December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: spam on this list
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On or About 23 Jun 97 at 11:26, Jason William RENNIE wrote: > NO i dont wish to post any, i just want to know if this list has > spam sent to it ?? I started reciveing various pieces in the last > couple of days and i'm trying to identify the source. Spam *is* free speech, you know. <g> Ross =-=-=-=-=-=- Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: (408) 259-2795

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Comparing Cryptographic Key Sizes II
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I got quite a few useful comments on the key comparison summary I posted earlier. Even some people said they found it useful. Mark Grant improved the readability, plus other suggestions. Peter Trei urged me to actually re-read the Wiener paper to quote the figures correctly rather than from memory. Also Peter raised issues to do with how to compare hardness to break DES against 512 bit RSA. There is now an aside more technical note explaining the issues. I think I stand by my original comparison of "roughly equal", because depending on how you view it, it'll come out 10x cheaper, or 10x harder. (Memory being one hurdle each participating workstation needing of the order of 128 Mb; the other hurdle being the existance of a machine large enough to reduce the matrix which results from all the relations). I don't think we can explain it any more technically and expect it to be useful to a journalist. We need a gross generalisation: is it approx as hard, is it 100x harder. They don't want to hear about space complexity, the matrix reduction phase (RSA) nor known plaintext memory trade offs (DES). If we don't supply the gross generalisation, they will do it themselves to make it palatable for their readers. With less understanding of the subject, their generalisation is likely to be even wildly inaccurate than the generous error bars on ours. This is not an insult to journalists. Crypto is a technical, complicated field. I wouldn't contemplate making estimates in other peoples fields. Further discussion of course still sought (rip it apart pessimists on crypto estimates). Here's the new improved version. Adam -- Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/ 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` ====================================================================== Comparing Cryptographic Key Sizes There are two types of cryptographic keys; public keys -- sometimes called asymmetric key -- and symmetric keys. RSA and Diffie-Hellman are common public key algorithms and RC4, DES and IDEA common symmetric key algorithms. You cannot directly compare public key lengths (for example RSA keys) with symmetric key lengths (DES, RC4); this is an important point which confuses many people. For example, 40 bit RC4 (a symmetric key cipher) can be broken in a few hours with a few hundred workstations but 40 bit RSA (a public key cipher) can be broken in a fraction of a second on one PC. A 350 bit RSA key is roughly equivalent in strength to 40 bit RC4, and 512 bit RSA key is thought to cost roughly the same to break as a 56 bit DES key. (That last comparison (DES vs 512 bit RSA) glosses over many issues. Here's a summary if you're interested: no one's broken a 512 RSA bit key yet, and you need lots of memory to break RSA at that key size, a PC with 128 Mb would be required to participate. In contrast, you need hardly any memory to break DES, any PC will do. The internet based breaking of a DES key in answer to RSA DSI's challenge involved many participants, and included some participants with low end 486 PCs with 1Mb of memory. Theoretically 512 bit RSA could be broken more quickly than DES, but, as you need more memory than typical workstations have, a distributed internet attack with the same group of participants as for the DES break would clearly take longer. There are a number of other factors also.) Symmetric keys sizes are easy to understand; for any particular algorithm, adding one bit to the key length doubles the difficulty. Estimating the difficulty of breaking a public key (say RSA) is harder because the increase in strength is not straightforward, but typically adding ten bits to the size of an RSA key doubles the strength. This is why public key systems require longer keys to provide the same security. Most systems use a mixture of public and symmetric key ciphers, because public key ciphers are _slow_ but dramatically simplify key management. Symmetric key ciphers are fast, so they are used in conjunction with public key systems to speed up the combined system. Such a system using two ciphers -- one public key and one symmetric key -- is only as strong as the weakest link. For example, consider the export version of SSL, as shipped in the export version of Netscape browsers and servers; it uses 512 bit RSA, and 40 bit RC4. Cracking 40 bit RC4 is easier than cracking 512 bit RSA, so export SSL can be broken by breaking the 40 bit RC4 component. Ian Goldberg recently broke a 40 bit RC5 key himself with Berkeley univ machines in 3.5 hours. 40 bit RC4 could be broken in a similar time. 512 bits RSA is not enough either, and you can rest assured that the NSA, other governments' secret services, and any corporation or organised crime group with sufficient funds can break it. 512 bits is likely within reach of a distributed internet effort, or soon will be. There is a further problem. Each session uses a different, randomly chosen, RC4 key, so breaking one RC4 key only allows you to read a single message. However, every message is encrypted with the _same_ 512 bit RSA key, so if you can break that key you can immediately read any message sent to or from the server. As a consequence, the public key size should be chosen to be much harder to break than the symmetric key. In this case although the key is thousands of times harder to break it would be worth attacking if the server is processing thousands or millions of transactions. 