December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Kwanzaa hijacked by white businesses... [CNN]
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Just as a side remark: why what standard are hallmark and giant foods "white"? >If they're like most big corporations, they probably bend over backwards to >promote blacks via "affirmative action" quotas, and have more blacks in >positions of responsibility than they possible could have if they based their >hiring decisions on merit. Evidently this is not good enough for racists >hatemongers like Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson and Louis Farrakhan. By extension what would happen if a white guy called for black people to be banned from any given thing? They'd be called a racist and run out of town, sued, and everything else. I spit on political correctness and affirmative action, and I'm not a racist or sexist either. <spit hack loogie>

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Re: Why I Support Microsoft
by Patrick May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[ A bit delayed, due to the holidays. ] Tim May writes: > Anyway, the recent government actions against Microsoft are reprehensible > to any person who values liberty. Microsoft is being punished for its > success. Mr. May and others have addressed the government's abuse of Microsoft eloquently and well. It is clear that the DOJ is well out of constitutional bounds with this litigation. It is equally clear that the real problem with Microsoft is that its poorly designed, bloated, _inelegant_ software is pervasive. The solution to both of these problems lies in David Honig's signature: > "Windows 95 is a technologically complex product that is best left > alone by the government..." > ---MSFT Atty B. Smith The President should issue an executive order mandating that all government agencies immediately remove all Microsoft operating systems from their machines, to be replaced with Linux. All Microsoft products should be eliminated as well. The standard text format should be LaTeX. All businesses receiving money from government contracts should be required to use the same tools. This would cut down dramatically on the money spent on software by the government, eliminate compatibility problems between users of different versions of Microsoft products, encourage enormous growth in the Linux software market, and guarantee that Microsoft would never again be considered a monopoly. All this without ever entering a courtroom. Perhaps there's a congressman or two out there who'd like to make some political hay by pushing this from the legislative branch.... Regards, Patrick May S P Engineering, Inc.

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Re: Why I Support Microsoft (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 27 Dec 1997 12:53:32 -0800 > From: Patrick May <pjm(a)spe.com> > Subject: Re: Why I Support Microsoft > The President should issue an executive order mandating that all > government agencies immediately remove all Microsoft operating systems > from their machines, to be replaced with Linux. Why are you trying to ruin Linux? ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ 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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Re: cypherpunks missing from Usenet
by Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From pooh(a)efga.org Sat Dec 27 19:07:33 1997 > > At 03:22 AM 12/27/97 -0500, Information Security wrote: > >What else? What have the U2 Czars controlling CAUCE also done? > > > >Not allowed the admin of a one-way remailer who returned the required > >token for posting to comp.org.cauce to post here; no explanation given > >despite repeated requests. > > My understanding was that the Cracker remailer was allowed to post on some > CAUCE moderated thing, presumably the newsgroup. I seem to recall that the > token was returned and posting capability had been verified. Has something > changed? Which remailer was it? If I was wrong, nobody ever corrected me despite my posting the complaint repeatedly to comp.org.cauce. Look up the original posts at DejaNews: # Subject: Re: Has the lcs mixmaster remailer been banned? # From: lcs Remailer Administrator <mix-admin(a)nym.alias.net> # Date: 1997/11/25 # Message-ID: <19971125051724.27312.qmail(a)nym.alias.net> # Newsgroups: comp.org.cauce # # beigel(a)rbo.eecs.lehigh.edu (Richard Beigel) writes: # # > You have to reply to the message sent by the modbot. If you don't, # > then your message shouldn't be posted. I guess you find out how this # > works the first time that you post (Ooh! I can hardly wait:-). # # I think you are missing the point. I replied to the original message. # That's how the strange moderation policy thread got started. The fact # that a thread was started proves that I went through the cookie # exchange properly. The problem is that that e-mail address seems to # have been subsequently banned with no apparent expanation. Or, there # is some technical problem. # # It's definitely the case that mix(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu bounces a copy of # non mixmaster messages back to the sender in case the sender didn't # know it was a remailer and wants to resend the article somewhere else. # However, that doesn't mean I can't spool such messages in a mailbox # and read them if this is required by the moderation policy. # # I just want to know exactly what the policy is and what I need to do # to post from the address mix(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu. They never answered. Not him, not me. Speaking of problems: it's definite: the great attempt to censor the Internet has begun in England. Mainly Usenet is under attack: pics of mere nudity are being deleted without any legal process whatsoever. See my posts in comp.org.eff.talk ... I've put two pics of nekked kids up at www.panix.com/~guy as part of the "discussion". They (Demon, UUNET, ...) are deleting both pics and apparently text files too, and reporting them to the police. The Thought Police are here. ---guy

