December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Remailers and ecash
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >At 03:18 AM 9/27/97 -0400, Anonymous (Monty Cantsin) wrote: >>Just out of a curiousity, why is it that no remailers accept ecash? >> >>The brutally simple way to do this would be to generate an ecash >>certificate, made out to cash, and tack it at the beginning of a >>message which is then encrypted for the remailer. > >The answer to your question may be to first recast your questions and >ask why would someone want to attach ecash? I assume you are trying >to "pay" for the email you send. This goes against the general model >of the internet. We are solving a different problem. The reason I want to attach ecash is to get good reliable service and to encourage many other people to offer good high quality remailing services. Let's a remailer operator can make $200/month by handling messages at 25 cents each. (That's 800 messages a month, hardly overwhelming.) You might not go public on that much revenue, but you might use your desktop machine as a remailer. >Unlike the phone company, the net peers freely with no >interconnection charges, so inter lata charges do not have to be >tracked and collected. This allows for a flat rate pricing scheme. >For remailers, this flat rate is generally zero dollars, i.e. free. Free usually doesn't work very well, and it isn't working well now. Use of ecash in the remailer network means there is no tracking and collecting or a final bill. This would somewhat defeat the purpose of using remailers, would it not? >There are remailers of various types who offer services for a charge >of some sort. This is generally a flat rate fee, either per month, >or per year. Really? How does this work? (And which remailers offer these services?) If implemented naively, each message must carry some sort of identifier. Even if the owner of the account isn't known, all of his messages are easily linked. This is undesirable. A more sophisticated implementation would use something like blinded credentials. But, that's the functionality ecash provides anwyay, right now, this day, without any work. So why not leverage off it and take advantage of the payment features as well? >There is likely no desire to price on a per item basis. If there >were, I would think it would be in the millicent range of pricing. Given the existing infrastructure, per item pricing is the easiest to implement while retaining full anonymity. Digicash and Mark Twain Bank already did the hard work! They already have a bank set up! All we have to do is make use of it. As for millicent pricing, we'll see. Once things get rolling, the price should fall below a quarter. But it will have to be high enough to make running a remailer worth the trouble. There also seems to be an idea that there is some big R&D investment in adapting a remailer to use e-cash. There isn't. You have to open an account at Mark Twain Bank. You have to figure out how to call the Digicash executable from within a Perl script. (Since nobody has corrected me on this, I am becoming confident that it is really as easy as I think.) Why not try it? Worst case, you lose a little time. Best case, you get rich and the remailer network takes off. Here's another reason why this is important to cypherpunks. We would really like to see wider use of e-cash. It is a great product and it respects our privacy. The way ecash will catch on is that a small group of people will start using it regularly for services and trade within their loosely defined community. Once things start rolling, more people and services can be added. Once things catch on, they will snowball. The place to start is in this group with the remailers. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNC1w2JaWtjSmRH/5AQEppQf+NeHEHtJhcGy3qov3yO4VHoDzzxAfHbkL VtSoww8x/+EDoEFGzXqKCN9z7IpLTLsT7402zorawWUaQsrvhfC8y1h7emCidEPz XF41pIG0RbXY2ht23CfRrh14c+u9SxUzqZg61WsSb3w9BceZuv5dPGha+eyIg7eU LyyIPzgISB4EdR5uijTPMTsQaYwbqW/3ieuWrCe1jrGyemgTtZCmYg3R+zKn/0kH Gwu/AYjkDPh7y66kTUfgtcdLZDV3rnCC1z/Nb/XN/9AMpt264XCTgS6hZ+WWFEoj Ep+RLV2OP6uGtrU9vD3lw7B72e5lJYkemWLwIz3u+Ak1cYmRll/Cuw== =8F9p -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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cypherpunks-e@htp.org list explodes! (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 12:27:04 -0700 > From: Bill Stewart <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com> > Subject: cypherpunks-e(a)htp.org list explodes! > Well, I tried subscribing to cypherpunks-e(a)htp.org, the English-language > relative of cypherpunks-j. There may have been one or two independent > postings, > but almost everything there was just the main cypherpunks list, forwarded > and with archiving numbers stuck in the Subject: line. > That wasn't a very good idea; people who want to subscribe to cypherpunks > should do so directly, but if you do want to build a fourth list address > for cypherpunks, you can check with Igor Chudov and Lance Cottrell about > the software > that makes it work without looping. First, it was meant as another member of the cpunks distributed list. Second, I provided them with the necessary anti-loop information. Third, they were out because SSZ was out. It's a real pitty the other list operators don't put more effort into ensuring cross connections since the anti-loop process does seem to work. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ 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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Remailer Ecash Bounty