56 bit DES is harder to break than 40 bit RC4 (SSL); you would expect that the extra sixteen bits would increase the difficulty 65536 times, but DES is faster than RC4. In software it's about 5 times faster, so breaking DES in software is about 10000 times harder than breaking 40 bit RC4 (as used in export SSL). But if the Russian Mafia or a corporation involved in industrial espionage wanted to break 56 bit DES they would not use software but would build a special purpose piece of hardware which was designed only to break DES. DES was designed to be fast in hardware, and is a relatively slow cipher in software. In 1993 Michael Wiener designed such a DES breaking machine. His estimated cost for a machine capable of breaking 56 bit DES in a 3.5 hours hours was $1,000,000. The machine was scalable, so that by spending more or less money you could reduce or increase the time taken to break the key. He estimated that building a machine to break DES in 21 minutes would cost $10,000,000. That was 10 years ago; 10 years is a long time in the computer industry. Today the machine would be much cheaper because chip technology has progressed and computers are much faster per $. Estimates are around $20,000 to build a machine to break a DES key within a day (neglecting hardware engineers consultancy fees). When you consider the sorts of uses DES is being used for by banks, ATM card PINs, wire transfers, interbank exchanges, DES is clearly out-of-date. Everyone expects that NSA, GCHQ, SCSSI have built one or more machines for $20,000+; this is considered obvious because the NSA and SCSSI allow export of 56 bit DES. $20,000 is not much money for a secret service, or for many less scrupulous individuals. Algorithms using 40 bit keys are insecure against all but trivial cracking attempts. Systems using DES (such as SET) are only secure against organisations who can't raise $20,000 and can't find people who know lots about crypto and hardware design; $20,000 is not much money for the Rusian Mafia either. Even worse, once you have built such a machine the cost of cracking each key is only a few hundreds or thousands of dollars, so any DES key protecting information of greater value is a tempting target. US export controls used to restrict exports to 40 bit RC4. When the cypherpunks broke several 40 bit RC4 systems the rules were relaxed to 56 bits. Now that a distributed internet group has broken 56 bit DES, the US government's claim that 56 bit is "good enough" is being demonstrated to be patently false. The US government's other ploy has been to allow larger key lengths, but to keep a master key to all communications for themselves. When full strength encryption systems with 128 bit symmetric keys are widely available from foreign competitors, this firstly makes no sense: why can't the US software industry export when every one has strong crypto anway. And secondly the US software industry is losing billions each year in lost sales to their european competitors. 128 bit encryption is unbreakable for all practical purposes. You will recall in the discussion above that each bit of key size doubles the work required to break a symmetric cipher. A 128 bit cipher is 4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 times harder to break than DES. That is a very large number. Messages encrypted with such keys aren't likely to be breakable for 30-100 years from now. Similarly 1024, to 4096 bit public key systems are in use, and available outside the US. These systems are of roughly comparable hardness to break to 128 bit symmetric keys, the larger the key, the more secure. One final point: things are getting better for cryptography. The attackers job is getting harder. With each doubling of machine speed it is possible to use larger keys, and still encrypt and decrypt instantly when you have the key. When PGP was first released back in 1991, 1024 bit RSA keys were slow to use on the state of the art PC then, a lowly '286. Nowadays an entry level PC, a Pentium 133 whistles through 4096 bit keys. If we say that a P133 is 50x faster than a 20Mhz '286 you can see that the same person using encryption now can use key sizes which before were too slow. I can assure you that in moving from a 1024 bit key to a 4096 bit key, the attackers job is well in excess of 50x harder. Greatly in excess of a trillion trillion times harder.

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Re: How did these people find our list? (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 10:30:11 -0400 > From: Duncan Frissell <frissell(a)panix.com> > Subject: Re: How did these people find our list? (fwd) > June 21, 1942, Fort Stevens at the mouth of the Columbia in Oregon is fired > upon by the deck gun of a Japanese submarine. The first continental costal > battery to be attacked by a foreign enemy (not counting those Southerners) > since the War of 1812. The Japs fire 17 shells. No apparent damage. Fort > Stevens is unable to depress its guns sufficiently to hit the submarine. A > draw. Two Jap subs were sunk in San Francisco harbor. Unfortunately I can't find the dates, will keep looking. > Oregon also suffered the U.S. Mainland's only domestic casualties due to > enemy action when a teacher and members of her family on a hike in southern > Oregon were killed by a Japanese balloon bomb. (These bombs were attached to Actualy it was a man, his wife, and two children. The two kids were playing with it when it went off. My memory tells me that the women and two kids were killed. Don't remember if she was a teacher or not. There was an interesting video recreation on TDC last month on this incident on a special on the Japanese balloon bombs. > balloons released from Japanese submarines off the coast.) Actualy most of them were released from the Japanese mainland at specific points. If you do further research on this you will learn how they used the ballast sand in the balloons (mechanicly complicated) to track their source. All the sites were bombed and the baloons ceased. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Japan & bombing the US
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Several people have made comment on the difference between states and protectorates of one sort or another in reference to the comment I made about Oregon being the only US state to be bombed in WWII. While this is technicaly true if you go back and look at the original posting I replied too was made in the context of US involvment in the war and how isolated we were, so isolated, the claim went, that the Japanese were unable to invade or otherwise attack the US. While it is true that Oregon was the only area attacked which was a state under the context of US possessions being attacked it is false. The main point here is that the original proposal was incorrect due to more than a semantic technicality. This brings the whole issue of the US sitting out the war into question. A question I answer strongly in the negative. It is not possible that the US could have sat out the war as a neutral. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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SAFE clears House subcommittee, with amendments
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

