December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: [Declan McCullagh: "A List Goes Down In Flames," from Netly]
by Jeremiah A Blatz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> writes: <snip declan's rather well-balanced article> > What does `crusty' mean as applied to a former Intel engineer? Try definition 2 Word crusty (KRUHS'tee) adj. Definition --adj. -ier, -iest. 1. Like or having a crust. 2. Surly or brusk. Jer "standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMwS3m8kz/YzIV3P5AQHNJgL+NtjXkx/EHmx9vXm9ucwmonam+2sXRwHB 4bCrz3SM9pk4VbcPhYjx+PRzmX3j9mvesPkkAXaYiUcnFUBmmF35YvIZnTxornfy kE30sVsW4juawhXGRIAWJ/5Ce9lBLPdp =bB+u -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ok. I'll "put up". If the cypherpunks will have me, -I'll- run the cypherpunks list. Those that know me know that I will *not* censor, moderate, or otherwise alter the content (other than the stuff majordomo does with "resend") of any messages to the list. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet Advice is priceless; when it becomes interference it is preposterous.

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Re: Fuck UseNet
by Jeremiah A Blatz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Toto <toto(a)sk.sympatico.ca> reminds me while I've killfiled him: > So, basically, you're saying that the flight from censorship should > be toward a new CypherPunk 'home' where one is effectively censored > automatically unless one kisses the ass of a Cabal? Yup. You're begging resources, deal with it. We didn't kiss John Gillmore's ass, and he decided that he was tired of the shit and stopped letting us squat on his land. If we were paying him for the use of toad, he maybe wouldn't have the right to yank it so suddenly, but we weren't, so it's his call. Same with usenet. The "cabal" has high reputation capital. News admins the world over trust them. One might say that they deserve the respect they get, but that is immaterial to the discussion. the fact is that people who donate resources to usenet trust the cabal. Unless you have a contractual relationship, you're begging, and you have to convince your benefactors to give you stuff. If you have a different model for a world economy, feel free to post it. Jer "standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole PS. Of course, the cabal didn't rmgroup alt.cypherpunks, thus showing that they do have some good sence yet. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMwSyzMkz/YzIV3P5AQHgbgMApfVYTtanDNpL1A96oqMa0wk99GC6jfk9 p7V2KUBn2rl3rOJlBsYpgPWJRYxcMeich8tulf0NcUkh5ru7YdsACD7GYa7B7bz2 Kj6VnQibFnCKb2BTkQfkqYCpdKIUhvLL =dkhj -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Congressional subcommittee hearings on computer security
by Omegaman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Computer crimes rife, unreported By Reuters February 13, 1997, 9:45 a.m. PT WASHINGTON--Security experts say hackers are finding it easier to break into computer networks and steal money, partly because companies are reluctant to admit that they are vulnerable. "If I want to steal money, a computer is a much better tool than a handgun," Daniel Geer, director of engineering for Open Market, told a House of Representatives technology subcommittee hearing on computer security. " Has anyone been following this debate more closely? Nothing in any of the articles I've seen on this story have mentioned the role of strong encryption. <rhetorical question mode on> Why can't banks better protect themselves? Why can't banks better authenticate electronic transactions to prevent theft & break-ins? Why is the such a dearth of protective measures available to the institutions? The public has a right to know! <rhetorical question mode off> Seriously, though, has anyone been following these hearings in more detail? me --------------------------------------------------------------------- Omegaman <mailto:omegam@cmq.com>|"When they kick out your front door, PGP Key fingerprint = | How are you gonna come? 6D 31 C3 00 77 8C D1 C2 | With your hands upon your head, 59 0A 01 E3 AF 81 94 63 | Or on the trigger of your gun?" Send email with "get key" as the| -- The Clash, "Guns of Brixton" "Subject:"to get my public key | _London_Calling_ , 1980 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Keep it Simple and the Cypherpunk Way
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

what TCM continues to stick his head in the sand over is the fact that the list noise levels have gotten outlandishly out of control over recent times, far beyond anything in memory. what is it due to? it appears that there is a basic law of cyberspace that S/N decreases as you add more people. it seems to be a very obvious and repeatable property. there are some significant lessons about cryptoanarchy that are completely evading TCM. how well does anarchy scale? apparently, not well. TCM would like to pretend that just deleting posts and having outsider filterers is a "solution" to the problem and argues for business as usual, upholding the status quo. the problem is that when you have a deteriorating situation, the status quo is not a valid concept. keeping the status quo means further deterioration. TCM also fails to address the problem of AGENT PROVOCATEURS. the cyberspace list is intensely fragile and susceptible/ vulnerable to them as Vulis demonstrates. it only takes ONE and a lot of tentacles. does TCM propose a solution to this? no, of course not, because he has a blind spot when it comes to realizing the PATENTLY OBVIOUS FLAWS OF CRYPTOANARCHY that stare him in the face. if cpunks had a formal way of making decisions, and some loyalty to each other, instead of BAILING OUT at the slightest difficulty, perhaps the situation would be different, eh? see how quickly people who were once friends simply WALK OUT on each other in the cryptoanarchist approach? where is the loyalty? the sense of working for the greater good? it's gone. TCM simply ABANDONS the list at the first opportunity, and ignores the years of hard work that J.G. has put into it. timmy, cpunks, etc. you are getting a lesson in REALITY. you are seeing the logical conclusion of your views playing out before you. acrimony, bitterness, resignation, chaos, confusion, cacaphony, anarchy.

