people who "had seriously violated the NAP, but who would not see justice in our courts due to the fact that their actions were done at the behest of the government." The essay mentions the federal agents involved in the Waco and Ruby Ridge actions as examples. Each name would have a dollar figure attached to it. That amount- received as contributions-would be awarded "for correctly `predicting' the person's death, presumably naming the exact date," the essay says. "Predictions" would go into a computer file, it says, then be encrypted. The death-date prediction then would be delivered to the organization by an untraceable method, such as putting it on a floppy computer disk in code and mailing it. In effect, the source said, when the pool got big enough someone would kill the targeted person and collect the pool money by telling beforehand when the target would die. Agents at the scene refused to comment on the probable cause for the search warrant, as did the IRS office in California and the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle. However, a source familiar with the investigation suggested that IRS agents believed they are among the potential targets. In March 1989, the house was raided as a suspected methamphetamine lab, but drug agents found only a chemical used in making the drug. James Bell was charged with manufacturing illicit drugs and possessing phenyl acetic acid with intent to manufacture methamphetamine. The felonies were later dismissed, and Bell was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a $2,500 fine.

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Something of interest...
by IRS Inspection 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Oregonian, Wednesday, April 2, 1997 20 armed federal agents raid home in Vancouver - The occupant is investigated for an Internet essay he allegedly wrote on killing government officials By John Painter Jr. of The Oregonian staff VANCOUVER, Wash. - About 20 armed agents from at least three federal agencies in four states raided a Vancouver home Tuesday, apparently looking for evidence of a plot to kill government officials. Sources said James D. Bell, who reportedly lives with his elderly parents at the home at 7214 Corregidor Road, was the subject of an investigation involving an essay he allegedly wrote and circulated on the Internet. The essay promotes a way to win money by correctly predicting the time of death of selected government agents. The essay - "Assassination Politics" - has been the subject of both serious discussion and pointed derision in Internet forums. One critic described it as "nothing more than a plan to commit murder for political purposes." Agents, guns drawn, boiled from a dozen-vehicle caravan before it stopped rolling just after 9 a.m. and entered the McLoughlin Heights neighborhood home to search it. The FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms raiders were accompanied by members of the Portland Police Bureau's bomb squad. Bell, described in a federal document as armed and dangerous, was seen chatting with agents outside the house after agents entered the home. The raid reportedly was planned by the IRS Inspection office in Walnut Creek, Calif., which does criminal investigations for the agency. Most of the agents at the scene drove cars bearing Oregon plates. Others had plates from Washington, California and Nevada. The Internet essay speculates on a complicated procedure to kill government agents who violate the "Non-Aggression Principle," which was not explained. The essay suggests creation of an organization that would manage a list of people who "had seriously violated the NAP, but who would not see justice in our courts due to the fact that their actions were done at the behest of the government." The essay mentions the federal agents involved in the Waco and Ruby Ridge actions as examples. Each name would have a dollar figure attached to it. That amount- received as contributions-would be awarded "for correctly `predicting' the person's death, presumably naming the exact date," the essay says. "Predictions" would go into a computer file, it says, then be encrypted. The death-date prediction then would be delivered to the organization by an untraceable method, such as putting it on a floppy computer disk in code and mailing it. In effect, the source said, when the pool got big enough someone would kill the targeted person and collect the pool money by telling beforehand when the target would die. Agents at the scene refused to comment on the probable cause for the search warrant, as did the IRS office in California and the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle. However, a source familiar with the investigation suggested that IRS agents believed they are among the potential targets. In March 1989, the house was raided as a suspected methamphetamine lab, but drug agents found only a chemical used in making the drug. James Bell was charged with manufacturing illicit drugs and possessing phenyl acetic acid with intent to manufacture methamphetamine. The felonies were later dismissed, and Bell was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a $2,500 fine.