*************** Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 21:09:41 -0400 To: fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> Subject: FC: SAFE clears House subcommittee, from LEGI-SLATE [Since I showed up late today and missed some of the early discussion, I asked my friend Amy for permission to pass along her report. She graciously agreed. --Declan] ***************** SAFE Act Nears Home in House After Subcommittee Tosses It Out Favorably By Amy Branson LEGI-SLATE News Service WASHINGTON (June 24) -- Casting the only opposing vote to H.R. 695 -- the "Security and Freedom Through Encryption Act" -- Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., knew his position was the lonely one at a subcommittee markup Tuesday. "The goal must be to balance between the competitiveness of U.S. companies and U.S. national security goals," Bereuter began. "However, this bill fails that balance because it significantly relaxes U.S. export control of encryption without requiring a key recovery policy ... to those exports." Despite Bereuter's problems with the bill, the House International Relations Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade passed H.R. 695 by a recorded vote of 14 yeas and 1 nay [Vote 1]. H.R. 695 lifts export restrictions on many kinds of strong encryption products, prohibits federal or state governments from requiring anyone to give up the key to their encrypted communications, and establishes criminal penalties for using encryption to further a criminal offense. "This is a vitally important piece of legislation if we're going to continue to promote the United States dominance of the software industry worldwide," the bill's sponsor, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said Tuesday afternoon. Goodlatte, who does not sit on the International Relations Committee, spoke on behalf of his bill at the markup session. "This legislation is also very important from the standpoint of promoting the safety and security of American citizens and others in the use of the Internet," he added. Subcommittee members also adopted by voice vote an "en bloc amendment" that made what they described as mostly "technical" changes to the bill. Subcommittee aides emphasized that the purpose of the amendment language was to close loopholes and fix unintended omissions contained in the underlying legislation. For example, the amendment expands the kinds of products that do not have to have a validated license for export or re-export to include "any consumer product commercially available in the U.S. or abroad using encryption capabilities which are inaccessible to the end user and is not designed for military or intelligence end use." The amendment also expands the term "generally available" as it is used in the bill to include hardware with encryption capabilities. As the bill now is written, only software with encryption capabilities is covered. Also, the en bloc amendment added a "Sense of Congress" section to the end of the bill. In addition to "finding" that the president "has not been able to come to agreement with other encryption producing countries on export controls on encryption," the amendment suggests the president immediately should call an international conference to reach a policy agreement with other encryption exporting countries. Administration officials disapprove of this language because they say they are "close" to reaching an encryption export policy agreement with these countries, one House aide said. But the administration has been making this claim for several years, the aide said. This legislation already has been reported favorably by the House Judiciary Committee, which did not have jurisdiction over the export language. The International Relations subcommittee, however, had jurisdiction over the most controversial parts of the bill: the export provisions. The bill still faces a markup in the full International Relations Committee where there likely will be another technical amendment, the aide said. Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Committee recently adopted a so-called "compromise" encryption bill that satisfies Clinton administration concerns about the availability of strong encryption technology overseas. But industry officials decry the legislation, sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Robert Kerrey, D-Neb. Senate legislation [S. 377] that more closely resembles Goodlatte's SAFE Act has been put on the back burner because of Clinton administration objections. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., is sponsoring that bill, which also is known as Pro-CODE, or Promotion of Commerce Online in the Digital Era Act of 1997. -30- TYPE*MARKUP BILL*HR695 DATE*6/24/97 ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is public. To join fight-censorship-announce, send "subscribe fight-censorship-announce" to majordomo(a)vorlon.mit.edu. More information is at http://www.eff.org/~declan/fc/

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Underground extract: System X
by proff＠iq.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anyone read this book? Apparently the first in-depth investigation into the international computer underground to come out of the Southern-Hemisphere - or so I'm told ;) - J.A Extracts from Underground - The true nature of System X Extracted from Chapter 10 - "Anthrax - The Outsider" Note: System X's name has been changed for legal reasons. Sometimes the time just slipped away, hacking all night. When the first hint of dawn snuck up on him, he was invariably in the middle of some exciting journey. But duty was duty, and it had to be done. So Anthrax pressed control S to freeze his screen, unfurled the prayer mat with its built-in compass, faced Mecca, knelt down and did two sets of prayers before sunrise. Ten minutes later he rolled the prayer mat up, slid back into his chair, typed control Q to release the pause on his computer and picked up where he left off. This company's computer system seemed to confirm what he had begun to suspect. System X was the first stage of a project, the rest of which was under development. He found a number of tables and reports in System X's files. The reports carried headers like 'Traffic Analysis', 'calls in' and 'calls out', 'failure rate'. It all began to make sense to Anthrax. System X called up each of the military telephone exchanges in that list. It logged in using the computer-generated name and password. Once inside, a program in System X polled the exchange for important statistics, such as the number of calls coming in and out of the base. This information was then stored on System X. Whenever someone wanted a report on something, for example, the military sites with the most incoming calls over the past 24 hours, he or she would simply ask System X to compile the information. All of this was done automatically. Anthrax had read some email suggesting