December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

backtracking.....
by Bernardo B. Terrado 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Could someone point or tell me where and what good backtracking problems could I get (then I'll implement it in parallel). e.g. queen's tour knight's tour Could you give me new and interesting ones. Thank you very much.

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Manage your Assets, Simplify your Life---- Extensis Portfolio 4.0
by listmaster＠extensis.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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FW: Death, Politics and the Net
by Matthew James Gering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

...and I was just thinking the other day it would be cool to create a government blocking service maintaining a list of disallowed IPs and providing a click-thru redirect agreement complete with legal enforcement. ;) Matt -----Original Message----- From: James S. Tyre [mailto:j.s.tyre@CYBERPASS.NET] Sent: Friday, October 23, 1998 2:59 PM To: CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: Death, Politics and the Net [There *is* a cyberia connection in here, somewhere, I think.] I'm sure you all (in the U.S., at least) have heard of the murdered Tennessee state senator, and that his opponent in the upcoming election is now charged with the crime. Well, turns out that the boys aren't just from anywhere in TN, but from Putnam County, home of the cookie-monster suit between the local guvvies and the Putnam Pit <http://www.putnampit.com/>. So, always interested in alternative viewpoints, thought I'd see what the Pit had to say, in it's own inimitable way. Found that its home page now says what follows. Thought it might interest some, for reasons unrelated to the alleged crime. ---- Welcome to The Putnam Pit online Because of the costs associated with producing The Putnam Pit caused by local government civil rights violations, government officials, employees and their agents may no longer access this site without a subscription. This site is a private forum. It is private property and protected by copyright law and the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution. If you do not work for or represent the Cookeville or Putnam County, Tenn., governments, are not using a government computer or government Internet account and agree no portion of any material posted here will be made available to the governments of Cookeville or Putnam County, Tenn., or their agents, click here for free access. Notice to employees, officials or agents of the Cookeville or Putnam County, Tenn., governments, and those using a government computer or government Internet account: If you are an employee, official or agent of the Cookeville or Putnam County, Tenn., governments, or you are using a government computer or government Internet account you must purchase a subscription to access The Putnam Pit. A subscription costs $20 and may be obtained by sending a check to The Putnam Pit, P.O. Box 1483, Cookeville, Tenn. 38503. If you access any page of the material managed and owned by The Putnam Pit, Inc., without a subscription, you agree by that access to pay $500 per incident of access to each page accessed every time you access it. You further agree to waive all rights to contest collection of any debt thereby incurred, and enter into this agreement on behalf of the government entity on whose computer or through whose Internet account your access was facilitated. You further represent by clicking below and accessing The Putnam Pit's private and copyrighted property to allow The Putnam Pit or its agents to inspect the hard drive of your computer to determine the number of times the site was accessed according to he terms of this contract to determine the amount owed. click here

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Oct. 27 column -- Halloween
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Resent-Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 23:17:25 -0700 Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 22:06:53 -0800 (PST) X-Sender: vin(a)dali.lvrj.com Mime-Version: 1.0 To: vinsends(a)ezlink.com From: Vin_Suprynowicz(a)lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz) Subject: Oct. 27 column -- Halloween Resent-From: vinsends(a)ezlink.com X-Mailing-List: <vinsends(a)ezlink.com> archive/latest/576 X-Loop: vinsends(a)ezlink.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: vinsends-request(a)ezlink.com FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 27, 1998 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz Thoughts on the occasion of the October moon The column for which I receive the most "repeat" requests remains my 1992 Halloween submission, "Thoughts on the occasion of the October moon." That essay follows here, as it originally appeared: # # # Halloween approaches, the day when many an American parent will suit up the little ones in black robes, matching 17th century conical hats, and oversized warty noses, sending them off to delight the neighbors with this impersonation of a witch, as traditionally represented from 17th century Austrian paintings of the Hexensabbat right up through Disney's "Snow White." Even the newspapers generally play along, running the results of polls that ask Americans how many actually believe in such mythological creatures as ghosts, trolls and witches. But witches are not mythological creatures, of course. They were the very real practitioners of a religion which pre-dated Christianity in Europe, and which had coexisted quite peaceably with