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Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by Cynthia H. Brown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Fri, 14 Feb 1997 paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk wrote: > Here I can agree, I personally discriminate on the basis of sex, not > in that I believe women inferior to men but rather that I believe > each sex better suited to different tasks and vocations. > That is not, however, to say that I believe women should be prevented > from taking up lines of work that men traditionally hold. > They are free to do so, but as in the example you give later > I would feel uncomfortable having my car serviced by a woman. <flame-retardant suit on> Normally I would ignore this sort of comment (which probably belongs in some soc. newsgroup), but I feel obliged to point out that: - The female <mechanic / scientist / engineer>, in addition to passing the same exams as her male classmates, has probably had to put up with a fair load of B.S. questioning her right and ability to be there. The ones that keep at it long enough to graduate are the ones that *really* want to do whatever it is, and IMHO are more likely to try harder. - If she has been in business for a while, this means she has attracted and kept customers in spite of the attitude displayed in previous posts. There are no "quotas" in the marketplace. - I wonder whether the garage owners have any preference. In my military experience (Signals officer), the (older male) sergeants and chiefs, when given a choice, preferred female radar / radio technicians to male because, in general, they were harder working, had thicker skins, and were more pleasant to deal with. Chicken and Egg: How much of "each sex [is] better suited to different tasks" is due to little girls being pulled away from the Lego and toy trucks, and encouraged to play with Barbies? Being told that they are *pretty* not *smart* as a form of approval? Cynthia =============================================================== Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng. E-mail: cynthb(a)iosphere.net | PGP Key: See Home Page Home Page: http://www.iosphere.net/~cynthb/ Junk mail will be ignored in the order in which it is received. Klein bottle for rent; enquire within.

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Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Again, MY definition of a "bigot" is the correct one which is > most understood by modern people. > > A "bigot" is a racist, period. I would have to differ with you there Dr. Grubor, although I think the term Bigot being applied critically to your opinions is inappropriate. > > I see nothing that limits bigotry to racial intolerance. > > > > You are a fool then. Religion and sexism and groups all have nothing > to do with bigotry. A bigot is a racist, period. That is TODAY'S > correct definition of the term, and I am a lot more current than > Webster. Any anybody who has a "religion" and "prays" is a fool. > The only god you will ever find is within yourself. I do not begin to believe this is correct. I happen to believe that sexism, not in the sense of believing women inferior but in the sense of believing homosexuals inferior can be, in some instances, a form of bigotry but it is merely a matter of semantics and not of interest. I wholeheartedly agree with the last point, anybody who believes in any form of deity or higher being (call it god if you like) is, IMHO, a fool. However, this has proven in history to be contradicted on a number of occasions, for example, Albert Einstein was a Jew but did not just accept without enquiry, rather, his religious views were subtle and well thought through. This is, of course, the exception not the rule, and 99.9999% of all religious people are fools. > > > It is very logical and wise to discriminate on the basis of sex. Here I can agree, I personally discriminate on the basis of sex, not in that I believe women inferior to men but rather that I believe each sex better suited to different tasks and vocations. That is not, however, to say that I believe women should be prevented from taking up lines of work that men traditionally hold. They are free to do so, but as in the example you give later I would feel uncomfortable having my car serviced by a woman. > > Most would disagree, and decide based on that and other statements you > > have made that you must be an extremely unpleasant person. > > > > See, there you go again, attacking the person, instead of the > argument. You lose points for that. Sexism is GOOD and right and > justified. I want a woman cutting my hair, and a man fixing my car, > and I demand the correct sex for ALL activities. Exactly, the poster has failed to recognise that you have every right to discrimate as you do and are justified in doing so. They are probably either homosexual and feel threatened or they are censorous and feel they must protect people from being "defamed" etc... > > If you want to fight censorship effectively, going around telling > > people "You're a shit-eating faggot you fucking cock-sucking homo > > censor" in public forums is not going to win you many points. > > Look sonny, I am not out to win any points. I have two Doctorates and > 22 years of experience. I speak with authority and only to those who > have the intelligence to understand. I was a perfect 4.00 in > College, and am probably the most intelligent body-politic analyst in > the world. Now let's face it: Faggots are BAD news. They are most > always censors! And that is the truth you can never get around. I agree, I have no prejudice against homosexuals. Rather I have formulated a low opinion of them as a group due to their censorous behaviour. I think it is because they feel threatened by straight people. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re: Good Bye Cypherpunks!
