December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

LAN_law
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Los Alamos lab is using its supercomps to develop pattern-recognition programs to spot fraud in the health care system similar to work for IRS to spot tax cheats. LAN_law

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If only...
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Stewart wrote: > At 07:10 PM 6/13/97 -0700, Tim May wrote: > >>You mean they can license handguns, but not reporters??? > > >Indeed, it is strange. What part of "Congress shall make no law" > >do they not understand? > > the part between "Congress shall make no law" and "shall not be infringed"... If only they had written "Congress shall make no law." and left it at that... TM

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Re: Declan as a Budding Washington Insider
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Paul Bradley wrote: > > I must side with Declan here, true, sometimes Declans articles show a > subtle hint of insiderism <tm>, but I believe that is an inevitable > consequence of working around people in D.C. who don`t want to be > directly associated with certain statements, to quote them against their > will would be journalistic suicide and would soon see Declan with no > contacts whatsoever. The editor of the main newspeak print media for the area I live in told me that their reporters are instructed to write their articles so as to be readable to someone with an eighth grade education. I certainly do not envy Declan for being in the position of having to make his articles readable for the people who are still trying to find the "Any" key while trying not to leave the cypherpunks with the impression he's a fucking retard. *** Next Week *** Declan reveals who is buried in "Grant's Tomb." TruthMonger

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Re: Anonymous proxies & ITAR question (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Forwarded message: > From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii(a)amaranth.com> > Date: Mon, 16 Jun 97 17:48:52 -0500 > Subject: Re: Anonymous proxies & ITAR question > >>The renter of a car or truck is not responsible for the contents. The > >>driver of a truck is > > ^^^^^^ The renter is not responsible until they take contractual possession of the truck. From that point until placed on the companies property and the key is placed in the lock-box hanging on the fence (or whatever system they use where you live) it is the responsibility of the renter/driver/physical possessor of the truck for its behaviour or contents. > If I went and rented a truck and there was a "roach" in the ashtray I > should not be held accountable for possesion unless it could be proved > that it was mine and not from someone else that had used the truck or even > a worker at the retal shop. > > Ofcource if I had the trailer loaded with 100K of coke it would be a > little hard to say that someone else left it there. :) Why should coke be treated any different than pot? How much pot should I be able to put in such a truck and 'get away' with as a function of SOP? How much coke? No, ambiguity like this has no place in law. The litmus test should be whether a person or their property were damaged without their prior permission. Crimes should be a function of physical interaction and not some qualitative or even quantitative test. If it is a crime to do 100 of them then it should be a crime to do 1/10 (assuming it should be a crime in the first place). I can see it now, "Sorry sir, we had to let him go. He only 1/4 raped her." Blah. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | _____ 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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Re: Capitalist Assassination Politics
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bell's AP isn't a Democratic Assassins Program - it's a free-market system. In a free market, when enough people want something enough to pay for it, like buying dope or killing someone, someone may decide it's worth their while and just do it. The catch is that he confuses mechanism with policy; the market doesn't really care _why_ someone has a price on their head. In a Democratic Assassins Program, everybody gets together and haggles about who ought to be killed and why, and if a majority wants someone killed, they go do it, or hire someone to do it for them, and tell the minority what a wonderful thing Democracy is. The US theoretically has a Republican Form Of Assassination - everybody votes on some representatives, and the representatives do whatever they can get away with, given future elections as a moderating threat, such as assassinating hundreds of thousands of Iraqis instead of the one Iraqi they told us we should all Hate for Two Minutes, or sending poisoned cigars to annoying bearded guys. In practice, we have a Capitalist Mixed-Economy Assassination Process - the Representatives decide to assassinate some people because it seems to be popular in the polls, and other people because the Big Business interests want them assassinated, or because the Pentagon wants to advertise their availability for future jobs, and some free-market "work" gets done, since you don't _have_ to annoy the national-scale interests to get assassinated, some things get done by Good Old Fashioned Volunteerism*, government-hired assassins decide ignore some collateral damage or work overtime in the war on Republicanly-Selected Substances and some people are society offenders who might best be underground or just tempt Darwin too many times. [* President's Commission on Volunteerism http://www.whitehouse.gov/volunteer.htm ] ---- Attachment Converted: http://www.cia.odci.gov/assassination/nominations.doc ---- # 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 or news, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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LOW_orb
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Motorola plans to loft its third low-orbit sat system, dubbed Celestri, for high-speed data, video and broadcast. That will make 7 systems for highbanding low wares. LOW_orb

