December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Republic of Texas seperatist go on trial [CNN]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > TRIAL SET FOR REPUBLIC OF TEXAS SEPARATISTS > > > > ALPINE, Texas (Reuters) - Texas separatists who held off police in a > seven-day armed standoff in May before surrendering are to go on > trial this week on charges of engaging in organized criminal > activity. > > Republic of Texas "ambassador" Richard McLaren and three of his > followers could face up to 99 years in prison if found guilty of the > first-degree state felony charges. > > McLaren and his bodyguard Robert "White Eagle" Otto are facing trial > together, as are Gregg and Karen Paulson, a married couple who also > joined the Republic of Texas group. > > All four defendants claim that Texas was illegally annexed by the > United States in 1845 and that neither state or federal courts have > jurisdiction over them. > > Prosecutors allege McLaren and his followers are common criminals > who used the rhetoric of Texas independence as a cover for > fraudulent schemes aimed at taking property away from individuals > and businesses. > > McLaren, his wife and several other Republic members also face > separate federal fraud and conspiracy charges for allegedly issuing > $1.8 billion in bogus financial warrants. > > Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

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Re: Orthogonal (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 16:33:58 -0800 > From: Kent Crispin <kent(a)bywater.songbird.com> > Subject: Re: Orthogonal > The first context where I am aware of this use of the term orthogonal > is from language design -- it was promoted by Niklaus Wirth and other > purists, with languages like Pascal, Modula, CLU, and so on. Larry > Wall's "perl" language, with its slogan "there's more than one way to > do it", is a direct revolt against the language purists. > > The basic idea is that a computer language should have the minimum > number of constructs necessary to span the intended application. So > for example, you don't provide hyperbolic trig functions, because the > user can implement them using simpler math functions. On the other > hand, you do supply commonly used math functions that would otherwise > require iterative algorithms. > > I do believe the use of the term this way was inspired by the > notion of a 'basis' in a vector space -- a set of orthogonal > vectors that span the space, ideally, unit vectors. Can you better define the term 'basis'? I can see the union 'build complicated things out of basic building blocks' and the use of Occam's Razor (I'm as lazy as any other programmer) but fail to see how this maps to anything relating to the concept of orthogonal. Which clearly doesn't have any inherent minimalist cast. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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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cryptographic anecdotes
by Julian Assange 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm involved in producing a segment on cryptograpic issues for Radio National (ABC) to be aired latter this week. I have no problems with the technical issues but could use some (reliable) "colour" i.e small quirky or unusual anecdotes that will draw in and hold the larger order of listeners who don't otherwise have any cryptography/ cryptographic-policy background. e.g o RSA export-a-crypto-system .sig o algorithm tatoos (couldn't find any confirmation of this :() o if cryptography is arms, then US constitution right to bear arms o programming languages embody freedom of speech (patel) o (otoh) machine-understandable languages are not protected speech: as soon as a computer can understand Ulysses it's no-longer protected. (I'm not sure about Ulysses but Oracle and the computational linguistics groups at Edinburgh and MIT have code to perform summaries of the King James bible). Cheers, Julian. -- Prof. Julian Assange |"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your | Ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down proff(a)iq.org | people's throats." proff(a)gnu.ai.mit.edu | -- Howard Aiken

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Re: NAMBLA embattled -- mirror sites?
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anonymous wrote: > I'm not sure the right to free speech includes the right to endorse guys > fucking little boys, whether they give it a moniker like "transgenerational > love" or not. Any sex with a minor is rape, since they can't legally give > consent. All Hillary Klinton's "It Takes A Village" bullshit aside, I can't > see giving NAMBLA the same kind of protection as someone like Zundel. > > Ratbert I am being in agreement with Mr. Ratbert, here. I am seeing the writing of women in your country who write about the showing of their bare legs and the uncovering of their faces and I am thinking that this also should not get the protection of being able to write about such abominations. And making the rape with minors is also an abomination, unless you have bought them from their families, and then it is OK that you should write about it. I am stoning to death just last week a man who raped a ten year old girl without paying any dowry, and people should not write about this either. I would like to meet some cypherpunks girls with their faces uncovered sometimes, but just for the evening, OK? Mr. Ratali

