December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Just Say "No" to Congress
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:13 AM 5/14/97 -0800, Tim May wrote: >We're basically under assault from all directions. The bozos in Congress >and state governments are spinning out new laws and obscure regulations >faster than we can react...and of course they're using our money to >generate these laws and lobby for them. Further, a mostly-brainwashed >Washington media population is surprising uncritical of these blizzard >drifts of new laws. ... >The "there ought to be a law" crowd is in high gear. I seem to recall a proposal from the late 19th century suggesting that the Patent Office be closed because there was nothing left to invent. In a similar, but more serious vein, I think Congress should be shut down, because there are no new laws that we need. Excepting, of course, my earlier anonymous suggestion that children be kept from "soft targets". I'm not a TruthMonger, but I play one on T.V.

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Re: Spam IS Free Speech
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On or About 14 May 97 at 3:46, lucifer Anonymous Remailer wrote: > Ross Wright wrote: > > > > You can not retaliate against free > > speech, Rick. That's a bad thing, plain and simple, black and > > white. > > Crock of shit, Ross. No shit, you just can't send 10,000 megs of info in retaliation for a few bits. Really, there's no call for that. It's wrong. > It costs me money to download unwanted spam. What's this "free" > bullshit? What? Like 80 cents per gig? Please a bit here and a byte there isn't going to break anyone. Could someone do the math? > > Free speech is a right. You have the right to make some snotty > > reply, but no right to intentionally harm. > > Spammers neither know nor care if they are causing harm to the > finances or mental well-being of others. One message in your in box is no excuse for terror tactics. Mail bombs, arp atacks, calls for regulations: aren't you over reacting? Just a little? I think your mental well being is in question anyway. > If a spammer declares their right to cause me financial loss and > denial of service for the time it takes me to rid myself of their > unwanted intrusion What, like 5 seconds a week? Less? Please. It just isn't as bad as you make it seem. Shit I love this, the spammers love this. There is no such thing as *bad* publicity. The more you screem the better it is for the "bad spammers". > then they can have no expectation that I, in > turn, will not declare what level of financial loss and denial of > service I will cause them. You have no right to deny them more than the few seconds of service that you lost. Any more than that is terror tactics, and a waste of time. You should be working on better projects than "Let's fuck over the spammers". Wow, that's productive. Shit, man write some useful code. > > You, nor anyone else, has a right to lash out at > > someone for something they say or some ad they send you. > > So spammers have no right to lash out at my sending them a > gigabyte of email regarding the evils of spamming. A gig for a few bytes. Why? That's so lame. Such a watse of talented code writing. And why are you escalating this? > > > It makes > > > *me* feel better. > > > > Ahhh, at last the point. Are you a self centred ass, who's > > personal feelings are more important that the Constitution? > > Ross has failed to explain just how the Constitution promotes the > spammer's right to intrude upon the spammer's life and cause them > financial loss while denying that right to the spammee. Well I've tried to describe that you lose about a dime per year. > Ross' personal feelings seem to be important enough to him to cast > slurs on those who disagree with his black-and-white opinions > regarding his right to spam others without them having a > corresponding right to reply in kind. You can feel free to send me twice as many bytes as I send to you, OK? Feel beter? No! You must fuck me over because I sent you my latest MLM scam. Yeah that's so mature! Come out from behind your remailer and state your opinions, wrong as they are. > Gander. Goose. Right. If I send you a gig, you send me a gig. If I send you a meg you send me a meg. A few bytes for a few bytes. Are you following what has upset me about this issue, yet? Like for Like, Goose, Gander. You said it, but you don't mean it. Right? You are saying if I send you one message, you have the right to mail bomb me? There's no parity there. It's very distressing how much of a hot button this issue is. >TruthMonger Lier. 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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Civil Disobediance
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"All that matters is how we die: shall we offer our bodies helplessly, like cattle, to the knife, or, refusing passively to await the end shall we turn the strength of our anger to one last battle, til, daring and doing, we fall, drenched with their blood, amongst the heaped bodies and weapons of our dying enemies?" -- Livy Book XXV We've seen many sentiments like this one on the list lately. Such sentiments are understandable and have a certain visceral appeal. And it is good that people who are thinking along these lines are also telling their friends on the list instead of censoring themselves. But, these strategies are not the best we can choose to achieve our true goals. Few of us wish to be martyrs. The years long discussion of "crypto policy" has had the unfortunate and intended effect that it has caused us to become accustomed to restrictions on sharing ideas. That doesn't mean we like it, but it does mean that we consider the control of mathematical ideas to be expected and somewhat inevitable. (The same mechanisms we use to train animals are at work here.) Many of us have, perhaps, lost our youthful rage at the complete absurdity of a law which makes it highly illegal to invent some math, express it in code, and distribute it for free to the world. Perhaps there is a way to turn the training on the trainers? Civil disobediance is the best way to do this. Were a relatively small number of people, a thousand for instance, to post the "RSA in 3 lines" code to the world, it would be highly unlikely that anybody at all would be prosecuted, particularly if a sizeable number of these people were professors, graduate students, professionals at well known companies, journalists, politicians?, or otherwise prominent people. The whole situation would be so absurd they would never dare take it to court. If no response results from the first release of code, more people will feel comfortable jumping in when it becomes clear that they have a chance to change the world. The longer somebody waits, the less opportunity they have to tell their grandkids "I was the 500th person to publically export RSA back in the late 20th century. The government was actually trying to make math illegal!" Best of all, anybody "fortunate" enough to be a U.S. citizen can participate, even if they don't write code themselves. Having established beyond any doubt that the export of RSA was possible without repercussions, the lesson will be driven home by group releases of successively longer mathematical works expressed in source code. The first release will be the most challenging. In no time at all everybody - including everybody in the government - will find themselves accustomed to the idea that laws against mathematics are absurd. (Even Senators will be able to grasp this unchallenging concept.) It is not hard for the government and the newspapers to discredit militia type activities involving large weapons collections and chemistry experiments. But, no matter how much spin is put on it, it is extremely hard to persuade the public that sending a few lines of source code is terrorism, especially when they can download it off the web and see for themselves that it is just, well, source code, and maybe export it themselves. The way to get started is for people to pledge to post "RSA in 3 lines" if certain conditions are met. For instance, "I will post 'RSA in 3 lines' if 500 people promise to do it as well, among them being Michel Foucault, Jacob Bernoulli, and Blaise Pascal." No risk need be taken without allies! Dr. Roberts