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ACLU/EPIC: First Amendment Pledge Campaign
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 14:04:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: ACLU/EPIC: First Amendment Pledge Campaign ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 16:50:00 -0400 From: Dave Banisar <banisar(a)epic.org> To: press <info(a)epic.org> Subject: Press Release: First Amendment Pledge Campaign JOINT PRESS RELEASE: American Civil Liberties Union Electronic Privacy Information Center ACLU, EPIC Call on Congress and Clinton to "Take the First Amendment Pledge" FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, June 16, 1997 Contact: Emily Whitfield, ACLU Nat'l Office (212) 549-2566 emilyaclu(a)aol.com David Sobel, EPIC (202) 544-9240 sobel(a)epic.org NEW YORK -- As the nation awaits a Supreme Court decision on the future of free speech on the Internet, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center today launched www.firstamendment.org, a website dedicated to upholding the First Amendment in cyberspace. The groups called on President Clinton and members of Congress to be among the first to "Take the First Amendment Pledge" and cease any further attempts to draft legislation to censor the Internet in the event the Supreme Court upholds a lower court decision striking down government regulation of the Internet as unconstitutional. "In our view there is no such thing as a 'Constitution-proof' law criminalizing so-called indecency in cyberspace," said Chris Hansen, ACLU Senior Staff Attorney and lead counsel in Reno v. ACLU. The launch of the website comes as Clinton Administration officials have begun publicly discussing a shift in policy on Internet regulation, saying that "industry self-regulation" -- not laws criminalizing certain Internet communications -- is the solution to shielding minors from online "indecency." Hansen added that if the Administration had indeed adopted such a policy, it is obligated to announce it to the Court before they rule in the case. "If the report in this morning's New York Times is indeed true, it would appear that the Clinton Administration is preparing to take the 'Pledge,'" Hansen said. Reno v. ACLU challenges censorship provisions of the Communications Decency Act aimed at protecting minors by criminalizing so-called "indecency" on the Internet. The ACLU, along with EPIC and 18 other plaintiffs, filed a challenge to the law the day it was enacted. A ruling on the case could come as soon as Thursday, June 19, the next scheduled day for release of Supreme Court decisions. "Attempts to censor the Net will not end with the Supreme Court decision ," said David Sobel, legal counsel for EPIC and co- counsel in Reno v. ACLU. "Proponents of Internet content regulation have already indicated their desire to take a 'second bite of the apple' if the Communications Decency Act is struck down." In anticipation of such new attempts at online censorship, visitors to www.firstamendment.org are invited to "Take the First Amendment Pledge," which reads: "I pledge to support free speech and free expression for all Americans and to urge Congress to uphold the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and pass no law abridging our freedom of speech." Online users can capture the "First Amendment Pledge" GIF (graphic image file) for placement on their own website. Other features planned for the site include an "action alert" that informs users of legislative threats to the First Amendment and allows them to instantly e-mail or fax their member of Congress, and an online "postcard" that can be e-mailed to friends, relatives and elected officials, urging them to "Take the Pledge." The ACLU is a nationwide, non-partisan organization dedicated to defending and preserving the Bill of Rights for all individuals through litigation, legislation and public education. The ACLU can be found online at www.aclu.org and through America Online at keyword: ACLU. EPIC is a non-profit, education and research organization based in Washington, D.C. EPIC examines civil liberties and privacy issues that arise in new electronic media. It maintains a website at www.epic.org. ..

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Re: ACLU/EPIC: First Amendment Pledge Campaign
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Before I even log in and see if anyone else caught this, I wrote: >And will EPIC then withdraw its support of Pro-CODE, which says that >certain forms ^^^^^^^^^^ I meant SAFE, of course. Pro-CODE contains no criminalization of crypto speech provisions, at least not that I've seen. It's SAFE that's so pernicious. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Homer on Terrorism
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Of course it was blackmail. The reason people are confused about this is they assume that blackmail is bad. Blackmail is good. The alternative is releasing the damaging information. Blackmail gives the person who has something to hide a chance to keep the information quiet. He has more options than he would have in a system where blackmail was impossible. Laws against blackmail are even more senseless than laws against libel. In the case of blackmail, the supposed victim is asking not to be allowed to take actions which are in his own self interest, a classic case of protecting someone from himself. Fortunately, cryptography will liberate blackmail just as it will other forms of communications. BlackMonger

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Re: Anonymous proxies & ITAR question
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>The renter of a car or truck is not responsible for the contents. The >driver of a truck is ^^^^^^ This is ambiguous. By this I meant the "person who rents to another," not the "person who rents from someone." --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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