by Vin McLellan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It's always interesting to see how another person, particularly a writer, filters and reshapes an experience you shared with them . Differences in the telling are inevitable -- but I perceived the recent experience of the C'punks List quite differently than what Declan described and implied in his column. My understanding of Sandy's effort, for instance, was that he was to filter out the sludge of spam and contentless name-calling with which some idiots were flooding the list. My impression was that he was passing along any posts with content (ideas, pro or con, on almost anything) but filtering out the empty obscene name-calling and slurs (many of which seemed anon or forged, with varied and misleading titles, to duck my kill-file filters.) I, for one, was appreciative. I don't mind flames (and I expected to still be able to recieve them, from whatever POV -- and it seemed that I did!) but I also want a little meat somewhere amid the smoke. Who did the filtering (at the minimal level I expected) was almost irrelevant. If the filtering was on content, I'd be unhappy -- but I was eager to see some effort to cut out the empty hate messages. I even suggested to Dale, off-list, that he take it on for awhile. To me, the issue was whether this community could develop some mechanism to defend itself against a willful and intentional effort to destroy it. I think we failed to do so, despite the creative search for alternative venues -- and I think the triumphant cackling I read on what's left of the List is quite out of place. It may be that ideological purists were able to develop dynamic local filters on their PCs which satisfied them, but my filters just could't do enough. It was clear that the fecal-buckshot attacks on the List were designed to evade them. I'm still here, but it was more than a minor annoyance. (A year ago, I knew maybe five friends and acquaintances who subscribed to C'punks, but they all ran out of patience with the unchecked flow of sludge and unsubscribed... months before John tried to introduce his moderation experiment.) If 700 dropped off right after the moderation experiment was announced -- which I somehow doubt -- I wonder how many were battered into unsubscribing in the six or eight months prior? And, of the fleeing 700, how many became bored with the obsession of some (exhaustively prolific) writers with the "Moderation & Me" -- and went off to find some discussion of cryptography, politics, and ideas elsewhere? (Gawd knows, on the then-Moderated List I never found any lack of overwrought attacks on Sandy or John. I even read them for a week or two;-) From this whole experience, I carry away something different than those who gleefully celebrate Gilmore's surrender. I think something unusual and valuable is being killed. I'm now convinced that virtually all mailing lists will soon be forced to either limit posts to authenticated subscribers or introduce some sort of moderation -- just to deal with the spam threat and the problem of concerned attacks by those who decide they hate or dislike or simply want to destroy that particular List community . By the logic of Tim and others, a clever and dedicated crusade against Cypherpunks by any minimally-organized group, bir or small -- your local coven, CoS, RC bishops, FBI, Romanian Govt, , whomever! -- could have destroyed the List at any time in the past. I'm glad they never realized how vulnerable we were; I've enjoyed this Community greatly in its current manifestation. I also hate to think of how gleeful the sociopaths who mail-bombed us into the choice of submission or suicide must be today. I think it is a particularly henious crime to destroy a virtual community; something akin to book-burning, but maybe more like arson -- like burning village schools. There was a willful attempt to destroy C'punks, an attack of depth and volume which led many of us (even those who had ignored at least three earlier efforts to offer filtered subsets to the List) to welcome the Moderation Experiment. Unfortunately, the attempt at moderation just twisted our own energies against ourselves. We were, perhaps predictably, quite easy to manipulate. If I have any criticism of John et al, it is that our List-Owner (a statement of function, rather than property) never gave the List Community an overt option to vote for minimal moderation. A tactical error. That that allowed the anarchists, nihlists, and others pure of heart to focus their ire on toad.com and Sandy -- rather than on those of us who (when John finally acted) might have gladly re-subscribed to another version of the List in order to obtain minimal spam and slur filtration. So now we ourselves burn the village in order to save it. <nostalgic sigh> How American! Suerte, _Vin At 11:23 PM 2/13/97 -0800, you wrote: >Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 21:24:37 -0800 (PST) >From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> >To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu > >The Netly News Network >http://netlynews.com/ > >A List Goes Down In Flames >by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) >February 12, 1997 >

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Re: Good Bye Cypherpunks!