that changes to an exchange, such as adding new telephone lines on the base, had been handled manually, but this job was soon to be done automatically by System X. It made sense. The maintenance time spent by humans would be cut dramatically. A machine which gathers statistics and services phone exchanges remotely doesn't sound very sexy on the face of it, until you begin to consider what you could do with something like that. You could sell it to a foreign power interested in the level of activity at a certain base at a particular time. And that is just the beginning. You could tap any unencrypted line going in or out of any of the 100 or so exchanges and listen in to sensitive military discussions. Just a few commands makes you a fly on the wall of a general's conversation to the head of a base in the Philippines. Anti-government rebels in that country might pay a pretty penny for getting intelligence on the US forces. All of those options paled next to the most striking power wielded by a hacker who had unlimited access to System X and the 100 or so telephone exchanges. He could take down that US military voice communications system almost overnight, and he could do it automatically. The potential for havoc creation was breathtaking. It would be a small matter for a skilled programmer to alter the automated program used by System X. Instead of using its dozen or more modems to dial all the exchanges overnight and poll them for statistics, System X could be instructed to call them overnight and reprogram the exchanges. --- No-one would be able to reach one another. An important part of the US military machine would be in utter disarray. Now, what if all this happened in the first few days of a war? People trying to contact each other with vital information wouldn't be able to use the telephone exchanges reprogrammed by System X. THAT was power. It wasn't like Anthrax screaming at his father until his voice turned to a whisper, all for nothing. He could make people sit up and take notice with this sort of power. Hacking a system gave him a sense of control. Getting root on a system always gave him an adrenalin rush for just that reason. It meant the system was his, he could do whatever he wanted, he could run whatever processes or programs he desired, he could remove other users he didn't want using his system. He thought, I own the system. The word 'own' anchored the phrase which circled through his thoughts again and again when he successfully hacked a system. The sense of ownership was almost passionate, rippled with streaks of obsession and jealousy. At any given moment, Anthrax had a list of systems he owned and that had captured his interest for that moment. Anthrax hated seeing a system administrator logging onto one of those systems. It was an invasion. It was as though Anthrax had just got this woman he had been after for some time alone in a room with the door closed. Then, just as he was getting to know her, this other guy had barged in, sat down on the couch and started talking to her. It was never enough to look at a system from a distance and know he could hack it if he wanted to. Anthrax had to actually hack the system. He had to own it. He needed to see what was inside the system, to know exactly what it was he owned. The worst thing admins could do was to fiddle with system security. That made Anthrax burn with anger. If Anthrax was on-line, silently observing the adminsÕ activities, he would feel a sudden urge to log them off. He wanted to punish them. Wanted them to know he was into their system. And yet, at the same time, he didnÕt want them to know. Logging them off would draw attention to himself, but the two desires pulled at him from opposite directions. What Anthrax really wanted was for the admins to know he controlled their system, but for them not to be able to do anything about it. He wanted them to be helpless. Anthrax decided to keep undercover. But he contemplated the power of having System X's list of telephone exchange dial-ups and their username - password combinations. Normally, it would take days for a single hacker with his lone modem to have much impact on the US military's communications network. Sure, he could take down a few exchanges before the military wised up and started protecting themselves. It was like hacking a military computer. You could take out a machine here, a system there. But the essence of the power of System X was being able to use its own resources to orchestrate widespread pandemonium quickly and quietly. Anthrax defines power as the potential for real world impact. At that moment of discovery and realisation, the real world impact of hacking System X looked good. The telecommunications company computer seemed like a good place to hang up a sniffer, so he plugged one into the machine and decided to return in a little while. Then he logged out and went to bed. When he revisited the sniffer a day or so later, Anthrax received a rude shock. Scrolling through the sniffer file, he did a double take on one of the entries. Someone had logged into the company's system using his special login patch password. He tried to stay calm. He thought hard. When was the last time he had logged into the system using that special password? Could his sniffer have logged himself on an earlier hacking session? It did happen occasionally. Hackers sometimes gave themselves quite a fright. In the seamless days and nights of hacking dozens of systems, it was easy to forget the last time you logged into a particular system using the special password. The more he thought, the more he was absolutely sure. He hadn't logged into the system again. Which left the obvious question. Who had? ________________________________________________________________________ [This extract may be reposted non-commercially and without charge only] Underground; Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier, by Suelette Dreyfus; published by Mandarin (Random House Australia); (P) 475 pages with bib. http://www.underground-book.com/ or http://underground.org/book

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Internet knuckle-dragging from the New York Times