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I, Monty Cantsin, will pay fifty dollars to the first operator of a remailer on Raph's list to get a machine up and running which accepts ecash as payment to forward a message. Offer expires October 27, 1997 C.E. Disputes are to be settled by Tim May. If Mr. May declines to participate, Monty Cantsin will decide. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNC10kJaWtjSmRH/5AQEY5Af+PBBY0QU8ixNYgqIpWQkHEDf22lhVleaB JJ81Pe4TCllk3KJ0WU8+B7fVdt3oQEzaZLKobQqP6NJOfXai3dwxc5C4MPQe+YGw N6jQbcKetIwX7EUb2siKOq07W1hxVhYm6liYxeUHEBR8hWjCeUM1JiJ3IC3GALAi bJ0mDhkhEIugYkfBXl2mBm4VjQRPWSt8GxqhWDneyn4maJjmOs1lco1WvGuLC+GA fK1F9PnJIKZITzeAEjTB87H7LFxhy0eRuL+r9y8Fqw288bSkKC6aG//fTLOV7B8d MeIXu2UHa2HuB/L1MWmAVFGyKfoI0xJqeXeWCNmrLRlcp6GdCrQgig== =sNwa -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Digital Postage (fwd)
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Jim Choate wrote: >[Tim May wrote: ed.] >> Some will remail for some form of digital postage. Some will charge too little, some too much. >> Some will adjust their prices based on market/customer reactions. And so on. > >And there are a couple of problems with this: > > - it relies on a mechanism not currently in place to interface with > other more traditional financial institutions. Which I might add > don't look upon this as the most trustworthy mechanism. Ecash is in place right now. > - how do you charge for the postage, per submission? What happens when > I want to send 10,000 parties the email. Do I still pay the digi-postage > equivalent of $.35? Or do I pay $350.00? This is easily worked out between the remailer operator and the customer. Were I running a remailer, I would charge $350.00. As a customer, I would not see this as unreasonable. > What about intermediate remailers and their desire to get a cut > of the pie? Each hop should charge, of course. They are all providing the same service. >I suspect that anon remailers will operate by something similar to >ISP's where when the account is setup some fee is paid for use and >not on a use by use based fee. The problem with that is it creates a >'concrete' link between the party desiring anonymity and the remailer >operator that may be exploited in some (most? all?) cases to break >that anonymity. The way to break the concrete link is with blinded credentials. Of course, ecash already provides this feature without the hassle of opening an account with a remailer operator, writing and deploying new software, etc. etc. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNC14U5aWtjSmRH/5AQHk1Qf+PTnZJmiFr3sFSvfoH51a/mpuhS4OhFJq HjVJhG1BIKcQjm2i4V/lZPqjKaUUD+UMpZcQb6KKy6OgHxYJwZlmCW+xnWslmTEH RMoBa6NUZS0xv8vhrOkpv+v/5CArowqaeTV/+P1q98E6SPhzgL1EpTLUZ8+M8LfC H1duBAL3xNNcVj9ZWnh6UyVKh7cCtCQOTZyDxtHXWovzrxuAKpsUVWcpF5IEoy1O k8Bv5vOUYKvxdEdVF9xSos7d8VvPgzWX+err1gtrZqVux4/nVg5EFfE/NghpGPVp 2pBY+Vq3iPdE6kUR6Qff7NJHtHClXUyHg+Ya9tyEDkGl+SuYz+JWMw== =28IQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Remailer Attack
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Robert A. Costner wrote: >>Also, by my reading of the "uptime" statistic in Raph's remailer >>chart, a reply block is not going to be very reliable for receiving >>mail. > >The Redneck remailer, for instance, has a 99+% uptime rate. The >reason for this being high is that it is run under a business model. >The connectivity basically cannot go down. There has only been 23 >minutes of connectivity downtime in the last year. Redneck is run on >a business quality network with multiple backbone feeds. But things >break down after that. Redneck also runs on an underpowered 486 with >no "hotfix" backup machine. It is not considered to be a mission >critical piece of equipment. I might notice Redneck have a problem >at 1:00 am, but it can wait until in the morning to get fixed. >Situations like this, combined with software upgrades account for >downtime. Thank you for this detailed description. One more question: When redneck is down, do other remailers discard their mail if they cannot connect to it? If this is the case, it would seem to be a serious design flaw, probably prompted by the desire to save disk space. A quarter per message would probably cover the cost. Another general comment on remailer statistics: 99+% uptime sounds good, but really it isn't. For some reason, we are accustomed to the idea that remailers should lose messages. Well, they shouldn't. A remailer is just electronic mail with a few extra features and electronic mail is exceptionally reliable. According to Raph, redneck has an uptime of 99.83%. By my understanding, this means for every 1000 messages handled, redneck loses 17. That's actually pretty high, especially if it's your message that gets lost. I do not mean to pick on redneck in particular, or, really, any of the remailers. But where the remailer network stands right now, it cannot be used for everyday mail which cuts down its usage quite a bit and makes it a lot harder to build nifty things on top of it like reply block systems. >This is similar to the AOL effect. It is often hard to have respect >for an unknown poster from AOL. The remailer at EFGA is new. I've >come to realize that this natural hostility towards a remailer is a >good reason to put the remailer on a separate domain. We might do >this. Ideally the domain would be shared by other non-anonymous users, but hostility would probably be reduced even if the domain were something like "guest.efga.org", even if many people knew that really meant "anonymous". Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNC2EIJaWtjSmRH/5AQESzQf+NzGRBRjoYL7mQl9q50VsphcnkgQiq1wR XW+UKjrCokfW/Bwt6vMKKJco9cquZiuOkISoCX9+JZlhJkm2l5YxswUcrxaaVNpr T4w1aVQGzcNSDVq3oUwfFiG29S4DQaKV6HD+hz9ffS8fCMtyoA4wkFgLLALqxJpE MsHPQoI2vZtAU7Ht8HgFg2dQsJqoYDAWp8Un9CFnWNYECQ2yPZNVvbiQ7jlmplP6 IrOBQ9E5dk+gaAq4yPfoWD0GTAjBIIaaLMbh+rg+0oUe9LaK0Vl/kIbHx9DvuRN+ 0IbxUy5kwGDhBhWLznDo0B19Xl5QQdj65qBp3TmZqqtQC2MCpeynFA== =2Oiw -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Remailer Attack (fwd)
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