the new Christian church for more than 1,000 years, from the Council of Nicaea until the fateful year 1484 A.D., under the quite sensible rule of the Canon Episcopi, which instructed Christian clerics through all those years that -- in cases where sorcery or commerce with the devil was charged but could not be proven -- it was the accuser, not the accused, who was to suffer the penalty for those crimes. Needless to say, this held false charges to a minimum. All that changed after 1484, when an ambitious but ethically challenged Dominican friar and embezzler by the name of Heinrich Kramer managed to convince Pope Innocent VIII to set the Holy Office of the Inquisition onto the witches, using torture to extract confessions, authorizing anonymous accusations without any right for the accused to face her accuser, and granting the soon-busy witch-hunters the rights to seize and divide the estates of the accused (who were always found guilty), an invitation to systematic legal looting so foul that it was never allowed again in Western history ... until our current War on Drugs, of course. As many as 9 million persons -- some doubtless practitioners of the Old Craft, but many, especially in later years, just as doubtless falsely accused -- were burned or hanged before the burning times faded away with a kind of embarrassed shrug in the early 1700s. The crime of which they were accused? Worshipping a female deity, a goddess of the earth, and her male consort, the goat-horned male god of fertility. Christian clerics, themselves mostly illiterate, called this female deity "the abomination," which has subsequently been interpreted to mean the horned devil of Hebrew tradition. But practitioners of a fertility cult would have had little reason to mock the late-comer Christianity by hanging crosses upside down or reciting masses backwards. "Satanism," to the extent that it ever existed (and I suspect more black masses were chanted on London film sets in the 1960s and '70s than anywhere in the four centuries preceding), is a very different thing. # # # Why should we care about the fate of the witches? For starters, it appears the witches stressed not the superiority of either sex over the other, but rather a balance between male and female principles -- an obvious notion for early agriculturalists trying to come to a metaphorical understanding of the germination of crops in the "mother" earth thanks to the intervention of those primeval "male" agencies, the sun and the rain. But the culture which destroyed the witches was not merely male-dominated. The history of our European ancestors of the 16th and 17th centuries presents a spectacle of bloodthirsty intolerance, a perverse catalogue of self-flagellation and repulsion at sexuality which found outlet only in the frenzied drive to conquer and enslave both the natural world and any other culture that presented itself. No matter how we may celebrate their competitive superiority from a safe distance, this was clearly a bunch of sick puppies. Was it the plagues, which quite often left the continent literally in the hands of teenagers? Whatever the reason, using their superior technology of sail and cannon, and helped mightily by bacteriological allies to which they had developed at least partial immunity, the Europeans didn't merely conquer the indigenous populations of the Americas, they ruthlessly eradicated whole cultures, and with them any medical or other knowledge they might have had to offer, sweeping all aside as the "spawn of the devil." Meantime, European women were being stripped of their property and other rights (many "witches," curiously, were widows of independent means), at precisely the time when their presense in the councils of church and state might have maintained some semblance of sanity. The Europeans of the time adopted little of our hypocritical modern-day pretense of being horrified at "drug use" per se -- they happily imported coffee, tobacco, opium, and cocaine. In fact, they forced the opium trade on China when it proved to be the only thing for which the Chinese would trade silver bullion. But while they reveled in novel forms of drunkenness, what did horrify those brave conquerors was the use of any hallucinogenic substance as a means to religious revelation, a superstitious dread of alternative paths to spiritual enlightenment which still hangs on in our aforementioned and thoroughly irrational "War on Drugs." (Which drug is involved in more incidents of spouse battery and inter-family murder by a factor of millions-to-1: alcohol or LSD? Which will get you 20 years in the federal pen, while the other now comes in convenient "wide-mouth 12-packs"?) The wholesale eradication of the cultures of the Aztecs and the Incas was justified not because of their practice of slavery and ritual slaughter -- Pizarro and Cortes would have found those familiar enough -- but because they were found to be using peyotl, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and ololiuhqui (a variety of morning glory seed) in their religious rituals, sure signs of "witchcraft," and coincidentally a method of seeking direct revelations from the gods which really delivered the goods -- hardly fair competition for the modest little Spanish communion wafer. Why did the conquistadors relate such practices to the witches back home? Because the witches, too, in a triumph of empirical science (Northern Europe has no reliably safe natural hallucinogens), had found ways to turn such normally deadly poisons as henbane, monkshood, and belladonna into an externally-applied ointment which would promote religious