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17 Dec '03

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Re: Orthogonality and Disaster Recovery (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 18:03:16 -0800 > From: David Sternlight <david(a)sternlight.com> > Subject: Re: Orthogonality and Disaster Recovery > > Do all E-Mail vendors need to be cryptologist?? > > If the client's e-mail is to be secure, yes. But let's be accurate here. I absolute agree we need to be accurate. To that end, it is not the applications that need security but rather the network and session layers. > > Do all cryptologist need > > to be application vendors?? Obviously not. > > Now that IS nonsensical because cryptology is a wide and deep art only a small > part of which has to do with mail applications themselves. In contrast, mail > applications to be secure must use encryption. There's some very muddy > thinking going on in your post. He said 'application vendors', not just mail. Pay attention to the details of the argument and quit trying to change the subject without specificaly noteing the change, otherwise known as a strawman. His muddy thinking doesn't stand alone. > > PGP is a tool much like a > > database is. The majority of vendors who develop apps that require a > > database do not go out and write their own, rather they use a database > > engine that is suited to their needs. > > Except for the occasional password protection, databases don't need encryption > to the extent e-mail does. I work everyday with the NSA, CIA, Dod, Army, SAIC, all the phone companies, many of the major banks, Intel, Human Genome Project, etc. Every one of these folks would disagree with you. In fact it was one of the motivating factors behind Tivoli comming out with their new Security Management application because vendors required us to move away from our custom databases and toward industry standards (Oracle, Sybase, Informix, DB2, DBMX, etc.) *AND* at the same time requiring a better security mechanism than the existing one we use (DES & Kerberos based). The reality of the market does not support your thesis. > You miss the point here. And you miss the many worked examples. RSA is selling > lots and lots of toolkits for lots and lots of money for in-line integration > into applications, not for pre- and post-processing. The former is the way to > go; the latter a kludge until something better comes along. Are they involved with the new Cryptographic Standard projects of the government and Tivoli - IBM? I don't think so, at least I still haven't seen them involved in any of the work I have had access to so far; much to my own personal disappointment. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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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by SHOP＠netsteward.cm 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Orthogonal (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 19:13:12 -0800 > From: Kent Crispin <kent(a)bywater.songbird.com> > Subject: Re: Orthogonal (fwd) > > > I do believe the use of the term this way was inspired by the > > > notion of a 'basis' in a vector space -- a set of orthogonal > > > vectors that span the space, ideally, unit vectors. > > > > Can you better define the term 'basis'? > > This is basic linear algebra: > > V a vector space -- the set of all (s1,s2,s3,...,sn), where si is an > element of the set of reals. Actualy si (scalars) can be rational, real, or complex. It is also possible to use more general structures such as fields. [1] Note that complex numbers numbers may be used, in other words a vector can be used to multiply another vector. > A set of vectors {v1,v2,...,vm} in V is A vector of vectors, and you haven't even really defined vector yet...:( > linearly independent if there is no set of scalars {c1,c2,...,cm} with > at least one non-zero element such that sum(ci*vi) == 0 Are you saying: (c1*v1)+(c2*v2)+...+(cn*vn) <> 0 where at least one ci is <>0, is some sort of test for membership in a vector space? What about, (1/c1*v1)+(-1/c2*v2)+(0*v3)...+(0*vn) = 0, 1 -1 if so it should be clear that except for the case of c=0 there is always a way to take two, which is clearly more than one, of the scalars and cause the sum to be zero. Now if you have a single non-zero scalar multiplier then it seems reasonable that you can create such a structure that is always <>0. > A set of > vectors S spans In other words 'are expressible in'? > a vector space V iff every element of V can be expressed > as a linear combination of the elements of S. ^^^^^^^^^^^ Need to better define this one. The operations that are applicable to a vector space are: [1] 1. Associative law of addition: (x+y)+z = x+(y+z) 2. Commutative law of addition: x+y=y+x 3. Existance of zero: x+0=x for all x in V 4. Existance of inverses: x+(-x)=0 5. Associative law of multiplication: a(bx)=(ab)x 6. Unital law: 1*x=x 7. First distributive law: a(x+y)=(a*x)+(a*y) 8. Second distributive law: (a+b)*x=(a*x)+(b*x) where x is of the form 'asubn(x^n)+bsubn-1(x^n-1)+...+asub1x+asub0' This is a remarkably circular definition to present. In clearer wording; The set of vectors S is expressible in a vector space V iff S is contained in V. While this may be a requirement or test for membership in a vector space (as used below) it doesn't qualify as a definition. > Finally, a basis for > V is a linearly independent set of vectors in V that spans V. A > space is finite dimensioned if it has a finite set for a basis. The ^^^ set of what? > standard basis (or natural basis) for a vector space of dimension n > is th set of vectors > > (1,0,0,...0) > (0,1,0,...0) > (0,0,1,...0) In other words, any 'vector' can be expressed as the sum of the multiplication of unit elements by some set of scalars. Is this definition something you just wrote or would you be so kind as to give the reference if it isn't. This definition uses 'basis', doesn't define it. You can't use a term to define the term, it's called circular reasoning. My question still stands, can you please better define 'basis'. Or is your claim that basis is simply a way of stating 'elements of unit magnitude'? Furthermore, a definition of vector space has nothing to do with orthogonal measurement systems, it does have to do with polynomials. It just so happens that this sort of geometry shares the same sort of rules, that doesn't make them the same thing. There is nothing in your description, in particular the nifty little (*,*,*,...*)'s that implies any sort of measurement system based on line-segment axis that are 90 degrees apart, merely that there is more than one variable (ie x,y,z,...a) involved. Vector space - a vector space is a set of objects or elements that can be added together and multiplied by numbers (the result being an element of the set), in such a way that the usual rules of calculations hold. [1] ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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 | |____________________________________________________________________| [1] The VNR Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics Gellert, Kustner, Hellwich, Kastner ISBN 0-442-22646-2 17.3 Vector spaces pp. 362 [Hallowen Trivia] 'Dracula' is a word derived from 'dracul' meaning dragon and was given to Vlad Tepish, whose name means 'son of the devil', he was further known as Vlad the Impaler because he would impale people on poles and place them along the roads in Transylvania. When he died in 1496 his head was impaled on a stick as well.

