December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

News of Jim Bell
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anonymous forwarded three local news stories about Jim's sentencing: http://jya.com/jimbell6.htm An excerpt: In a hearing in U.S. District Court in Tacoma this morning, Bell 's public defender and an assistant U.S. Attorney recommended a 6-to-12-month jail sentence for Bell as part of a plea-bargain agreement. But federal probation officers recommended a sentence of 27 months. In doing so, they said they were looking at the "totality" of Bell's behavior, including the threatening nature of his Internet essay, "Assassination Politics." As a result, U.S. District Court Judge Franklin D. Burgess said he was uncomfortable with the situation. "Somehow I am getting a feeling that somebody knows more about something than I do," Burgess said. Also reported: Jim had encrypted some of his files. And though "Bell plead guilty to relatively innocuous charges" IRS investigators compared him to The Unabomber and Tim McVeigh, and claimed he was "part of a far darker scheme to assassinate IRS agents and topple the U.S. government."

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Re: Iraq and computers
by Brandon Crosby 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Monkey Catskin wrote: > > Michael Wilson wrote that Reuters wrote: > > >Quoting U.S. officials and U.N. diplomats, the newspaper said that > > >Iraqi scientists and defense officials are using Western-made > > >computers to transfer data from bulky papers to small disks that can > > >be easily dispersed, making the information difficult for inspectors > > >to track. > > This is an interesting development because it also makes it hard for > > the Iraqi government to track what is going on, too. The government > > of Iraq has been aware of the dangers of computers for many years. At > > one time they were tightly controlled. Even typewriters were > > controlled. The government had writing samples of each one. > > Now, apparently, this policy is loosening. This suggests that U.S. > > policy of the last 8 years has managed to achieve what Saddam Hussein > > could not - it has made the Hussein regime a genuinely popular > > government. I wonder... does Iraq have a web site? While third world contries seldom have computer specialists, it seemed pretty easy for Iraq to get biological weapon specialists working for them. [Other more sensible arguments exist...] Iraq has more money than they can reasonably spend, but management troubles. Solution: IntraIraq, the network with Sadam ads. While burning papers has some flare to it, it's pretty likely that most of the classified data not in Sadam's head must be in some computer system[s], easily housed by the UN no-no sites for inspectors. Also, can Iraq's people create [and display] web pages? -Brandon Crosby

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Re: BIOS Help
by Brandon Crosby 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Hi Brandon, > > > Does anyone know where specs for Award BIOS chips are? I accidentily > > locked mine and lost the password. > Contact Award directly. If you have the data off the tag on the BIOS chip as > well as the version data on boot you should be able to get a technical > manual for the particular BIOS your computer uses. Note however that these > manuals are generaly not cheap, sometimes costing a couple hundred dollars. > The reason for the price is that it describes the BIOS to such a deep > extent. > > Review your motherboard, there is usualy a jumper that allows the BIOS > to be reset. The process usualy goes like: > > - turn computer off > - locate jumper and short with a shorting-block > - turn computer on then off > - remove the shorting-block > - the BIOS should be reset > > Don't know if Award has a webpage but you might try www.award.com or one > of the search engines. > Thanks for your help [and, to someone else for the default password]. OK, not much of a thankyou, I guess... [The default passwd worked] What is a 'Magic Password'? -Brandon Crosby

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Re: Further costs of war (fwd)
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> [ok, there we go again... this will be my last post on the subject which > is way-off topic by now. If it wasn't for the reference to Vichy I > wouldn't answer on the list] There is no such thing as an off topic post on the new cypherpunks list, at least according to Tim May and Monty Cantsin. Whatever interests them is automatically on-topic.

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Dear subscribers
by Michael Sims 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear subscribers to the Cypherpunks list -- Mikhael Frieden, mikhaelf(a)mindspring.com, is an alias for Matt Giwer, a name I hope many of you will recognize. On the F-C list, he is now the origin of perhaps 25% of the traffic, as much as 50% some days, most of which are standard, clueless, trolling, or lying responses which are designed to suck people into endless replies like those on what the Anonymizer does or does not do. William Geiger writes, "Absolutly, I can't beleive that Mikhael is *that* clueless." Well, yes. When you're trying to troll, you are that clueless. We here on the F-C list are hoping to sort of ignore him and hope he'll go away -- all I see of him are the number of messages hitting my to-be-deleted folder and the endless replies cross-posted from cypherpunks. See: http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/g/giwer-matt/net-abuse/ http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/g/giwer-matt/ Giwer will even accuse *himself* of lying. Please do the people on F-C a favor by not cross-posting any replies that are off-topic for F-C, and hell, while I'm at it, by not replying to Giwer at all for any reason. If you're not careful he'll join cypherpunks. -- Michael Sims [I'm not on cypherpunks - reply by direct email only, please]