revelation by inducing a sensation of flying, followed by ecstatic visions. (The stuff worked best when applied to the mucous membranes with a smooth wooden rod or staff -- the "witch's broomstick" of our modern Halloween.) This was the great evil of the witches, and the justification for destroying millennia of the (start ital)materia medica(end ital) which they had gathered -- the traditional folk knowledge of medicinal plants which was largely destroyed with the Wise Women of 16th and 17th century Europe, and which we are only painfully piecing together again today. # # # It's commonly held that this order of midwives and herbal healers were a superstitious lot, rejecting the more "scientific" advances of the academically trained doctors of their time. The truth is just the opposite. What could be more scientific than carefully observing and noting the effects of medicinal herbs over a period of generations? What could be a more superstitious pile of nonsense than the theories of the 2nd century quack Galen, whose theory that health is dominated by the "four humours" remained gospel for centuries, refined with the addition of harsh purgatives and the exquisite nonsense of blood-letting? So fatal was the standard practice of medicine in the centuries after the witches were eliminated that most leading statesmen of the time -- George Washington included -- died while being bled by doctors. (Washington woke up with a sore throat at the age of 67, and died within 48 hours after receiving a cathartic enema, being dosed with poisonous mercury and antimony, and having literally half his blood -- four pints -- drained from his body, all in keeping with the best medical advice of the day.) All three of Louis XVI's elder brothers were killed by the blood-letting of physicians during youthful illnesses. The last direct heir to the Bourbon throne was preserved only after the queen mother bundled him away to a locked room and refused on pain of death to let any of the court physicians have at him. Superstition? Ask most modern patients whether they would rather be injected with a purified white extract, or swallow a tea made from the same herb, and see whether there isn't a "superstitious" preference for the power of the magic syringe or even for surgery over the remedy in its naturally-occurring form, even when the latter offers better control of dosage and side effects. Chew up a bunch of bug-eaten leaves? How primitive! The ancient Egyptians were fighting infection with fruit molds as early as the date of the Ebers papyrus, but thousands had to die of pneumonia, puerperal fever and meningitis, all through the late Middle Ages and right through the 19th century, before Fleming could get anyone to take another look at penicillin. It was with similar reluctance -- and not until 1795, when Napoleon seemed likely to put them all out of business unless they got practical in a hurry -- that the established brotherhood of "scientific" physicians finally acknowledged that the "old wives' remedy," lemon juice, was a better cure for naval scurvy than all their acids and caustic salts put together. # # # This is the tradition of ignorance, intolerance, and futility which we honor when we dress up our children to ridicule warty old witches, or when we protest (as parents groups in Le Mesa, Calif. and elsewhere continue to do every year) that Roald Dahls' book "The Witches" should be banned from school libraries because it "portrays witches as ordinary-looking women." Only the dimming effects of time -- and the fact that the Inquisition pretty much got them all -- render this outrage acceptable. To find a modern parallel, imagine the (fully appropriate) public outcry if it were discovered that some small town in Bavaria, from which for some undisclosed reason all the Jewish families disappeared in 1942, had since decided to launch a new Halloween custom, in which many of the town's blonde-haired little children were dressed up in yarmulkes and artificially large beaked noses, and sent out to play pranks and demand loot under the guise of being "nasty little Jews." Imagine further that the more religious local townfolk demanded the removal of certain children's books from the local library, because they depicted Jews as "people or ordinary human appearance." A healthy skepticism about many of our modern-day "witches" and some of their New Age mumbo jumbo may be in order ... though surely it's not up to us to choose which of their exotic notions it's "acceptable" to explore. But shall we extend our inherited intolerance to the many serious researchers now trying to rediscover the healing properties of plants, to overcome centuries of medical libel designed to convince us that mild-mannered natural remedies which can take weeks to rebuild our immunities are not worth our time, that the only valuable medicines are purified (and thus patentable) toxins that kill "bad" cells in a test tube, no matter how much damage they cause the "host organism" in the process? Excepting the odd mountain hamlet in Gwynedd, the Tirol, and the Hebrides, our direct links to the Wise Women of old are probably lost for good. But rediscovering their worldview, a beneficent vision of humankind inextricably balanced in nature's mandala, is a journey well worth beginning anew -- perhaps even on the night of the Samhain moon. # # # Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin(a)lvrj.com. The web sites for the Suprynowicz column are at http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm, and http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/. Watch for Vin's book, "Send in the Waco Killers," coming from Huntington Press in February, 1999. The column is syndicated in the United States and Canada via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127. *** Vin Suprynowicz, vin(a)lvrj.com The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. -- John Hay, 1872 The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943 * * * --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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IP: Look Who's Minding The Store