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No Subject
by Mix 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

May Tim `C' May's forgeries get stuck up his ass so he'll have to shit through his filthy mouth for the rest of its miserable life. o/ Tim `C' May <| / >

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WebWorld 24
by Bubba Rom Dos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Bell explodes Freeh theory!
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

How is Louis Freeh going to keep up the pretense that GAK will keep crypto out of the hands of drug dealers while he's prosecuting Jim Bell for crypto related crimes and Jim already has a conviction for drug manufacture? Phill

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Re: remailer spam throttle
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm a bit behind on my e-mail again... paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk writes: > > > > Well, they can compile the list of addresses off of USENET postings and > > > > such and then compute the hashes of the compiled names and identify > > > > those that are on the anon acceptance list. Not that it completely > > > > invalidates the idea, but certainly it is a problem. > > > > If a time delay isn`t a problem a remailer could operate on the list > > with a MAC, if someone wants to find out if a name is on the list > > they submit a request to the remailer operator who daily executes a > > batch job using a (memorised) key to verify the hashes against one > > another. > > Another idea I just had. > > Alice`s remailer recieves a message for Bob. > > The remailer blinds the message with the prime p, sends bob the > blinded message, a product pq and a random number, x, all the remailer > keeps is q and x. Bob, to retrieve the message as cleartext sends the > remailer x and a request in return the remailer sends bob q, bob > divides pq by q to get p and unblinds the message... Any comments? This is cute, but if Bob has enough clue to do this, then Bob can probably handle anonymous e-mail whose content he doesn't like... --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: Spam a *GOOD* thing for remailers?
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"William H. Geiger III" <whgiii(a)amaranth.com> writes: > I know there has been much talk on how to limit the use of remailers by > spamers. I wonder if this is the correct approach to take on this. > > Spam could provide the perfect "cover" for anonymous messages. If you have > a SPAM mailer pumping out 500,000 messages a day one could hide 10-20,000 > anonymous messages without anyone ever noticing. > > I just don't see how SPAM is ever going to be stoped, too much $$$ > involved. I do think that we can take advantage of the SPAM. Using $$$ from > the spamers we could set up a world wide remailer network. In addition to > this the volume of spam going through these remailers would provide the > perfect cover for anonymous messages. I think if properly set-up it would > make traffic analysis next to impossible. > > Also by working with the spamers we could modify some of their behaviors. > An example would be on certian remailers would allow spam. Other remailers > would be "off-limits" to the spamers though we would syphon off a % of the > traffic from the spam remailer and run them through the non-spam remailers > to be used as cover for the non-spam messages. We would also put non-spam > messages through the spam remailers. > > With this approach I can see us having 1,000's of remailers rather than the > 10 or 20 that are currently running now. I defend the spammer's freedom to spam because spam is speech. Technology solutions to make is easier for the weak-minded to ignore spam and not to be bothered by it would be cool. Hopefully when I finish the spambot, it'll change the face of Usenet forever. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: hi-tech ROT-13
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Stewart <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com> writes: > At 05:37 PM 4/1/97 -0500, Andy Dustman wrote: > >consider this a compromise between normal blocking (deliver unless told > >otherwise) and middleman (get someone else to deliver it), which I would > >sum up as: Ask permission before delivering the first time, and once > >granted, deliver until told otherwise. > > An alternative approach is > - ask before delivering _every_ time, unless > - accept deliver-without-asking-again responses to cookies. > This leaves the recipient the middle ground of > granting permission for one message without granting it for all future > messages, which is probably good for people unfamiliar with remailers. > (Also, the permission-once == permission-always model doesn't stop > spamming - a spammer can send a whole bunch of messages to the recipient, > and if the recipient's response to the first "You have anon-mail" cookie is > "That's interesting, let's see what it is", they get all the spam.) I got a 60MB mailbomb the other day which didn't bother me a least bit. That wasn't done via the remailers; it came via worldnet.att.net's open smtp server. The initial form letter asking for permission should warn about the possibility of their getting a large amount of crap. However it's just as easy to get a throwaway account and mailbomb someone via that. I say: discard (don't keep) e-mail for folks who haven't explicitly unblocked themselves; treat "unblock" as "unblock everything and face the consequences". Letting the user impose some sort of constraint on the size of the e-mail being remailed is actually a dumb idea: * any half-decent mail handler should do it on the user's side * they can be mailbomed by a 1000 little messages --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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PGP-Domo...
by harka＠nycmetro.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On another mailing-list, there has been a lengthy discussion going on about encrypting the list-traffic or not. Although I personally agree, that encrypting a public mailing list is kind of useless I would like to know from a technical perspective if PGPdomo supports _both_ PGP and plain-text simultaneously on the same mailing list (if no public key available, send plain-text, otherwise encrypt). Also, considering the time it takes to encrypt/sign a message for each individual user (assuming they use pgp), isn't that too much overhead for the list-server, when we deal with a few hundred people and maybe traffic like on cypherpunks? Any experiences from PGP-Domo users/admins would be greatly appreciated. Ciao Harka /*************************************************************/ /* This user supports FREE SPEECH ONLINE ...more info at */ /* and PRIVATE ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS! -> http://www.epic.org */ /* E-mail: harka(at)nycmetro.com (PGP-encrypted mail pref'd) */ /* PGP public key available upon request. [KeyID: 04174301] */ /* F-print: FD E4 F8 6D C1 6A 44 F5 28 9C 40 6E B8 94 78 E8 */ /*<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>*/ /* May there be peace in this world, may all anger dissolve */ /* and may all living beings find the way to happiness... */ /*************************************************************/ ... Microsoft - "Where do you want to crash today?" ___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30 [NR] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAgUBM0NCbTltEBIEF0MBAQFasAf+ODKv3pX/bCZy66coA9SCGaB2BUgWEPfv n42WokKZY9HY/WrRLJ4vTtbiJs+p7i9vJA37VUy7I/vAZJ5fFQOHYCWS9g8Mpxtn kOmDoIj7grfNXDEgYa91+Shv5xEJXo62bGnW+YlX7TNeb3buQj2H91ova4Jk3oci sBKFSRLf5EDtOjBOBXcxy1V232k2wLoefSvVORWmjHtEyzCdstenCv4jjEf5LF+E uIzBr7+MmzJPK49lM17izHTpBv/LALBvyD2lq1IfJl0psnfbFtL2SMJeOAVdkQe/ Hqn8qeNHpLwuvPTO/QZP85aMRnHCNVVJaeHJpLJnX3pMVrLjCOGC3g== =7xD4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- If encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption...