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 22:03:20 -0400 From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: FC: Internet knuckle-dragging from the New York Times Wired's Todd Lappin started the flamefest last Friday. A bit uncharacteristic, perhaps, since Todd is generally mild-mannered both online and offline -- but then again, he had a good point and a juicy target. It was the New York Times, which had front-paged a scaremongering above-the-fold article by Christopher Wren: http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/062097drug.html Todd posted on fight-censorship: The article, headlined "Seductive Drug Subculture Flourishes on the Internet," notes that the Net has become "a virtual do-it-yourself guide to drug use, at a time when adolescents' experimenting is on the rise." Our intrepid reporter then goes on to assert that "partly owing to free-speech protection, the Internet lacks a quality control mechanism to separate fact from hyperbole or from outright falsehood." Indeed, it is also because of those nettlesome free-speech protections that the New York Times is able to publish such drivel -- replete with it's schoolmarm fearmongering, silly correlations, and ankle-deep analysis. Then the Boston Globe's technology reporter, Hiawatha Bray, leaped in... -Declan *********** Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 15:44:55 -0400 From: Hiawatha Bray <wathab(a)tiac.net> Awright. The lurking is over. What IS your problem? Can you point to any inaccuracies in Mr. Wren's story? If not, tough luck. I'm tired of listening to so-called "free speech advocates" going ballistic when they don't like what someone has to say. Every time a journalist writes a story about the seamier side of the Net, somebody complains that this will give outsiders the wrong idea. Nonsense. I think what really worries you is that such stories give people the RIGHT idea--that there are sex fiends, dope smokers and would-be Unabombers on-line. Well, there are. And as long as there are, journalists will write about the fact. Don't like it? Too bad. Deal with it. Hiawatha Bray 617-929-3115 voice Technology Reporter 617-929-3183 fax Boston Globe wathab(a)tiac.net P.O. Box 2378 Boston, MA, 02107 http://members.tripod.com/~krothering/index.html ********** Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 15:18:34 -0500 From: Jon Lebkowsky <jonl(a)onr.com> Subject: RE: Internet Knuckle-dragging from the NYTimes At 03:44 PM 6/20/97 -0400, Hiawatha Bray wrote: >Awright. The lurking is over. > >What IS your problem? Can you point to any inaccuracies in Mr. Wren's >story? If not, tough luck. > >I'm tired of listening to so-called "free speech advocates" going ballistic >when they don't like what someone has to say. Every time a journalist >writes a story about the seamier side of the Net, somebody complains that >this will give outsiders the wrong idea. Nonsense. I think what really >worries you is that such stories give people the RIGHT idea--that there are >sex fiends, dope smokers and would-be Unabombers on-line. Well, there >are. And as long as there are, journalists will write about the fact. > Don't like it? Too bad. Deal with it. > You missed the point. We all know that there are sex fiends, dope smokers, and would-be Unabombers in this world, on the net and elsewhere. What we're saying is that they have free speech rights, just like you. This isn't about blowing people up. This isn't about molesting children. This isn't about doing drugs. You don't *do* any of those things online. But you may talk about them. This is about SPEECH. *********** Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 13:28:27 -0800 To: Hiawatha Bray <wathab(a)tiac.net>, <Fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu> From: "--Todd Lappin-->" <telstar(a)wired.com> At 11:44 AM -0800 6/20/97, Hiawatha >What IS your problem? Can you point to any inaccuracies in Mr. Wren's >story? If not, tough luck. > >I'm tired of listening to so-called "free speech advocates" going ballistic >when they don't like what someone has to say. Every time a journalist >writes a story about the seamier side of the Net, somebody complains that >this will give outsiders the wrong idea. Nonsense. I think what really >worries you is that such stories give people the RIGHT idea--that there are >sex fiends, dope smokers and would-be Unabombers on-line. Well, there >are. And as long as there are, journalists will write about the fact. > Don't like it? Too bad. Deal with it. This is complete and utter bullshit. I didn't say Wren's article was inaccurate... I said it is a load of sensationalist crap, laden with half-baked innuendo and unsubstantiated correlations. Don't pull the "so-called 'free speech advocate'" horsepucky with me either. I'm not calling for censorship of the Times... I'm simply saying that their story was garbage. Of course, they have a right to print garbage... but I also think they have an obligation to recount the facts accurately, and in proper context. This article failed to to that. Instead, it implies that Websites use cartoons to tempt the young (as if cartoons are only for the young), and that the availability of drug info online somehow ties in to the fact that "adolescents' [drug] experimenting is on the rise. That's both absurd and factually unsubstantiated. I have no problem discussing the darker side of the Net... I do so regularly and openly. But I'm fed up with the "Internet Did It" genre of newspaper reporting. It's shoddy, and worse, it's dangerous -- because it promotes public hysteria through techno-fearmongering. Deal with it. --Todd--> PS: Jon Lebkowsky's last point was excellent. ************ Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 13:35:46 -0700 (PDT) From: baby-X <baby-x(a)millennium-cafe.com> On Fri, 20 Jun 1997, Hiawatha Bray wrote: > I'm tired of listening to so-called "free speech advocates" going ballistic > when they don't like what someone has to say. Every time a journalist > writes a story about the seamier side of the Net, somebody complains that > this will give outsiders the wrong idea. Nonsense. I think what really > worries you is that such stories give people the RIGHT idea--that there are > sex fiends, dope smokers and would-be Unabombers on-line. Well, there > are. And as long as there are, journalists will write about the fact. > Don't like it? Too bad. Deal with it. Either educate yourself about the fact that what these stories portray as some virulent epidemic of "bad" information is never anywhere near as severe as the hysteria said stories try to foster (for example, go spend this weekend reading all of Jon Katz over at the Netizen), or go back to lurking. ************ Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 16:57:49 -0400 From: freematt(a)coil.com (Matthew Gaylor) >Awright. The lurking is over. > >What IS your problem? Can you point to any inaccuracies in Mr. Wren's >story? If not, tough luck. > >I'm tired of listening to so-called "free speech advocates" going ballistic >when they don't like what someone has to say. Every time a journalist >writes a story about the seamier side of the Net, somebody complains that >this will give outsiders the wrong idea. Nonsense. I think what really >worries you is that such stories give people the RIGHT idea--that there