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 05:13:01 -0500 (EST) To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com From: softwar(a)us.net (CharlesSmith) Subject: IP: Look Who's Minding The Store Sender: owner-ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Precedence: list Reply-To: softwar(a)us.net (CharlesSmith) http://www.worldnetdaily.com/smith/981027_cs_look_whos_mindi.shtml William Reinsch is the Under Secretary for Export Administration (BXA) from the U.S. Commerce Department. Mr. Reinsch has been with the Commerce Department since 1994, starting his service under Ron Brown. As head of BXA, Reinsch is charged with administering and enforcing American high-tech export control policies and anti-boycott laws. Reinsch controls billions of dollars in American technology exports from his position at BXA. For example, Reinsch controls high-speed computers, advanced secure communications systems and encryption software. According to the Commerce Department, Reinsch's job also includes helping "Russia and other newly emerging nations develop effective export controls systems and convert their defense industries to civilian production." Interestingly, Mr. Reinsch has zero experience in either technical matters or military affairs. Reinsch's only qualification is that he was an aide to Senator Rockefeller and former Senator Heniz. This is quite unusual for a person charged with such an export job involving the international "defense" industry. According to the Commerce Department, Reinsch's only business experience consists of "President of the Saint Mark Elderly Housing Corporation." It is certain that Reinsch's business experience running rental housing for the aged has little application toward the export of advanced defense related equipment to Russia and China such as super-computers. Yet, during Mr. Reinsch's tenure a wide range of advanced technology has been shipped outright to China, India and Russia. I once had the opportunity to ask Mr. Reinsch about one specific transfer he worked on in 1995 for Loral. According to Commerce documentation, Mr. Reinsch exchanged a series of highly classified memos with Commerce lawyer Bettie Baca on the export of Loral GLOBALSTAR satellites to be launched by the Russians. President Clinton signed the waiver for Loral to launch from the former Soviet Union in July 1996. Clinton's waiver included the transfer of encrypted telemetry control systems to China for the GLOBALSTAR satellites. I cornered Bill Reinsch in April 1998 at the Rayburn Congressional office building after a conference on President Clinton's encryption policy. At first, Mr. Reinsch claimed he did not author the documents on Loral satellite exports. I then presented an official list of items from the U.S. Commerce Department that showed he indeed did author the 1995 Loral memos. At this point Reinsch's face went pale and he ran from the room. I gave chase, demanding answers with tape recorder in hand, attracting the attention of several dozen Congressional staffers and a select few from the press as witnesses. Reinsch, however, was faster. He pushed past the crowded entrance and dashed down the Congressional hallway, running in full stride in his three-piece suit. Since then, Mr. Reinsch has refused all requests for an interview. Until recently, Reinsch controlled commercial satellite exports. President Clinton passed the authority to control satellite exports to the Commerce Department by executive order in 1996. Republican legislation signed by President Clinton in October 1998 puts that authority back to the State Department and the Defense Department. Another example of Mr. Reinsch and his experience with the defense industry through elderly housing is the export of high speed computers to Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons labs. In 1995 Bill Reinsch wrote a memo to Ron Brown detailing a secret meeting with a group of computer CEOs, consisting of Apple, AT&T, Compaq, Cray, Silicon Graphics, Digital Equipment Corporation, Tandem, Sun and Unisys. The group is called the CSPP or Computer Systems Policy Project. CSPP computer executives have backed Clinton since 1992 with big bucks. For example, Apple's chairman John Schully is a major donor to the Clinton campaigns and a long time supporter. In 1995 the CSPP lobby group was led by Ken Kay, an employee of Tony Podesta, the brother of White House advisor John Podesta. John Podesta is now Clinton's Chief of Staff. In 1995, John Podesta worked at the White House running encryption and super computer policy. During the same period of time, the CSPP and Clinton officials began a series of classified briefings on encryption and super computer export policy. In 1995 IBM and Silicon Graphics sold super-computers directly to Russian Atomic weapon labs. IBM has since been fined $8.5 million on the $7 million sale. In fact, Commerce spokesman Eugene Cotilli pointed out in October 1998 that the Commerce Department investigation led to the conviction. Of course, Commerce did not start investigating until the Russian minister in charge of MINATOM (Ministry of Atomics) announced publicly the U.S. computers would be used for nuclear weapons research. Cotilli also did not deny that there is NO investigation of CSPP member Silicon Graphics and their sale of four super computers to Russian nuclear engineers at the Chelyabinsk-70 weapons lab in the fall of 1996. Thus, while IBM is convicted - Clinton supporter and Podesta associate client Silicon Graphics remains uninvestigated. In 1998, White House Special Counsel to the President Michael B. Waitzkin wrote "In January 1997, Mr. Podesta resigned his part-time position at Podesta Associates and returned to the White House as Deputy Chief of Staff. Mr. Podesta was requested by Senior Administration Officials to undertake certain responsibilities with respect to encryption policy. He did not, however, undertake these responsibilities until he received specific approval from the White House Counsel's Office with respect to his involvement in these matters." Thus, Mr. Podesta sought and obtained approval for his conflict of interest in 1997. Whether John and Tony Podesta shared a conflict of interest in 1995 has so far remained unresolved but not uninvestigated. House investigators in the Cox/Dix committee and on the House National Security Committee have sought information on the CSPP and John Podesta. Mr. John Podesta refuses to be interviewed. The fact is, Podesta Associate employee Ken Kay made thousands of dollars in donations to the DNC in 1994 and 1995. Yet, according to CSPP lawyer C. Boyden Gray, Ken Kay only donated $2,500 of which $1,250 was returned by the DNC in the form of a painting. According to official Federal Election Commission records, none of Mr. Kay's donations totaled to $2,500 or $1,250. Mr. Kay also will not respond to interview requests. The CSPP is, in part, still funded by the taxpayer. The CSPP is now helping the Clinton administration design the next generation internet and getting paid to do it. Obviously, many of the CSPP members will benefit financially as each new Internet contract is offered and they sell more equipment. In 1998 CSPP lawyer C. Boyden Gray claimed that official Clinton secret meetings began in November 1995. Reinsch, however, clearly wrote to Ron Brown about an earlier secret meeting in June of 1995, when Tony Podesta employed Ken Kay and John Podesta was charged with computer oversight policy. The materials given to CSPP members at the White House on encryption are considered so sensitive that they have no public classification level such as secret or top secret. The true secrets of Clinton's encryption policy involve hidden back doors and exploitable features built into computer products. The secrets given to CSPP members involved classified means of electronic surveillance to be built inside domestic products by the manufacturers. The Clinton administration offered billions of tax dollars as incentive to bug every fax, phone and computer built. Clinton offered military chip designs backed by decades of cold war research. The CSPP was given access to military algorithms and taxpayer funded programs as incentives to adopt a secret "back-door" concept for computers and communications. William Reinsch, John Podesta, Ken Kay and the DNC all refuse to comment on Bill Clinton's secret project to bug America and the world. =================================================================== William Reinsch & CSPP Source Document index - http://www.softwar.net/reinsch.html ================================================================ 1 if by land, 2 if by sea. Paul Revere - encryption 1775 Charles R. Smith SOFTWAR http://www.softwar.net softwar(a)softwar.net Pcyphered SIGNATURE: 3B7CB41BBBE190B12082FA2032662C126449AADEFF70F107EFB810A50A8E6892 2EFAA5B363ABEB33D85F23BCBE60C4416359D229F36E4703348090FDC45794FC 7C2CC1D8D72F6184 ================================================================ SOFTWAR EMAIL NEWSLETTER 10/27/1998 *** to unsubscribe reply with "unsubscribe" as subject *** ================================================================ **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **************************************************** --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Moore is Moore
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com X-Sender: believer(a)telepath.com Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 05:38:30 -0600 To: believer(a)telepath.com From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Atomic Chip Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Precedence: list Reply-To: believer(a)telepath.com Tuesday 27 Oct, 1998 NOW - THE ATOMIC CHIP Scientists at the Technical University of Denmark said today they have created an atom-sized computer chip, in which a single hydrogen atom jumping to and fro generates a binary code. And the technique operates at room temperatures. It means a million CDs could fit onto one disc. But it is not expected to become commercial for some years. The university's Microelectronics Centre, which carried out the research, is at http://www.mic.dtu.dk **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **************************************************** --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Oct. 30 column -- playing out the clock