See also the CDA. Yes, parts are still in effect, including provisions giving immunity to interactive services if material was provided by someone else. Conceivably this could apply to remailers, if they could call themselves interactive services. Certainly the material they send was not provided by them.

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Re: Digital Postage (fwd)
by Syniker＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>If remailers are going to work as a business we can't turn our back on traditional payment mechanisms. The problem, as I see it, is that there is no clear mechanism for me to write a normal check and have that turn into a anon account easily without involving 3rd parties and their concommittent extra costs - further increasing the end-user cost to do business. There better be a reason or they won't pay for long.>> I'm probably not thinking right Jim -- but what if I bought a postal money order, or such, with cash... sent it too you... along with an encyrpted email that referred to the serial number of the money order... then, you uncyphered my email... to verify payment, and recyphered my account info to me... Would something like that work to establish a paid-up account? Best to you... LarryM pgp pubkey@ http://www.jetlink.net/~aargh/

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No Subject
by gmd＠earthling.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The empire never ended. The black iron prison is still with us. Aramchek.

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FBI Technical Assistance Draft
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks to Willis Ware we offer the full text of the FBI's August 28 "technical assistance draft" for encryption legislation, a few paragraphs of which Declan posted here: http://jya.com/fbi-tad-s909.htm (57K) Although prepared to revise McCain/Kerrey's S 909 to satisfy law enforcement, it's the source for the various amendments to SAFE which copied much of it unchanged, and some portions not yet lifted may foretell what's coming.

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Re: write up AP for FC++
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May wrote: >>I'm now mildly amused that Bell is being seen as the inventor of anonymous >>and untraceable murder markets, with clueless journalists seeking >>information on his discovery. But, hey, better he rot in jail than me. At 04:27 PM 8/18/97 -0700, Blanc wrote: > A presentation from you at FC98 would remind everyone of your own initial > writings on the subject and provide you with due credit (better credit than > a jail/rotting sentence). I can't think of anyone else who would be more > qualified for this. Freedom of speech is protected by nothing stronger than the cluelessness of our masters. If you publish your idea in appropriate forums, you can get away with it. If you go from forum to forum singing your idea like a broken record, and flogging it like soap, you will probably go to jail. I see no point in explaining our ideas so thoroughly and repeatedly that even cops and politicians start to understand them. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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