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Sweeps Week in Portland
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

News from the Beirut of the West: The FBI, in cooperation with the Portland police and the TV show "Cops" is ending a six month survelence project of downtown Portland. Tonight, armed with large books containing pictures of suspects, they have congregated in the center of town arresting all of those caught in their video web. Over the last 6-8 hours they have been arresting hundreds of suspects in the downtown area. The arrests are a "show of force" in the downtown area. The police used to watch over the people. Now they are watching the people. Expect to see similar activity in the town where you live. "Be seeing you!" DonutMonger #666

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Sweeps Week in Portland
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

News from the Beirut of the West: The FBI, in cooperation with the Portland police and the TV show "Cops" is ending a six month survelence project of downtown Portland. Tonight, armed with large books containing pictures of suspects, they have congregated in the center of town arresting all of those caught in their video web. Over the last 6-8 hours they have been arresting hundreds of suspects in the downtown area. The arrests are a "show of force" in the downtown area. The police used to watch over the people. Now they are watching the people. Expect to see similar activity in the town where you live. "Be seeing you!" DonutMonger #666

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NIST Crypto Notices
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Two May 13 Federal Register notices by NIST: NIST is planning to develop a FIPS for Public-Key Based Cryptographic Key Agreement and Exchange. This notice solicits comments regarding techniques for consideration specifically including RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and Elliptic Curve techniques. This standard will be for use in designing and implementing public-key based key agreement and exchange systems which Federal departments and agencies operate or which are operated for them under contract. More than one algorithm may be specified, consistent with sound security practices, to enable Federal departments and agencies enhanced flexibility in the design, implementation, and use of cryptographic systems. http://jya.com/nist051397.txt (6K) NIST is planning to develop a proposed revision to Federal Information Processing Standard 186, Digital Signature Standard. This revision would specify additional public-key based digital signature algorithms (in addition to the Digital Signature Algorithm [DSA]) for use in designing and implementing public-key based signature systems which Federal departments and agencies operate or which are operated for them under contract. The purpose of the revision will be to enable Federal departments and agencies greater flexibility, consistent with sound security practices, in the design, implementation, and use of public-key based digital signature systems. http://jya.com/dss-rev.txt (6K)