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:07 PM -0500 2/14/97, Vin McLellan wrote: > My understanding of Sandy's effort, for instance, was that he was to >filter out the sludge of spam and contentless name-calling with which some >idiots were flooding the list. My impression was that he was passing along >any posts with content (ideas, pro or con, on almost anything) but filtering >out the empty obscene name-calling and slurs (many of which seemed anon or >forged, with varied and misleading titles, to duck my kill-file filters.) Well, Vin, your understanding was flawed. Many thoughtful, "non-sludge" posts were filtered out. Some never made it to either the "main" list nor the "flames" list, as all posts were supposed to do. (John Gilmore acknowledged this in his message. Anyone subscribing to only the Flames list, as I was for a while, would see some posts not making it to the Main list (viewable via the archive sites) nor to the Flames list.) Even my very long and thoughtful (I think, and others have said as much) essay on why I had been off the list for several weeks was _almost_ censored by Sandy, by his own words. Because he disliked some turn of phrase I used in describing the ramblings of Toto, Dale Thorn, and Vulis, he said he almost killed the entire piece, ultimately letting it through as a "judgment call." This is what I call a "chilling effect." Never knowing whether one's essays will pass muster with the Chief Censor is not exactly a reason to spend a lot of time composing a long piece. And was my article the kind of "sludge of spam" and "countless name-calling" you thought the Moderation experiment was all about? And what of the four or five of my posts a week ago which never made it to either the Main list or the Flames list? The contained no "sludge of spam" nor "countless name-calling." What they dealt with was a claim (like this one) that some posts were not being passed on to either of the two lists, and that perhaps a conflict of interest was developing. Does this still match your "understanding of Sandy's effort"? By the way, I can forward to those who are interested these four or five posts which got "Meta-Censored." (Unless too many people request them...I'll promise to forward them to the first five people who request them...then some of you can repost them to the list and see if they make it through.) > By the logic of Tim and others, a clever and dedicated crusade >against Cypherpunks by any minimally-organized group, bir or small -- your >local coven, CoS, RC bishops, FBI, Romanian Govt, , whomever! -- could have >destroyed the List at any time in the past. I'm glad they never realized >how vulnerable we were; I've enjoyed this Community greatly in its current >manifestation. The list was not destroyed when S. Boxx/Pablo Escobar/anon12054/Detweiler/vznuri was blasting us with dozens of messages a day screaming that "tentacles were eating his brain" and that Cypherpunks were out to destroy him. Believe me, for those who were there, that was a topic of much greater daily discussion than the insult-a-day stuff is today. (And yet, because journalists now frequent the CP list in greater numbers than 2-3 years ago, at least two journalists are sniffing around for a story on the current situation, where essentially none were very interested in the Detweiler episode a couple of years ago, which was good. I recall John Markoff asking me about it at Hackers, in 1993, but he didn't see it as an especially significant story. I agree with this.) > I also hate to think of how gleeful the sociopaths who mail-bombed >us into the choice of submission or suicide must be today. I think it is a >particularly henious crime to destroy a virtual community; something akin to >book-burning, but maybe more like arson -- like burning village schools. > > There was a willful attempt to destroy C'punks, an attack of depth and >volume which led many of us (even those who had ignored at least three >earlier efforts to offer filtered subsets to the List) to welcome the >Moderation Experiment. Unfortunately, the attempt at moderation just twisted >our own energies against ourselves. We were, perhaps predictably, quite >easy to manipulate. On this I agree with Vin. The "censorship" episodes were the predictable outcome of such attacks, and this "psy-ops" experiment is a victory by whoever it was who was attacking. Detweiler failed to get the list to start censorship and "limitations of anarchic freedoms," but the current attacker has succeeded. --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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: Fuck UseNet
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> So, basically, you're saying that the flight from censorship should > be toward a new CypherPunk 'home' where one is effectively censored > automatically unless one kisses the ass of a Cabal? Absolutely, It is really, as far as I see it anyway, just a stop-gap measure. The caballers haven`t got enough room to do their censorship on the 18000 or so big 7 groups so they decide to fuck up the alt. heirachy as well ;-) Hopefully Igor and co.`s network of Majordomo's should be fully operational soon (as I understand it two are up and a third is on it's way) then we can move back there. Might even get it finished before the 20th????? Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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