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Re: poverty traps (Re: Sa (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Subject: Re: poverty traps (Re: Sa (fwd) > Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 23:40:15 -0600 (CST) > From: ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) > Jim Choate wrote: > > > Food: $600/month (generous) > > > > Hell, I'm single and come close to this and food costs in Texas are a LOT > > lower than in New York. Though I do eat out at lunch every weekday. And no, > > I don't go partying regularly at all. Way too busy with work (>16hrs/day > > 5 days a week & 16-20 on weekends) to do that other than a couple of times a > > month. I went to the store today and bought enough food for 4 days and it > > cost me $30. So that comes to something like $250 - $300 for me not counting > > lunches, and that's for just a single person. Multiply that for 6 and the > > numbers are considerably higher. > > Oh my Gawd! And I thought I was spending too much on food! I guess the > prices in OK are the same as in TX. >From the times I have been in Oklahoma (my family is ensconced along the Red River - Murphies, Joneses, Peoples, etc.) I would say the costs are about the same. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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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DoS
by Robert A. Hayden 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This was forwarded to me in house. Just FYI. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 09:38:28 -0600 From: Chris Silker <csilker(a)means.net> MCI RELEASES FREE DENIAL OF SERVICE TRACKER SECURITY TOOL MCI has released an interesting piece of software called the Denial of Service Tracker (DoS). The security program helps track the source of denial of service attacks, which aim to overload a target computer system to the point that it's unusable for anything else. According to MCU, the DoS Tracker works against SYN, ICMP flood, bandwidth saturation, and concentrated source attacks, and is currently being modified to detect other DoS-based attacks, including a new attack called the Smurf. The info, a free download, and all the technical information is at the site. A must have for sysops. <http://www.security.mci.net/dostracker> =-=-=-=-=-= Robert Hayden rhayden(a)means.net UIN: 3937211 IP Network Administrator http://rhayden.means.net MEANS Telcom (612) 230-4416

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