December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Flight 007 and our Civil Liberties
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The FBI has just completed a long press conference in which it reported its "no terrorist activity suspected" conclusions. Having watched most of it, and having seen the CIA animation shown at the press conference, I agree with their conclusions. (Cypherpunks arch-enemy James Kallstrom, Assistant Director of the FBI, nevertheless did a fine job, both in the investigation and in the reporting. Credit where credit is due.) However, now that the Flight 007 explosion has been ruled a non-terrorist event, will we get our freedoms back? The other big "terrorist event" of that summer of 1996 was the bomb in a crowd at the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. The "fits the profile" perp, Richard Jewell, was finally cleared of all charges. So, these were the two big events which stimulated the FAA, under higher orders, to require mandatory ID of all travelling passengers. And more multimillion dollar sniffers to be installed in airports. It seems that each such event ratchets down certain civil liberties, and even the later repudiation of terrorists and other Horsemen in these events never results in the liberties coming back.... --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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- Herbatrol Beats Them All -
by Afriend＠good-buddy-911.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Report on UN conference on Internet and racism
by Mikhael Frieden 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:53 PM 11/18/97 -0600, William H. Geiger III wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >I think that there is plenty of case law of extending constutional >protections to non-citizens. One that comes to mind were the rulings >against California inwhich the courts ruled the they were obligated to >provide schooling and social services to illegal aliens (a really fucked >rulling IMNSHO but if some good can come out of it no sense not making use >of it). In a much more fundamental sense, if they were not given constitutional protections they really could be rounded up and bussed across the border. -=-=- The 2nd guarantees all the rest.

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Re: Report on UN conference on Internet and racism
by Mikhael Frieden 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:33 PM 11/18/97 +0100, Peter Herngaard wrote: >Does the First Amendment prevent the Congress from passing >a law that would make it illegal for anyone who is outside the United >States to set up a web site in the U. S. in violation of a local speechcode? >For example, a German nazi organization could establish a WWW site in >California out of reach of German law. It is not against US law to claim to be or to be a Nazi so the action is legal in the US. >Would it be constitutional to make a law barring foreign citizens from >violating the speech codes of their home countries using a U. S. ISP? The US currently has laws governing foreign ownership of publications in the US. Ted Turner had to become a citizen. Don't remember the details but precedent for publications not intended primarily for US consumption. (A CNN of the future will be an interesting question.) At least by international custom, a person another country is bound by the laws of the country is in. Doing business in the US is bound by the laws of the US. A non-US citizen setting up a website in the US receives the same protections as anyone else doing business in the US. This is a principle of international commerce. As a matter of diplomacy, international conventions, such a law would not be passed. The larger issue is it would incorporate the foreign law into US law and in consequence case law stemming from it. At the moment, on more important issues like taxes, because there is no common tax law, even extradition for tax law violations is not possible. As to the constitutionality of it, strict reading says no. It is difficult to conceive that original intent would have meant Congress could have passed laws prohibiting speaking ill of the King of England. As to the ISP situation. The US has held that if you call for it, it can not be regulated. Dial 1-900-sex4all can not be subject to federal law. The internet is at worst a 900 number by analogy. It can not be legislated against only regulated as to the mechanics of charging and transactions, not content. A lot of words but from what has gone before, no both constitutionally and diplomatically and as a matter of economic policy. -=-=- The 2nd guarantees all the rest.

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Re: Report on UN conference on Internet and racism
by Mikhael Frieden 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:22 PM 11/18/97 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: >[Forwarded with permission, first few grafs deleted by request. --Declan] > >Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 10:40:22 -0800 (PST) >From: Margarita Lacabe <marga(a)derechos.org> >Subject: UN Conference > >[The lineup from the conference] Without reviewing the list, these are all people from NGOs, non-governmental organizations. They speak for no one but their organizations if then. These people are no more representative of what they might claim than is David Duke or Simon Wiesenthal. Rather where it the public outrage at UN money being wasted on giving self-important assholes a platform to promote their agendas? -=-=- The 2nd guarantees all the rest.

