December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Fw: Jim Bell Sentenced (fwd)
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate wrote: >Plea-bargaining = capitulation = self-censorship Now, Deft-Spinner Jim, you've switched from what we (you) did or did not do to what Jim did or did not do, which is what I was indelicately pointing out has been how we (you and me) self-censoringly plead our case for or against AP and USG, and thereby capitulate covertly while ineffectively protesting Jim's (and other terrorist targets') zap by USG-AP. And rightly so, what fool would want to take Jim's place, and that's what we're relieved to not be in, now that we've been shown an example. Chilled speech, it's called, finger-pointing about some fool going too far, and worse, getting caught. This time we're so pleased we didn't lose the lottery, as Shirley Jackson wrote, that we eagerly stone the winner, split some hairs, tut-tut, spin our fear and call it wisdom. Too bad that camouflaged cowardice (shrewdness) cahoots with IRS and Justice. Keep quiet about yourself, blame somebody else, luck may hold. That's what I'm doing, blaming wildly, hiding in a crowd of "we's" and now, thanks much, your equation for going along and getting ahead. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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Tell the fans, not the players
by Human Gus-Peter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jam Choke, ravaging the Young and wringing the Bell, wroted: > From: John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com> > Subject: Re: Fw: Jim Bell Sentenced (fwd) > Now, is it not true that we've self-censored ourselves into believing > Jim is just a fool, rather than a gutsy guy willing to do what most > of us will not, instead preferring covert self-censorship over the > all-too-easily opposed group-think kind. Spin-doctor alert. No need to announce yourself, Jim. Your name is in the From: header. Jim Bell plea bargained period. Had he had one iota of the 'guts' you so blithely banter about the case would be going to trial. Plea-bargaining = capitulation = self-censorship Spoken like a free man... I've sat at a lot of border crossings 'psychically willing' my sweat back into the pores of my body. I've been pulled over by the Men in Black on dark roads late at night, within sight of the towers where the Iron Curtain is personified in a chambered round which serves as a local currency price-tag on free speech. I've sat in courtrooms in which justice was an unwanted intruder and mere mention of it caused the dogs of war to growl and bare their teeth. (e.g. 'Bell' County, Texas) I've waited for interminable hours while interrogators were being brought in from distant places to shake me up, down and sideways to find a small vulnerable spot that could be ripped open with the one-sided sword of dark authority. I know the tune Bell's persecutors were playing. It is a dark and scary tune most effective when played to an audience of one. Anyone who thinks that Jim was imprisoned in America is a fool. Jim was in a Gulag, in Auschwitz, in a sweat box in a distant jungle. Bell was the target of an insidious physical, mental and emotional attack threatening the most deep-seated human impetus of all--survival. The methods used against Bell are the same methods used by despotic regimes throughout history and by the mind-benders who serve them. I've been the target of wanna-be local Nazis and I've been the target of the real McCoys. The hands pulling the strings in Jim's case were not amateur. They were the same hands that have massaged the minds of prisoners of war, defectors, political prisoners and compromised spooks. Anyone who believes that Jim received his right to legal counsel is likewise a fool. The difference between Bell's attorney and McVeigh's attorney is that established heavyweights get paid $15 million to sleepwalk their client to a conviction. The lightweights get paid with future political favors. Bell was unconstitutionally imprisoned, drugged, and subjected to sensory deprivation torture as punishment for exercising his right to think and speak freely. Anyone who attempts to justify this with weak claims that Bell was 'asking for it' is also justifying McVeigh's counter-attack on the Waco murderers, who, for those of you who are paying attention, are continuing to 'ask for it.' The Sympatico AP-BOT received bets on the times of demise of even some of the lowliest government paperwork shufflers involved in Jim's case. The Netcom AP-Bot received belated bets on the times of demise of *all* of the government casualties in the OKC offensive. (Definitely a political statement...) Jim's political statement *has* made a difference in the implementation of, and experimentatin with, AP-BOTs. His persecution has made those steps both real and meaningful for the participants. There is currently an AP-BOT accessible from an Eternity Server which is serving as a test of the ability of underground InterNet activity to become widespread and remain covert and untouchable in its operation. (For each unit bet on the choice of the individual, it is *required* to generate an extra unit which is automatically used to bet on the demise of the Big Guy. This requirement is designed to take the exercise beyond the realm of being merely a 'fun game.') Anyone who easily dismisses Jim Bell as a 'loon' is probably not in great danger of dropping their dime. Wavy Gravy is a loon. The Smothers Brothers were loons. Lenny Bruce, Cheech and Chong, Timothy Leary, Babba Ram Das, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Guerva, Patton... They were all capble, to a different extent, of knowing when it was safe to relax their anus, and when it was unwise to do so. When the government puts your ass in a vice and makes keeping your cheeks tight a condition of loosening it, the decision to spit or sing, or merely to remain passive, is an individual decision. It does not increase my respect for anyone if they choose to use someone else's trials and tribulations as a stick to beat their own tough-guy drum. Just as there are no athiests in foxholes, there are no tough guys in Gulags. There are only survivors...and not all who leave alive are survivors. Plain and simple: Jim Bell is a political pri$oner of the men, women and children who steal your money at gunpoint. Jim Bell's human and civil rights were violated more over vague public speech involving those who control the money spigot than were those of Terry McNichols over the violent deaths of over a hundred citizens. God help us all if anyone ever bombs the Treasury. UncleMonger