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Resent-Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 23:24:55 -0700 Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 22:16:50 -0800 (PST) X-Sender: vin(a)dali.lvrj.com Mime-Version: 1.0 To: vinsends(a)ezlink.com From: Vin_Suprynowicz(a)lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz) Subject: Oct. 30 column -- playing out the clock Resent-From: vinsends(a)ezlink.com X-Mailing-List: <vinsends(a)ezlink.com> archive/latest/579 X-Loop: vinsends(a)ezlink.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: vinsends-request(a)ezlink.com FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 30, 1998 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz Gamely playing out the clock in a hopeless contest Every even-numbered year, literally scores of candidates come trooping through the offices of the newspaper where I work, seeking our endorsement for every office from constable or justice of the peace, to governor or U.S. senator. Playing out the game by the established rules, we cross-question them on their little memorized spiels about how they "respect the Second Amendment" and "want to make government more efficient and more responsive to the people's needs." By and large, those candidates who start out insisting they "respect the Second Amendment" will quickly agree with any new hare-brained scheme you can propose to register or restrict where folks can carry guns, or to ban people from owning "really dangerous" semi-automatic weapons or concealable handguns, for which "obviously no one can have a legitimate use." (Uzis seem to be a favorite weapon for which "no one can have a legitimate use" this year. The only ones available in local gun shops are semi-autos, of course -- essentially a 9mm handgun with a shoulder stock.) Naturally, those who "want to make government more efficient" can rarely name a single government office or program they'd close. But every year, a few candidates show up who actually understand a little economics, have read the Constitution, and volunteer that the purpose of government is to protect individual rights. Pinching ourselves and wondering how they "slipped through," every year we celebrate these few brave souls in our editorial pages. Many people vote for them. And then what happens? Taxes go up, more laws are passed, government grows more intrusive, and our rights are eroded faster than ever. How come? Well, of course, not all the candidates we endorse get elected. A certain number of incumbent redistributionists are "automatically" returned by the voters, no matter what we say or do. Fine: A newspaper has no dictatorial powers, nor should it. But what's more discouraging is how little difference these well-intentioned people seem to make even if they do get elected to the state legislature, or the Congress, or wherever they're headed. I've been in the newspaper business for 25 years. Call me a cynic -- I'll respond that it's simply an objective observation: No matter who we elect, it doesn't matter any more. Government is a machine that crunches anyone you send into it into a cog or gear of the required shape and size to keep the machine running and growing. Why are fewer and fewer folks registering to vote, or showing up at the polls? Vote for the most radical of Libertarians, he will get 4 percent of the vote, and nothing will change. They still won't let him into the TV debates next year, and no corporation will hand him the protection money which we still daintily call "campaign contributions." Vote for (start ital)and elect(end ital) the most radical-sounding "less government" Republican you can find, and the best result will be a government that grows at the rate of 7 percent next year, instead of 8 percent. You will still have to get fingerprinted to obtain your new driver's license, there will still be armed soldiers at the airports strip-searching people "to prevent terrorism and drug-running" (starting next year), and your take-home pay will still be a smaller percentage of your gross earnings next year than it was last year. Oh, these things are never accomplished overnight, say the eternal optimists. Besides, these are all just a bunch of cynical generalities. OK: Let's get specific. in my next column, I will present you with five or six races in which the Las Vegas Review-Journal -- largest newspaper in Nevada -- has made loud, strident, forceful endorsements in Election '98. The five or six candidates the newspaper endorsed may astound you with just how dedicated to personal liberties and limited government they sound, given that they are all "electable" (that is to say -- from one of the "major parties.") But if each voter could personally interview every candidate on his or her Nov. 3 ballot for half-an-hour apiece, not allowing them to get away with any slick double-talk, I daresay you too could find and vote for five or six "viable" candidates in your own town and state who sound just as "libertarian." Then you too could have the experience of seeing them go to the capital and vote for new tax hikes and more gun control laws, vote to send away harmless minority kids for even longer terms in the pen for "getting high" on harmless vegetable extracts, authorize more restrictions of our economic freedom and invasions of our privacy, and then give you a look of shock when you tell them you're disappointed. "But that bill had some good stuff in it!" they will insist. "No bill is perfect. You always have to compromise on something to get things done. We had to make our gun licensing rules just a little stricter, in the hopes our permits will now be recognized by other states. And as for the fingerprinting for the new driver's license, most people favor that, since it will make it much harder for someone else to cash your checks if they're stolen." Next time: five excellent and "viable" candidates, and why voting for them probably won't make a bit of difference at all. Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin(a)lvrj.com. *** Vin Suprynowicz, vin(a)lvrj.com The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. -- John Hay, 1872 The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943 * * * --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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SNET: [FP] Microsoft puts smart card on table