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Re: Report on UN conference on Internet and racism
by Mikhael Frieden 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:35 PM 11/18/97 -0800, Lizard wrote: >At 05:22 PM 11/18/97 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: >>[Forwarded with permission, first few grafs deleted by request. --Declan] >> >>Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 10:40:22 -0800 (PST) >>From: Margarita Lacabe <marga(a)derechos.org> >>Subject: UN Conference >> ><Much deleted> >> There was also a guy from Indigienous World Association who >>missunderstood pretty much everything said, but was very passionate. > >Well, if that isn't a summary of 99% of non-netizens, I don't know what is... And 98% of netizens. -=-=- The 2nd guarantees all the rest.

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Re: Stylometry
by Randall Farmer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here (here being at the bottom of the message :) is the code for the stylometry program. Note that I specified that the stylometry also involved a calculator -- that's because the shell script only processes your data to get the numbers you need out; the tough part is still up to you. After it runs, you have A. a file, ./counts, containing wordcounts like so. (The first line is the ever-present quirk, which occurs because I have yet to master sed.) 1689 550 THE 344 AND 316 TO ... and B. Output to the screen, like so: [wc/uwc] 1738 12561 77775 <-- Lines/words/bytes for the original file 2557 5113 31226 <-- First part is the number of *different* words used in the document, ignore the rest. [word counts] <-- A juicy excerpt from the counts file 550 THE 344 AND 316 TO 271 A 195 OF [punc frequency: comma/period/hyphen/quote/semi] 584 <-- Number of commas 1536 <-- Periods 79 <-- Dashes 315 <-- Double-quote marks 10 <-- Semicolons [and/or/but as sentence-splitters] 24 <-- Occurrences of "and," (including comma -- that's the point) 12 <-- "or," 7 <-- "but," There are too many things you can calculate from this output for me to enumerate (although the ratios of words to periods, commas, semicolons, and conjunctions as sentence splitters are rather useful...compare two or three of a known author's documents to find his/her characteristics, then compare that to your unknown and see if you've got a match). [Note that the whole sed mess is supposed to be one line] #!/bin/sh # prep: Prepares a text for analysis sed "y/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/;s/[^A-Z']/ /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;s/ / /g;y/ /\n/;"<$1|sort|uniq -c|sort -rn>./counts echo [wc/uwc] wc<$1 wc<./counts echo [word counts] grep -wie "the" -e "and" -e "to" -e "a" -e "of" < counts echo [punc frequency: comma/period/hyphen/quote/semi] grep -c ","<$1 grep -c "."<$1 grep -c "-"<$1 grep -c \"<$1 grep -c "\;"<$1 echo [and/or/but as sentence-splitters] grep -c "and,"<$1 grep -c "or,"<$1 grep -c "but,"<$1 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Randall Farmer rfarmer(a)hiwaay.net http://hiwaay.net/~rfarmer

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Re: export restictions and investments
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>How do the US export restrictions affect investments into non-US crypto >companies? Is it legal for US private persons or companies to invest >money into companies developing strong crypto applications for example in >Europe? We got an official legal opinion, which was that wholly-owned subsidiaries of US entities are subject to US regulations in this area. >Since Sun bought the Russian Elvis+ company Are you really sure that they bought it all? That would go against what we had been told, and I have a great deal of respect for the legal/crypto expertise of "Barry an Jay" at the Washington, DC, law office of Hale & Dorr. /r$