are >sex fiends, dope smokers and would-be Unabombers on-line. Well, there >are. And as long as there are, journalists will write about the fact. > Don't like it? Too bad. Deal with it. Rather than write sensationalist stories on rather rare crimes in tabloid fashion- [Not that you are guility of this.] I'd personally rather see journalists mention that in comparison to kids swimming, riding a bike, or even playing a game of summer baseball- The chances of harm to children surfing the net is infinitesimal. Regards, Matt- ******** From: Hiawatha Bray <wathab(a)tiac.net> To: "Fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu" <Fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 17:07:08 -0400 Hmmm...how can I put this? The quality of the responses to my previous message was, well...lame. I don't do flame, so I'm trying to be courteous about this. But folks--you need to grow up. ******** Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 14:05:31 -0700 To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu From: Lizard <lizard(a)dnai.com> At 03:44 PM 6/20/97 -0400, you wrote: >Awright. The lurking is over. > >What IS your problem? Can you point to any inaccuracies in Mr. Wren's >story? If not, tough luck. > If every week, all you saw in the papers were stories of journalists who beat their wives, jounalists who were arrested on drunk driving charges, journalists who falsified facts, and journalists who were late on their child-support payments, would you simply be content to know that all the stories were accurate? Or would you beging to think that maybe, just maybe, there was a slant? What you choose to report on is as important as the accuracy of the report. What makes this story newsworthy? Why the snide reminder that it's that darn ol' Free Speech thing that keeps these sites from being shut down? Why the emphasis on how 'anyone' can post stuff to the net, since there's no business interest to keep them controlled? It's 100% pure propaganda, designed to stir up calls for a law to prevent distributing 'drug information' to minors, what with the pending (we hope -- well, *I* hope -- you probably don't) collapse of the CDA. You know it is, too. why are you defending it? *********** Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 14:15:31 -0700 (PDT) From: baby-X <baby-x(a)millennium-cafe.com> To: "Fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu" <Fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu> Subject: RE: Internet Knuckle-dragging from the NYTimes On Fri, 20 Jun 1997, Hiawatha Bray wrote: The following is an example of why we don't hold your opinions to be of very much worth: > At no point does Mr. Wren say that Internet use among the young causes > increased drug abuse. He merely notes that a communications medium very > popular with young people is laden with messages that encourage drug use, Laden? Here is the definition of laden from the Hypertext Webster Gateway: Definition for Laden from database web1913 (web1913) Laden \Lad"en\, p. & a. Loaded; freighted; burdened; as, a laden vessel; a laden heart. Loaded? Freighted? Burdened? It's the use of this sort of hysteria-tinted language that causes so many problems in establishment media ocverage of cyberspace. We know, from use of words like this one, what YOUR bias is in these cases. We're just trying to keep that bias from infecting too much media coverage. baby-X <baby-x(a)millennium-cafe.com> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BitBurn Access - CyberPOLIS - Millennium Cafe - Sluggish Canine ----------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.millennium-cafe.com/~baby-x/ ************* Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 17:19:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Rebecca Daugherty <rebeccad(a)CapAccess.org> To: Hiawatha Bray <wathab(a)tiac.net> I think it's at least philosophically inaccurate to blame the net for the action. It's like killing the messenger, cursing the pen. And it's too sure 'n easy a spin -- bad ole technology has done this too us. um.um.um. There are changes to note -- there are new kinds of technologically proficient pedophiles and they merit some ink so they can be combatted. But the net is the same old net and a benign one with no seamy side at all in my thinking. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rebecca Daugherty <rebeccad(a)capaccess.org> Director, FOI Service Center, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Visit our web site for media law information: http://www.rcfp.org/rcfp/ ************** Subject: Re: Internet Knuckle-dragging from the NYTimes Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 18:07:19 -0400 From: Thomas Grant Edwards <tedwards(a)isr.umd.edu> In fairness, I don't see many stories in the media about guns except in consideration of their use for murder or suicide. Infact, the Net gets off much easier than guns! -Thomas ************** Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 15:54:47 -0700 To: Hiawatha Bray <wathab(a)tiac.net> From: Lizard <lizard(a)dnai.com> Subject: RE: Internet Knuckle-dragging from the NYTimes Cc: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu At 06:22 PM 6/20/97 -0400, Hiawatha Bray wrote: >I gotta admit, I find your reply irresistible! Much too much fun to argue >with. Okay. You win. You get to be Lizard. > >But you're still talking nonsense about the Times story. Just because it >makes you nervous to read nastiness about the Net, doesn't make it wrong >for journalists to write the truth. Besides, have you ever kept count of >how many pro-Net stories there are? If anything, we reporters have been >guilty of shamelessly hyping the Internet. I could probably show you 10 >positive stories about the Internet for every negative one. Trust me--I >end up reading nearly all of them...it's the cross I must bear! > Very few 'pro internet' stories deal with the REAL benefits of the Internet -- the breakup of the media monopoly, the 'everyone is a reader, everyone is a writer' concept, the building of communities of interest rather than coincidence. We all know about children meeting Evil Predators on the net -- why not stories about children meeting mentors, teachers, or counselors? Rather than "My wife left me for her cyberlover!", why not "I met my wife thanks to our shared interest in barbed-wire collecting"? Let's look at that drug story. Why not write it like this? ==================================================== "After decades of getting only one side of the story from teachers, government, and a lapdog media, teenagers are now able to easily access both pro- and anti- drug information on the Internet, and chat with each other about their drug experiences in secure anonymity, permitting them