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RFC on Infrastructure Aliens
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

BXA issued today an RFC for the recent PCCIP report on threats to the nation's infrastructure. It provides a handy summary of the report's findings and proposals for policy, technology, law and arms-waving of insider gov, com and edu to protect their children against outside techno-bugabears: http://jya.com/bxa-pccip-rfc.htm (14K)

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AAAS amicus brief in Bernstein case is on the Web; Citadel files too.
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The American Association for the Advancement of Science filed a rather good 62-page "brief" arguing that: I. The Regulations Violate the First Amendment II. The Regulations Violate Equal Protection Applied to the Federal Government Through the Fifth Amendment III. The Regulations Violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause as Applied to the Federal Government under the Fifth Amendment by Infringing the Right to Make Use of the Most Effective Commercially Available Means of Communication IV. The Regulations Violate the Constitutional Right of Privacy. Their arguments are novel, interesting, and generally well presented. See http://www.eff.org/pub/Legal/Cases/Bernstein_v_DoS/Legal/971110_aaas.amicus In addition, the Citadel for Constitutional Government has filed a sixth amicus brief with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. We are still pursuing an online copy of that brief. John Gilmore Electronic Frontier Foundation

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send help
by Jari Aalto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

help mailing-lists

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New free speech oriented civil rights site
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Civil rights Web site to fight cyberhate > > November 24, 1997 > Web posted at: 6:01 p.m. EST (2301 GMT) > > WASHINGTON (AP) -- Responding to President Clinton's call to fight hate > crime, the nation's largest civil rights coalition and a regional Bell > telephone company have created a Web site designed to combat Internet > hate speech. > > The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights said Monday the site -- > www.civilrights.org -- was developed and will be maintained for two > years with a $100,000 contribution from Bell Atlantic. > > <snip> > > Wade Henderson, LCCR executive director, said the idea to create a Web > site was triggered by a proliferation of Internet hate speech by groups > such as the Ku Klux Klan and White Aryan Resistance. ...and some cypherpunks? > Bell Atlantic chairman Ray Smith cited a study by the Anti-Defamation > League showing the number of hate sites on the Internet has doubled to > 250 in the past year. He called the new site "an antidote for poison." > > The idea is to "counter the frightening espousal of hatred and violence > against Americans because of their race, gender, religious or sexual > orientation," he said. Not to mention nationality. "You go, chop chop," says Tim May, making fun of someone apparently from Japan. > Henderson said hate groups have become more sophisticated in communicating > their doctrines and recruiting. "Instead of the street, they recruit on > the net," he explained. > > There is also concern for the First Amendment protection of free speech, > Henderson said. "This Web site will respond to hate with information > and competing ideas without seeking to restrict Internet speech." > > In addition to providing information on hate crimes around the country, > the site will explain various strategies to address those crimes and offer > materials for young people, parents and teachers to encourage diversity. Cypherpunks other than May, Geiger, and the despicable Vulis will welcome a new civil rights effort which is built around respect for freedom of speech. Cypherpunk technologies will be a major force to eliminate racism. With privacy protected transactions, the color of a person's skin, his religion and his ethnicity are no longer apparent. People will be able to succeed on merit - and not the "good old boys" definition of merit, where somehow only white males seem to have what it takes. Cypherpunks need to build bridges to minority communities, to show them how these technologies can advance their cause. Racist comments by supposedly respected list members are harmful and must be countered in order to show that these views do not reflect the feelings of most cypherpunks.

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Swedish policy paper on key/message escrow
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Today's "Svenska Dagbladet" has an article on a policy paper released by the Swedish Foreign Office that follows the American agenda. "Only simple encryption that is easy to decypher should be sold outside the country without restriction." Also, "it is required that capability is created for legal access to clear-text or keys." (My ugly, but precise, translation from the article's quote from the report.) The report authors suggest a complicated structure with key depositories, "preferably privately owned" that "can be granted control over all of the encryption keys that are used on the Internet." Police and proscecutors can obtain these encryption keys as needed to access secret documents. The report has been widely criticized. Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com

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