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Re: Where is the c-p traffic?
by bureau42 Anonymous Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 12 Dec 97 at 22:48, Jim Choate wrote: > > Am I the only one to notice that traffic has dropped from about 100 > > messages/day to only a few? > You are getting *lots* of bounces if you were getting anything > like 100 messages per day. You're right. My number was high. On actual count, heavy days ran to 40-70 while light days varied all over the lower landscape. Pardon me all to hell for being EIGHTEEN BILLION ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE OFF, putz. Is 70 "anything like 100?" Or is it that _you_ have been missing the majority of list traffic and think c-p is a low-volume list, hmmm? Wouldn't that be choice? I suppose the other mail in my twice-daily 50-or-so message downloads _could_ have been the replies from heads of state and other annoyance mail I get. With so many filters for spam and high list noise it's difficult to keep track, but I'm accustomed to seeing more than 10 messages a day from this list. Seeing the c-p traffic drop to 10-15 messages per day for a few days caused me to suspect something might have been wrong. Nothing ever goes wrong, though, does it? Silly me! > > Does anyone know what is broken? > > At this point either your arithmetic or your memory. Either > way, it sounds like a personal problem. You're _so_ helpful! Courteous, too! I'll bet you have a lot of really good, close friends -- you know, the kind who wouldn't tell you if your hair is on fire. > > Does anyone care? Is the whole c-p list a giant MITM being run > > against a very few of us who are the only human participants? > > Damn, found out. Yeah, yeah. Your punishment in the afterlife will be to discover that this whole universe was really just a simulation to provide window dressing around the amusing Jim Choate personality module and to endure an eternity of junior high school students playing your own most embarrassing moments back into your trapped consciousness and watching the Squirm-o-Meter peg. Those private bathroom moments will no doubt win a lot of laughs. _I_ can be nasty when it's called for, but you're just plain ol' bitter. > > Isn't it odd that many key contributors to the list coincidentally > > live near nondescript neighborhood houses that bristle with > > antennae and are regularly visited by black helicopters and large > > unmarked vans? No, I didn't think so either. That's probably an > > unrelated operation. > Just exactly what kind of drugs are you taking? There is a > house rule you *must* bring enough for everyone. Yours have apparently accomplished a chemical humorectomy. That whooshing sound you hear is the humor flying like a U-2 over your head. Twisted humor, to be sure, but humor. In any case the house rule doesn't benefit you. Your severe swings preclude further ad hoc medication. > No helicopters, vans, jack-booted thugs, or anything else > around here dude. Get a grip! I'll bet you thought MIB was a pseudo documentary produced by the UFO crowd, huh? > Don't know about an opinion, a paranoia induced > hallucination for sure. Go back to your machines. They're humorless, too, except when one lets the blue smoke leak out just to piss you off. You know about the blue smoke, don't you? It's the essential ingredient that they seal into all electronic gadgets at the factory. If it ever leaks out, the gadget stops working. BlueSmokeMongerII