to make up their own minds on this complex issue. Because Internet access is so inexpensive, people do not need the support of advertisers or subscribers to post any information they wish -- so views outside the mainstream, which would never be aired in traditional forums, can reach anyone with a modem, anywhere in the world. Further, the interactive nature of the net makes it easy for people on all sides of a debate to fire off points and counterpoints, so that the audience (who can become participants at will) can make up their own minds, ask questions, and raise issues that neither side might choose to raise on their own. "It's wonderful for kids", says Mr. Fictional, teacher at Utopia Public School. "We don't want them to 'Say No to Drugs' out of fear or ignorance, but out of a reasoned understanding of the harm drugs can do to them -- and that means they need to get the facts, not a lot of scare tactics. The government would never let us teach the 'straight dope', if you will, but we can turn kids on to the net and let them learn for themselves." ==================================================== There. There's all the "facts" -- but a very different spin, no? ************ Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 16:53:29 -0500 From: Jon Lebkowsky <jonl(a)onr.com> Subject: RE: Internet Knuckle-dragging from the NYTimes >Very nice. But so what? Mr. Wren simply reported what's going on. He >never called for censorship of the Internet. Were you reading the same >article I was, or what? Yeah, the article that said "partly owing to free-speech protection, the Internet lacks a quality control mechanism to separate fact from hyperbole or from outright falsehood." While not exactly a call for censorship, this is certainly dismissive of free speech. ************ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is public. To join fight-censorship-announce, send "subscribe fight-censorship-announce" to majordomo(a)vorlon.mit.edu. More information is at http://www.eff.org/~declan/fc/

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Re: Japan & bombing the US (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 18:20:17 -0700 > From: Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> > Subject: Re: Japan & bombing the US > No, this is incorrectly paraphrasing what I wrote. What I said, very > precisely, was "as there has been no credible threat of attack or invasion > of the states in America in at least 170 years." I was careful to say > "states in America." Distinction noted. I suppose the fact that American laws govern these areas, and they pay taxes, and can be drafted into our military, get citizenship at birth, etc. are totaly and completely irrelevant and completely unrelated to issues such as these. Thinking like yours is why McArthur got such support when he promised to return to the Phillipines when even his bosses were ready to write it off. It's why the Japanese have such a high regard for him respecting his tenure as military dictator of Japan during their rebuild. If you haven't read it you might consider reading his biography American Ceaser for its insight into the politics of these two periods. > And I also limited my comments to the events leading up to wars...my > context was clear: that had the U.S. not chosen to enter wars, no states > would have been attacked even later. That the U.S. has entered wars and had > states attacked hardly disputes my point. The US didn't choose to enter the war however, that is the issue not your nit-picking over some irrelevant boundary distinction. One thing is clear to anyone who lived in that period as an adult or studies it carefuly, the distinctions that Tim is claiming to be relevant were not important to the people living at the time. When it came to shooting 'Americans' (not Americans in a state, or not on vacation, etc. noise) it was the shooting of Americans that was at issue and not whether Alaska or Hawaii really would become a state in 1959. It is not reasonable to expect the United States of America could have 'sat out' the war. It was and is clear that American MUST enter the war at some point. The British were down to their last $750M in a S. African bank that went walkaround on an American transport to pay outstanding bills. Because of the economic and social ties between American and Britian any thesis claiming America could (let alone should) have remained neutral is pure meta-history. Consider the unrestricted German submarine warfare occuring as close as 30 miles from the Eastern seaboard. How long would people put up with bodies washing up on their beaches regularly? What would have been the impact of doing business with Europe under the German helm in the US (which couldn't exist at anything close to todays tech/social level without strong economic markets)? The Germans and Russians managed to arrive at a commen goal in the invasion of Poland. Without the drain of the African and Cicilian campaigns (which required the support of the US on a military footing to succeed) it is just possible that Russia could sue for peace with Germany causing at least a temporary breathing spell for the marshalling of forces. It is also clear at this point that Germany had a much larger technology lead over the Russians (research where the tubes for Russian radios came from) and such weapons as the ME-262, V1, V2, etc. Under this light it is clear that given a breathing space Germany allied with Japan (assuming the successful invasion of Australia, with no Britian and no US how long would they last?) would pose a real threat to the US, including the direct assault on the continental US. If we can do it in Europe and Africa what in the world makes you think somebody else can't do it? Without US intervention in the war Italy would own Africa now. Those folks were predators, they didn't back down. The Japanese would have gone for the west coast. The Russians would look at the Alaskan peninsula (bought from Russia in the 1800's) and lick their chops. The South American continent would have been Germanic/Japanese without US intervention. The influx of Germans into Argentina and Japanese to Peru started in the 20's and not the 50's. Germany was building a bomber to hit New York and long range fast transport subs, their intent was clear. Why the United States entered WWII can't be attributed to ANY single simplistic thesis such as this. It is also clear that the Japanese and German decision making processes were not motived this simply either. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________| ps legaly US military bases are US soil in the same class as DC, clearly a part of the United States. An attack upon such is treated legaly as an attack upon one of the 48 states.