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Re: e$: Snakes of Medusa on Wall Street? (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 18:10:17 -0500 > From: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> > Subject: Re: e$: Snakes of Medusa on Wall Street? (fwd) > > > Is your claim that there was a > > second Great Awakending or are you saying the traditional (if you will) > > dating is incorrect? > > I'm saying that I think you're confusing the Renaissance with the Great > Awakening. :-). Hardly, the Renaissance started toward the beginning of the 1400's (eg Galileo) and ended by the end of the 1500's (eg Newton). Did you know that Galileo died the same year that Newton was born? Some contemporary of Newton made the comment that the world could support no more than 1 such intellect at a time. > BTW, Emerson, Dickenson, Whitman, Thureau, etc., were part > of the same ideological outpouring which, in the theological arena, was the > Great Awakening. A lot can be said for the view that this was American > Romanticism, as Chopin, Byron, the Brontes, Austen, etc., were all > happening in roughly the same couple of generations. Later, like libertines > and enthusiasts throughout history, they became extremely repressive. We > eventually came to call them Victorians. (Sound familiar, you baby boomers?) After thinking about this I am certain that you are speaking of a movement other than the Great Awakening. I can't remember or find a convenient name for the religous/ethical awakening that occured prior to the Civil War. In thinking about this it occurs to me that immediately after each such occurance of a 'Great Awakening' there is a war of global (or at least what passes for the know world) proportions. Fortunately I can lay claim to being either the last of the baby boomers or the first of the gen-x'ers depending on whose definition you use. Personaly, I consider the labels spin-doctorisms intended to focus folks on the differences instead of the similarities. > > > that Vlad Dracul, the Impaler, was Transylvanian > > > > Actualy, to be accurate his name was Vlad Teppish. He was eventualy killed by > > his lord for carrying on excesses such as killing a woman because she let her > > husband walk around with a tattered coat. Dracul and Dracula are derived > > from dragon and imply a connection with the devil (which also derives its > > own existance from this lexical tree). > > Okay. I have to go back and look now, I woudldn't be surprised if you're > right. Anyway, there were two Transylanian nobelmen, father and son, and > one, the impaler was, among other things, called Vlad, son of Dracul, > which, I think, gets you Dracula, but I'm not sure. The Teppish part sounds > like it's more right, now that you mention it. Maybe we're looking at Vlad > Dracul the father, and Vlad Tepish, Dracula, (son of Dracul)? Oh, well, as > I said in my rant, the cost of error is bandwidth. :-). Someone here > probably has all the, um, gory details... Actualy 'dracul' is a word that means devil, it has the same roots as 'dragon'. Neither father or son used that in their name, it's what others called Vlad when they weren't calling him the Impaler. > > That doesn't change the fact that the opinion, anonymous or not, originated > > from a single source. > > I think I could argue for multiple simultaneous sources of the same opinion > pretty successfully. :-). Yes, but each of those were individuals. Opinions are tied to individuality and not geography or chronological ordering. What you actualy have is a group of individual opinions that once the observer is aware of the set then forms their own opinion of what the original opinions meant. > > While I can accept that testable facts can be isolated > > from source biases it escapes me how an opinion can be so isolated. > > I think this sums up Socrates' "Right Opinion" statement pretty well. Have > you read Plato, by chance? ;-). Folks later called this the Mind/Body > problem. How do we know what we think in here is what we see out there, > etc. Big problem in philosophy. Science solves it to most people's > understanding of it. Or mine, anyway. A better and more fundamental question: How do we know what we think is what we think? If you can't demonstrate this then you have no way of demonstrating there is even an 'out there' to see. The point that always seemed clear to me is that there is an implicit assumption with the whole mind/body question, in short; there is more to reality than what we experience. Therefore our experience of reality is fundamentaly different than reality. A further problem I see is that the implied assumption that the observer is seperate and isolated from that being observed. > I said later on in the rant that when we got to > science, that that was better. With science, we got as close to "truth" as > we're ever going to get, asymptotically closer, but not to truth itself. You are using a fundamentaly different science than I use. At no time does science assume there is a truth, only interactions that can be manipulated and are simple enough in their core interactions for us to understand. > Science gives a way to keep getting *closer*... Science is nothing more than a methodology for asking questions that fit particular and well defined forms. At