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No Subject
by bureau42 Anonymous Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:30 AM 12/13/97 GMT, you wrote: > >Am I the only one to notice that traffic has dropped from about 100 >messages/day to only a few? Does anyone know what is broken? >Does anyone care? Is the whole c-p list a giant MITM being run >against a very few of us who are the only human participants? it's the digital implants digital imprants digitar imprints dogatell impunts

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Re: Fw: Jim Bell Sentenced (fwd)
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate wrote: A pretty convincing manifesto, as far as Constitution-thumping goes. And then, empowered by righteousness, fire-and-brimstoned: >You sir, don't have one whit of morality, ethics, or empathy. >Let alone any sort of sense of justice or liberty. > >I hope your happy licking the hands of your keepers. Damn tooting, Jim, my babe is sweetest licking and being his love slave is a pleasure. And for it, I eagerly forego morality, ethics, empathy, justice and liberty along with constitutional and biblical protection. Babe's my blackhearted PO, with two years to release. Damn, Jim, have you never lost it all where every which way was up? If not, then you don't know shit about Jim's situation, or mine, sweetheart, and whose balls you'll lick to get back to zero, not even hoping you'll get back to where you were before insane vanity took you and those who trusted you over the edge to irreversible loss and despair. Sorry to say that "Constitutional protections" might do that to you, Jim, for they are sometimes finger-licking nose-candy, bad shit that's pushed by a nasty gang of predators as morality, ethics, empathy, justice and liberty along with biblical protection. They, and other holy writs, have got a lot of innocents wasted for addictive righteousness of hustlers who use perfect grammar to hide evil. Just kidding, son, you're okay, don't EMR me. Zap my literary inchoate.

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Re: HAYEKWEB: V Postrel on Hayek
by bureau42 Anonymous Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 14 Dec 1997 at 11:29:25 -0600 (CST) Jim Choate once again showed his clueless side (yes, he does have another side) wrote: >> Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek, one of the earliest economic >> theorists of the role of knowledge, would have recognized >> the problem. Organizations overcome such difficulties >> through compromise and negotiation, or they break down. >> But society as a whole can avoid the "knowledge problem" >> only at the cost of stamping out individuality. > It's a real pitty Hayek never tried 'cooperation' instead > of 'compromise'. It's a real pity Choate never tried reading before spewing. It would appear poor Jim doesn't have a clear idea of Hayek, and has difficulty distinguishing between any of the several voices used, and in filling in thin context. This is another case like Jim's confusion over which "Gates" Tim was referring to in a recent post. > Oh, the short-short sightedness of ego and tryanny. Well, ego anyway. > What is the line of reasoning that the *only* solution for > society is to stamp out individuality? Sounds more like > wishful thinking from some brain-dead drone with no > imagination or respect for others. Sounds like you should do some reading before you mouth off. > Perhaps he should have stuck with economics and kept away > from sociology. Perhaps you should have stuck with programming and kept away from political commentary. Scratch that -- programming requires a high degree of ability to deal with reality as it is, not as one mistakenly sees it. Your assignment is to read The Road to Serfdom and submit a 5,000 word essay to the c-p list on the subject of Hayek, the brain-dead drone. Following that you will be allowed to submit a 20,000 word essay on Jim Choate, the often-clueless and illiterate half-wit motor mouth. GetALifeMongerII