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: st005940(a)brandywine.otago.ac.nz Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 16:08:19 +1300 To: snetnews(a)world.std.com From: "ScanThisNews" <mcdonalds(a)airnet.net> (by way of jeremy.compton(a)stonebow.otago.ac.nz (Jeremy Compton)) Subject: SNET: [FP] Microsoft puts smart card on table Sender: snetnews-approval(a)world.std.com Precedence: list Reply-To: snetnews(a)world.std.com -> SNETNEWS Mailing List ====================================================================== SCAN THIS NEWS 10/26/98 Microsoft puts smart card on table http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C27923%2C00.html?dd.ne.tx.fs6.1026 By Tim Clark Staff Writer, CNET News.com October 26, 1998 Update: Microsoft tomorrow will announce an extension of its Windows operating system for smart cards, a company spokesman said today. Smart cards, which have very limited memory and processing power, are about the size of a credit card and embedded with a computer chip. The technology is used for storing data on mobile phones, banking online, and paying for phone calls and public transit fares. Microsoft vice president Paul Maritz is scheduled to announce the operating system initiative tomorrow at Cartes 98, a conference on smart card technology in Paris. A new system from Microsoft could bring more acceptance of smart cards in the United States. Smart cards have been used in Europe, which holds more than 80 percent of the market, but have been slow to progress in America, at least in part beacuse of the lack of a standard operating system. Microsoft is bidding to enter that arena, but Sun Microsystems is already active in that space with its JavaCard specification. In addition, Mondex, an e-cash company controlled by MasterCard has its MultOS system designed so cards with different operating systems can work together. The company's interest in smart cards parallels its strategy with Windows CE, a stripped-down version of its PC operating system for consumer electronics devices. In April, Microsoft announced a version of Windows CE for automobiles, gas pumps, industrial controllers, and other uses. The smart-card initiative seeks to go after even smaller, cheaper devices--particularly when rival Sun is targeting the same business. The Microsoft spokesman said card developers could use existing Windows tools to work with their software. The annual Paris show is a major showcase for the smart card industry. Schlumberger, a major French manufacturer of smart cards, today unveiled new software for its cards that transforms a smart card into a security device to identify its holder. Many PC makers have said they will produce machines with smart-card readers built in, a capability that Microsoft has provided in its desktop PC operating systems. Microsoft has a certification and logo program that indicates smart card systems work with Windows NT. ======================================================================= Don't believe anything you read on the Net unless: 1) you can confirm it with another source, and/or 2) it is consistent with what you already know to be true. ======================================================================= Reply to: <fingerprint(a)networkusa.org> ======================================================================= To subscribe to the free Scan This News newsletter, send a message to <majordomo(a)efga.org> and type "subscribe scan" in the BODY. Or, to be removed type "unsubscribe scan" in the message BODY. For additional instructions see www.efga.org/about/maillist.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "Scan This News" is Sponsored by S.C.A.N. Host of the "FIGHT THE FINGERPRINT!" web page: www.networkusa.org/fingerprint.shtml ======================================================================= -> Send "subscribe snetnews " to majordomo(a)world.std.com -> Posted by: "ScanThisNews" <mcdonalds(a)airnet.net> (by way of jeremy.compton(a)stonebow.otago.ac.nz (Jeremy Compton)) --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Oct. 29 column -- twilight of an era
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Resent-Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 23:21:30 -0700 Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 22:13:20 -0800 (PST) X-Sender: vin(a)dali.lvrj.com Mime-Version: 1.0 To: vinsends(a)ezlink.com From: Vin_Suprynowicz(a)lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz) Subject: Oct. 29 column -- twilight of an era Resent-From: vinsends(a)ezlink.com X-Mailing-List: <vinsends(a)ezlink.com> archive/latest/578 X-Loop: vinsends(a)ezlink.