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Hettinga rants Nationally at 8PM on the Talk America Radio Network
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kevin Miller, the same talk show host from Cleveland that I talked to yesterday afternoon, is going to have me reprise yesterday's Cleveland rant about e$, geodesic markets/societies, strong crypto, etc., on his First Opinion radio show, at 8PM EST tonight, on the Talk America Radio Network. Talk America's site is http://www.talkamerica.com, and it has an affiliate station list (they're pretty much everywhere, but you have to look for them) and program schedules for their two networks. I seem to be on Talk America Network 1, which puts me in the company of such august luminaries as Col. Bo Gritz. :-). I can see Vinnie grinning now, in his official capacity as my Samoan Attorney. :-). Talk America also seems to have an internet audio feed, but it uses a non-RealAudio package called Xing. YMMV. Finally, the call-in line during the show is 1-800-298-8255. I encourage cypherpunks to call in, identify themselves as such, and straighten folks out about the latest Clintonista crypto KRA outrage. Though, yesterday, I core-dumped so much stuff that we got a total of 2 calls in edgewise. :-). It was ever thus, it seems... This one hour show makes me 45 minutes overdrawn on my Warholian 15 minute fame allocation. Hope I can make the best of it. Also, it may get worse. I committed on the air yesterday to come back once a month or so, at least to Cleveland, and maybe nationally. The ganglia twitch. As they say, stay tuned... Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 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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