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Bell sentencing
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- the charges of intimidating an IRS agent are felonies the stinkbomb charge in a federal building is a felony the tax evasion charges are felonies virtually all federal felonies start with 5 years and increase from there. federal misdemeanors have a sentence limitation of 1 year less 1 day. under the sentencing guidelines, it is difficult for the judge to hand down less than the specified guideline unless a deal has been cut --big time, I would say in this case. the prosecutor and public defender agreed on one year, but probation and parole asked for two years -therefore the plea bargained charge was a felony. secondly, the Feds almost always file the charge itself, plus a separate charge of conspiracy (even if they do call the rest of the conspirators "unknown") which carries the same time as the act of commission. you can rack up some serious time with Fed charges which do not seem like much until they multiple count the indictment and add conspiracy. given the exposure of this case, etc. there was a deal cut someplace. frankly, I would rather do 3 years inside instead of "highly supervised" tail --some asshole social worker cum parole officer that can literally tell you when you can shit; if he tells you to start polishing the apple, you best be getting on your knees and get on with it. you have more rights in federal prison than you do with a PO and his inferiority or dogooder complex --either way, you are his victim. personally, I think Bell was lucky --or he rolled over and the fruits of his loose tongue will start new lives for new political prisoners of the U.S. gestapo. I'll put my money on the rollover. too many unanswered questions; books returned marked "not a prisoner"; writing a letter acknowledging he was a "bad person"; and all that good stuff. Bell just snitched out; he doesn't look like the type that would do well under pressure. maybe a lot of bark, but no bite to tell the man to fuck off. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQBVAwUBNJSp2rR8UA6T6u61AQHsOAH9GXK+cHv91438Cmr9INsDCCEIbpWL9YO6 HDsWygSXSIWftoQl0+SFUL7/6mcjPlxt7N5nTlCub4zA0JQZYEHq2w== =GPPA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Identity, Persistence, Anonymity, and Accountability--Part II ofII
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As promised, here is Part II, with a more graphical analysis of the issues of identity, anonymity, traceability, accountability, and the correlations between them. Consider two principles axes: -- identity -- accountability A "0" on the identity axis means a complete lack of any identity, with no assurance whatsoever in the nickname, casual name, and certainly not in the True Name, of an entity. The canonical "Anonymous," with not even any clues as to identity. A "1" on the identity axis means a complete certainty as to whom someone is, with extensive credentials, perhaps even voiceprint, blood tests, etc. An appearance by Bill Clinton probably rates a "0.999" on this scale, as various input vectors are summed...most of my posts might be rated at "0.95," and so on. There are some meta-issues about what true names really are. Was Bill Clinton switched at birth? Did the Trilateral Commission actually kill the real Bill Clinton when he was at Oxford and replace him with a KGB lookalike? Do his footprints match that on the birth certificate on file in the Arkansas hospital? Is that stuff even what we mean by "that guy is Bill Clinton"? I won't get into these meta-issues here, but they are eventual boundary-value problems for any "is-a-person" formal system. On the "accountability" axis, a "0" means an entity cannot be held accountable. Cannot be reached, cannot be hauled into court, etc. This could be because the entity is outside a jurisdiction. Marc Rich, resident of Zug, Switizerland, is about a "0.1" on the accoutability scale. A "1" obviously represents full accountability. Clearly it is possible for someone to be high on the identity scale (like Marc Rich), but low on the accountability scale. Or, more interestingly, it is possible for a participant in a transaction to be essentially anonymous, but very accountable. This is what digital cash and anonymous escrow systems provide. Chaum's "credentials without identity" makes this clear. It is possible to present some credential for some property, such as age, without identity. (An easy to see example being admissions to bars...as ID scanning technology spreads, we would like to see methods for checking an age credential without also creating a computer record of all bars visited, number of drinks consumed, etc.) (Crime and illegal markets often work this way, too. That is, with identity not necessarily known ("Vinnie the Nose"), but with other mechanisms for ensuring accountability. The usual, but important, stuff about reputation capital. Ditto for primitve markets, with goods left in clearings...absolutely no "identity," but various mechanisms for enforcement of trading protocols (including "no future business if you screw me," which is how many markets have worked, a la the Law Merchant for international trade, which evovled into the Uniform Commercial Code.) OK, here's a diagram. Notice that the central diagonal, the "main sequence" ( a la Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams) is the correlation between "identity" and "accountability." To those who argue that accountability IS identity, this is there line. But there are many other place in this space. For ease (to me) in making this diagram, I've had to just use letters, with the legend below the diagram. ^ CASH TOTAL 1 | CHAUM | ESCROW ^ | BRIN | | DIGNYM | | CORP Accountability | | | MRICH | | ANON 0 |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 0 1 Identity --> CASH = immediate clearing, but no identity CHAUM = Chaumian "credentials without identity" (in many forms) ESCROW = leaving a deposit, or linking to another payer (an anonymous VISA card, with a deposit, works this way. Or a corporate account, card, etc., where the company backs the transaction, but identity of the participant is unknown, or poorly known) BRIN = David Brin's "accountability means identity" mapping (no doubt there are nuances to his view, but I believe this fairly characterizes the position he has described here recently) TOTAL = The total state. Eveyone in their place, every transaction logged, everyone held accountable by the State DIGNYM = Digital pseudonyms, or signed messages. Identity may be variable, from almost completely anonymous (e.g., Pr0duct Cypher) to known to some (e.g., Black Unicorn). Accountability also varies, depending on factors like jurisdiction. CORP = corporate, or collective, accounts, where identity of actual participants is poorly known, but accountability is high MRICH = identity known to high certainty, but "judgment proof" (note that this applies to many other persons, such as poor persons, who may say all kinds of libelous or actionable things, but who are not worth going after) ANON = the canonical "anonymous" message, with no identity, no accountability. Of course, there are many other examples. And each examples has "scatter." Each is a "blob," not just a point. And they can move around, as laws change. (For example, Marc Rich could quickly become "accountable" were Switzerland to change its laws about extradition.) The structure of this identity-accountability space is itself interesting, with peaks and valleys (suggesting a third axis, that of "cost" to live in these spaces....). And so on. I hope this helps clarify for you some of my thinking on these issues. i find that simplistic arguments, whether, "accountability requires identity," or "anonymity is a basic right," are not very helpful. There are clearly times when participants in a voluntary transaction want some kind of "identity credential" (especially to the extent they think identity = accountability). There may even be times when the State has a legitimate interest in compelling identity (though many of us would quibble with most such demands, and look for ways to satisfy these "is-a-person" needs less invasively than by requiring national I.D. cards and tattooes on forearms). Again, I hope this has helped. --Tim May Voluntary Mandatory Self-Rating of this Article (U.S. Statute 43-666-970719). Warning: Failure to Correctly and Completely Label any Article or Utterance is a Felony under the "Children's Internet Safety Act of 1997," punishable by 6 months for the first offense, two years for each additional offense, and a $100,000 fine per offense. Reminder: The PICS/RSACi label must itself not contain material in violation of the Act. ** PICS/RSACi Voluntary Self-Rating (Text Form) ** : Suitable for Children: yes Age Rating: 5 years and up. Suitable for Christians: No Suitable for Moslems: No Hindus: Yes Pacifists: No Government Officials: No Nihilists: Yes Anarchists: Yes Vegetarians: Yes Vegans: No Homosexuals: No Atheists: Yes Caucasoids: Yes Negroids: No Mongoloids: Yes Bipolar Disorder: No MPD: Yes and No Attention Deficit Disorder:Huh? --Contains discussions of sexuality, rebellion, anarchy, chaos,torture, regicide, presicide, suicide, aptical foddering. --Contains references hurtful to persons of poundage and people of color.Sensitive persons are advised to skip this article. **SUMMARY** Estimated number of readers qualified to read this: 1 Composite Age Rating: 45 years

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Re: IRS intimidation of Cypherpunks
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

bureau42 Anonymous Remailer wrote: >would anyone be kind enough >to provide pointers to information about incidents of c-p >list members having received unsolicited email from .gov? See the IRS spam at: http://jya.com/irs-spam.htm And the 7 headers of 19 spams, titled "Death to Tyrants" and "Something of Interest" sent to various persons at: http://jya.com/irs-header.txt I recall that Declan offered to ask IRS about the spam, but do not recall if he was successful.

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Gates of Hell
by Jenaer Mixmaster Anonserver 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'd always wondered how Bill Gates could shit with that pole so far up his ass. Then I realized: The pole is too long to be completely embedded in his ass and he uses the other half of it to rape computer users everywhere on a regular basis. And since the pole is crammed in his ass he can't shit, so he just retains his shit, making him incredibly anal retentive. I'm sure he enjoys this.

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