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: vinsends-request(a)ezlink.com FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 29, 1998 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz Twilight of the Gods We seem to be entering the twilight of an era. Changes in our society -- consider the erosion of personal liberties, and even the notion that sticking up for our personal liberties is a good thing ("He wouldn't give his Social Security number when he tried to register to vote? He owned an unregistered firearm? He wouldn't volunteer any information on his tax form? Then he deserved whatever happened to him. I'm sorry they burned up the wife and baby, too, but he brought it on himself") -- have been occurring incrementally over the past 86 years. Hence, the popular notion that future change will continue to be equally gradual. Even "legitimate" Libertarian Party political candidates now patiently explain to me that since the current police/welfare state took 60 to 90 years to put in place, there's no sense alarming anyone by shouting radical ideas about legalizing heroin or machine guns. No, no. These "modern" Libertarians -- respectable middle-aged entrepreneurs in respectable coats and striped ties -- patiently explain that they only wish to move us back toward slightly less government, slightly lower taxes, and the restoration of a few personal liberties at a time. Nothing for anyone to get frightened about. The problem is, neither human nor geologic history seem to bear out this notion of a pendulum swinging steadily back and forth. The era of the swamp-dwelling dinosaurs seems to have continued for hundreds of thousands of years without much change. But ice core samples and ocean sediments now indicate the freeze that killed them may have taken as few as five years. Social and political change in France was pretty gradual from 1480 to 1780. Would one thus have been safe in assuming that things wouldn't be likely to change much from 1780 and 1795? A whole lot of folks went to the guillotine based on that assumption. Our ability to sense the imminent end of an era is seriously hampered by a part of human nature modern psychiatry calls "denial." The loss of familiar things -- even if we know in our hearts they are rotten -- is frightening. Thus, we tend to hope the signs are wrong, and to cling to what is familiar. Is this another one of these rants about how the inability of our computers to process the date "2000" is going to cause an instant reversion to the Stone Age? No -- though such computer malfunctions and shutdowns certainly will occur, creating pockets of panic and accelerated uncertainty about just how reliable our "foolproof" government and economic "systems" really are. But the number of things that are rotten in America -- and thus in "Western civilization" -- has simply grown too large. And as each one fails, it will help to pull down the next. Large dams do not develop small leaks. We could talk about the imminent collapse of the largest, most profligate, most unproductive and socially poisonous make-work social engineering scheme ever devised, the mandatory government youth propaganda camps (you may call them "public schools.") When the cost of things that don't work exceeds what people can pay, they just walk away. That's why the stone temples of the Maya were abandoned long before Cortez showed up, and why most of the nuclear submarines of the Russian Navy now sit rusting at their piers. There was never any popular vote to "shut down the Soviet Navy." Everyone just went home. We could talk about the inevitable failure of the little Dutch boy sticking his fingers in the financial dikes of Mexico, Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Brazil -- the International Monetary Fund, the failure of which is likely to soon bring down another 20th century institution which we have come to assume could never fail, the vast leveraged Ponzi scheme known as "government chartered fractional reserve banking." (Imagine an evil wizard made the stock market disappear, along with your stockbroker and your bank. For awhile, you might wonder what you would live on in your "retirement." Then it would dawn on you: What "retirement"? "Retirement" at a fixed age was a notion introduced by the 19th century socialists, who believed there was a fixed number of jobs in the world (duh), and that the only way to guarantee work to the young was therefore to "pension off" the oldsters. "Retirement" is a completely artificial invention.) I could talk about the schools or the banks, scrambling around insisting it's not their fault; it's our fault for being too "greedy" to hand them ever-larger "bailouts." But I won't. Instead, since it's election time, I will talk about why the great experiment called "participatory democracy" is failing. Next time -- interviews with virtually every candidate in Southern Nevada produced five or six outstanding prospects this year: Why voting for them isn't likely to make a bit of difference. Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin(a)lvrj.com. The web sites for the Suprynowicz column are at http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm, and http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/. The column is syndicated in the United States and Canada via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127. *** Vin Suprynowicz, vin(a)lvrj.com The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. -- John Hay, 1872 The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943 * * * --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: IP: Uncle Sam Wants Spooks.
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:04 PM 10/26/98 -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote: > "We teach a concept called open source and > public domain intelligence -- that is, taking what > is in the public domain and creating new > knowledge by analysis and interpretation," he So does John Young, EFF, FAS, etc. > Applying for a job with the CIA is easy: Send a > resume. The CIA scans the resumes it gets Applying for a job with the NSA is easier. Just fax your resume. Doesn't matter where.

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