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Re: Pedophile Russ Allberry continues to flame Steve Boursy
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

kibo <kibo(a)thecia.net> writes: > > [DrG - if you want to follow up, please dig up the original article, not > > my repose - thank you] > > > O.K., I will chop all of the header befor I post it, but this Russ Allbery Thanks!! > is becoming the biggest problem on usenet, since he supports Tim Skirvin. > I think it is time for Russ to grow up and deal with the Net like a man. > > Time for him to become a child molester. Well - if you want to say you heard that he's a child molester or that he sounds like one, no decent ISP will have a problem. :-) I think it would be fun to get Russ back on this list. > > By the way, has anyone had a chance to verify whether Stan Kalisch who work > > for the educational testing services is our net.acquaintance? Thanks. > > > > Yes, I called them at that number, and and boss called me back. Great - is he or isn't he the same person as skalisch@crl?? Thanks > All Russ has to do is say the word, and Tim Skirvin will stop his > shit. Russ Allbery is just as responsible for the Skirvin shit as > Timmy boy himself is. > > Time to rip Russ Allbery a new asshole... Maybe we should get Tim Skirvin on this list. :-) --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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(rumor) US TV host canned over comments
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Can anyone confirm for me that a US talk show host was canned for airing her thoughts on the aid package for Iran's earthquake victims? I heard "Only bad people and terrorists live there. If I had my way I'd drop an atomic bomb on Tehran." Anyone?

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Re: SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 10:16:06 -0400 From: "Shabbir J. Safdar" <shabbir(a)vtw.org> To: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com>, fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Re: SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary At 9:11 PM -0700 5/14/97, Declan McCullagh wrote: >* The heinous section of the law that would create > broad new Federal felonies for some uses of crypto was > replaced. The amendment, offered by Rep. Delahunt > and adopted unanimously includes eight hurdles: > > "Any person who, in the commission of a felony under > a criminal statute of the United States, knowingly > and willfully encrypts incriminating information > relating to that felony with the intent to conceal > such information for the purposes of avoiding > detection by law enforcement agencies or > prosecution..." > > It's a solid improvement, but this language still has > no business becoming law. Problem is, nobody seems to > have the balls to stand up and yank it. Delahunt, > the amendment's sponsor, said the bill without the > amendment "could have a chilling effect on the > development and use of encryption." He added: "I > recognize that some supporters of this amendment would > like that this section be removed altogether." But it > doesn't seem likely. I'm more than a little surprised at your take on this amendment. This exact language wasn't created by Representatives who don't know better, it was created, shopped, and marketed to the hill by the folks at the ACLU (Don Haines) and EPIC. In response to concerns from the net, they coordinated the letter from many groups to Goodlatte about the criminal provision which just about everyone signed onto. Then, EPIC and the ACLU worked out the language above, and got it passed verbatim in response to the concerns of the net community. They did a great job here and really deserve a lot of kudos. Why are you slighting their work? -S

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Re: SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 07:26:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: "Shabbir J. Safdar" <shabbir(a)vtw.org> Cc: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Re: SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary Shabbir, You're mistaken. I'm not "slighting their work" -- I called it a "solid improvement." Yeah, I know who shopped this around. I spoke with David and Don about this last week, and didn't write about it then for fear of jeopardizing their negotiations. And come on, you're "more than a little surprised" by my take? Give me a break. My position now is consistent with my position before -- and comes as no surprise. Reread my previous posts. But you're missing the point: this whole "crypto in a crime" section should not be in this bill in the first place. The new portion is much better than the old, but it still has no business being law. -Declan On Thu, 15 May 1997, Shabbir J. Safdar wrote: > At 9:11 PM -0700 5/14/97, Declan McCullagh wrote: > > >* The heinous section of the law that would create > > broad new Federal felonies for some uses of crypto was > > replaced. The amendment, offered by Rep. Delahunt > > and adopted unanimously includes eight hurdles: > > > > "Any person who, in the commission of a felony under > > a criminal statute of the United States, knowingly > > and willfully encrypts incriminating information > > relating to that felony with the intent to conceal > > such information for the purposes of avoiding > > detection by law enforcement agencies or > > prosecution..." > > > > It's a solid improvement, but this language still has > > no business becoming law. Problem is, nobody seems to > > have the balls to stand up and yank it. Delahunt, > > the amendment's sponsor, said the bill without the > > amendment "could have a chilling effect on the > > development and use of encryption." He added: "I > > recognize that some supporters of this amendment would > > like that this section be removed altogether." But it > > doesn't seem likely. > > I'm more than a little surprised at your take on this amendment. This > exact language wasn't created by Representatives who don't know better, it > was created, shopped, and marketed to the hill by the folks at the ACLU > (Don Haines) and EPIC. In response to concerns from the net, they > coordinated the letter from many groups to Goodlatte about the criminal > provision which just about everyone signed onto. > > Then, EPIC and the ACLU worked out the language above, and got it passed > verbatim in response to the concerns of the net community. They did a > great job here and really deserve a lot of kudos. Why are you slighting > their work? > > -S

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