the core of this is a basic assumption about nature, it is homogenous and isomorphic. > > Perhaps opinion & fact are unwittingly being confused. Opinions tell the > > observer about the holder of the opinion, not the subject the opinion is > > direct toward. > > Maybe, but remember my smart crack about hueristics. It's all we've got, in > any practical sense. Please be so kind why heuristics is the only thing we got? Seems to me that serendipity has raised its head more than once. As I understand heuristic algorithms (ie rule base) is that they pre-suppose a system for goal meeting and then go through a itterative process comparing the current position with the goal and then reducing that distance. > We can't just go around testing every opinion we hear, > more than once, anyway, :-), and, frankly, most of us just take other > people's word for things, especially if we respect their reputation. :-). Ah, but there is a rub here. Respect is an opinion. > Remember the story about Gauss, who, in the middle of some guy's > announcement that he'd discovered the normal distribution(?), said > hueristic: Gauss is usually right, so he must be right here, too. (An > appeal to authority, for you informal fallacy counters out there... :-).) Yeah, he did this several times. He nearly caused Bolya to quit mathematics. He made many such claims through his life, quite a few of them were never born out when his papers were examined after his death, though quite a few of them were as well. He also told his son to ask his wife to wait a moment to die while he finished his cyphers (calculations). > Well, actually, it's more about how to make replicable results, I'd say. > The "how to ask questions" might come from a theory (brought about by > observing reality with replicable results), and the creativity of the > questioner. If you don't know how to ask a question in a scientific manner you can't test it. Science itself doesn't say anything about the results directly other than they are homogenous and isomorphic, the observer does however when we examine the goals and reasons for the experiment in the first place. To observe nature requires a fundamentaly different methodolgy than 'commen sense' observation. Further, the realization that there are processes in nature that are fundamentaly un-repeatable is what forced the creation of statistics and the study of families of events. > > Science is a non-intuitive mechanism whereby we can regulate how > > we think about the world around us. > > And, my understanding is that at the core of that is the replicability of > experiment. And the predictivity of theory, of course. Replication of experiments comes from a base assumption in science (which unlike other axiomatic systems are open to refutation) that nature is fundamentaly homogenous and isomorphic, in other words the rules of nature are the same irrespective of geography. Should we find such a non-homogenous or non-isomorphism in nature then the fundamental reliance on science as we impliment it now would be shown wrong. The flip side to this is that if the universe turns out to be so arranged then we have in effect a non-relativistic frame of reference because we have now proven by exception that a given point or particle in the universe is truly unique and identifiable through some mechanism. > > What to do with the results is engineering. > > How to make the results *profitable* is what engineering is... ;-). No, that is business management. At no point in an engineering study is the issue of cost v price examined. Study Nikola Tesla to understand why your statement is fallacious. > > Never confuse popularity with influence. > > Well, since I don't know how to define one in terms of the other, I won't. > How's that? Popularity means that the issue is well known, influence is that people use it as a reason for their actions. > Still, I think the idea of opinion/influence/reputation/identity as linked > this way allows you to think about it better. > > Or at least it helped *me* think about it better, anyway. I agree that they are linked. I don't think that in the grand scheme of getting through life they are nearly as important as some would have us believe. I personaly am more interested in the fundamental question of whether the meme or paradigm works in the sense of providing me the return on my resource investment that I intended. I guess a simpler way to put it is that intellectual capital should not be avaluated by the same methodology we use to select books or movies to buy. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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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Jeffery Dahlmer Finds Work!
by bureau42 Anonymous Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

* United Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., announced in May that it was looking for someone to take over curating its collection of more than 14,000 human hearts, each stored in a plastic bag and the collection featuring specimens of nearly every kind of heart disease. Dr. Jesse Edwards, who started the collection and is now 85 years old, is retiring, and says maintenance of the hearts by a staff of five costs $650,000 a year.

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