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Re: The Grand Compromise is Coming (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 20:56:33 -0500 (CDT) > From: Mac Norton <mnorton(a)cavern.uark.edu> > Subject: Re: The Grand Compromise is Coming > OK, Tim, I'll try: > The use of communication in furtherance of a crime shall add five years . > . .etc. > > The use of any device to enhance the speed of communication in furtherance > of a crime shall . . . etc. > > The use of any device to disguise a voice in furtherance of . . . etc. > > The use of any cryptographic means of communication in furtherance . . . > > Now, if two and three above are constitutional, why aren't one and four? The use of any printing press in the .... The use of speech in the ... Per the 1st, 9th & 10th; "The use of <blah> in the ...." is un-Constitutional. Now, I can see committing a crime using some facility or special skill might exacerbate the verdict, is that the intent? We could just do away with the preamble and go with exacerbating the verdict if a special skill or facility is required. If nothing else it eliminates any pretense of spontinaity, in effect pre-meditation or aggravation. From that perspective I don't see a Constitutional issue except regarding the punishment phase. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Freeware Helps Keep Your Cruising Confidential
by Lou Zirko 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I thought I would pass this along. Just downloaded it and am looking at it. Interesting application for Win 95/NT users. The download page starts at http://www.luckman.com/anoncookie/anoncookie.html Lou Zirko >Freeware Helps Keep Your Cruising Confidential > > > >by Brian McWilliams, PC World NewsRadio > >June 24, 1997 >Concerns about Internet privacy are running hot since the recent privacy >hearings sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission. New laws as well as >technology standards may soon come to the assistance of Net users. In the >meantime, a California company is releasing a freeware tool to help users >gain some control over their online privacy. > >Luckman Interactive today posted a utility for Windows 95 and NT called >Luckman's Anonymous Cookie for Internet Privacy. > >According to chief technology officer Marco Papa, the beta software works >with browsers from Microsoft and Netscape. It installs in your Win 95 >system tray and enables you to switch in and out of "anonymizer mode," >that is, controlling whether or not a Web site can write to and read your >browser's cookie file. This file is used by some sites to personalize >their content and in some cases to track your activities online. > >"We save all your cookie files and replace them with either an empty >folder or a file that can't be overwritten," explains Papa. "When you turn >cookies back on, you actually replace whatever may have changed with your >original cookie files." > >Luckman's Anonymous Cookie program is actually technology that was >developed for the company's WebSweep utility, which is scheduled for >commercial release later this summer. But Papa says the firm decided to >pull the cookie piece out now to give users some much-needed control over >online privacy. > >Dierdre Mulligan of the Center for Democracy and Technology says cookie >files are at the heart of many privacy problems on the Net. Her group is >especially critical of companies like DoubleClick, which she says violates >the spirit of the cookie concept by passing user information on to third >parties. She welcomes tools like Luckman's, but she notes that add-ons >don't help protect the millions of less experienced Net users. > >"If you really want people to have an easy-to-use way to protect >information or to control what their kids are going to see on the Net, >build it into the browser. Everybody has one, and they don't have to go >buy an extra program or figure out how to install it," Mulligan said. > >Brent Luckman, chairman of Luckman Interactive, said that's a great idea, >but he doesn't see much impetus for browser makers to give up access to >valuable marketing information. > >If you're a privacy guerrilla, you can grab your free copy of the >Anonymous Cookie program from Luckman's Web site. > > Lou Zirko Key fingerprint =46 F8 6A 89 F1 4A 74 AB 2F 60 21 E3 FB 21 E4 E4 "Were all bozos on this bus", Nick Danger, Third Eye

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