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Re: ALERT: PICS Rules, not OK!
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article <67qbl6$am2(a)senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>, Seth Finkelstein wrote: >In article <67ptsh$4rl$1(a)illuin.demon.co.uk>, >Richard Letts <richard(a)illuin.demon.co.uk> wrote: >>In uk.net Paul L. Allen <pla(a)sktb.demon.co.uk> wrote: >>> With PICSRULES they can tell ISPs, say, that all web traffic (see >>> qualification above) must go through the ISPs proxy (some ISPs would >>> probably like to make their routers enforce that anyway for bandwidth >>> reasons) and that the proxy should use PICSRULES that the govt specify. >> >>Replace PICSRULES with 'English language specification' in the sentance >>above. > > Doesn't work, because there is no standard "English language >specification" for content restrictions on proxy servers. This "PICS >is like English" bit is getting really tiresome, if PICS were really >like English, then there would be no need to construct such a special >system in the first place! The fact that there is a need for such a >language *designed* and *optimized* for censorship should give the lie >to this comparison. Right. I must be missing something here: PICS is designed to label information under a variety of criteria. The stated reason is that we want to "protect the children and those with frail minds" from "bad" information. Of course the definition of "bad" information varies from person to person. Let's assume PICS doesn't exist. Instead there's a single flag which can go on a web page, USENET post, text file, FTP site, or whatever which denotes whether the material is "suitable for children." I go off and publish bomb-making information. Since that material is available in a high school chemistry textbook with a little synthesis on the reader's part and I don't believe in censorship of information, especially based on age, I mark it "suitable for children." How is anybody going to stop me? I've expressed my opinion. And, after all, SingleFlag isn't for censorship, so theoretically nobody can do anything about it. Of course people won't like this. Further if a bunch of people do that SingleFlag becomes completely and totally useless. The only ways to enforce it are to sue me, throw me in jail, or blacklist me from ISPs. In all three cases censorship is in effect. In the first two cases people scream to the government <Exon> "We *already* censor or rate content on the public airwaves, in computer games, on TV, and at the movies. Why not on the Internet too?" </Exon>, and that's assuming that such a law isn't in place already. So say SingleFlag doesn't exist. Instead we have MultiFlag which rates content on the basis of sexual content, violence, language, and nudity. Again, because I don't believe in censoring content, I rate my material as "no sex, no violence, no lude language, and no nudity." And again, the only way to enforce it is to sue me, throw me in jail, or blacklist me from ISPs. And, again, in all three cases I'm censored. And if all the ISPs censor USENET feeds and HTTP connections, nothing keeps me from playing all kinds of games with TCP/IP (or making my own protocol entirely) and distributing information that way. But then I suppose we have to ban that too, since after all it has no use except to "corrupt the youth of the world" and to espouse politically incorrect thoughts. Now let's say that does happen. I go off and post my pornography anonymously, or stick it on an Eternity server. Well, I guess we'd better ban those pesky anonymous remailers now, right? After all, who needs anonymity unless they have something to hide, right? "Good users are known users," we should have digital signatures required on everything (and they aren't just any digital signature -- that would defeat the purpose. We need some kind of central certification authority!), and ban those politically incorrect opinions -- after all, we have the framework, right? Posted anonymously. After all, this is politically incorrect and I wouldn't want to get on somebody's ban list, right?

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Re: cypherpunks missing from Usenet
by Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Clive Feather person is emphatic only real child porn is being deleted and reported to the police; he clarified that the 1800 items listed for Sep 1997 are *total* for the existence of IWF. So, it's probably going to take me several weeks to verify his claim. I back off from my claim (based on his dialog) that they are canceling mere nudity, for now. ---guy

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NRA vs. KRA
by David Miller 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From www.jya.com/cn122297.txt quoting 15 December 1997, Interactive Week: > Network Associates dropped out of the Key Recovery Alliance. But there > are plenty of major players left, even if they include some of the harshest > foes of current crypto policy. Remaining members include: > America Online Inc. > Compaq Computer Corp. > Digital Equipment Corp. > Entrust Technologies Ltd. > Frontier Technologies Corp. > Fujitsu Ltd. > IBM Corp. > Intel Corp. > NCipher Corp. > Novell Inc. > RSA Data Security Inc. > SafeNet Trusted Services Corp. > Silicon Graphics Inc. > Sun Microsystems Inc. > Trusted Information Systems Inc. Some of these players I would expect to sit at the key recovery table, but why SUN? Any of you California dudes know what's up with that? Am I right in assuming that the International Elvis marketing deal will never go through? --David Miller -- middle rival devil rim lad Windows '95 -- a dirty, two-bit operating system.

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SSZ status - post BOOM... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: >From ravage(a)ssz.com Sat Dec 27 22:39:49 1997 From: Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> Message-Id: <199712280439.WAA00168(a)einstein.ssz.com> Subject: SSZ status - post BOOM... To: users(a)ssz.com (SSZ User Mail List) Date: Sat, 27 Dec 1997 22:39:48 -0600 (CST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1315 Hi all, Well the system seems to be back up and running without any serious problems. Will continue to monitor the status... ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ 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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Explosion takes down SSZ!... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: >From ravage(a)ssz.com Sat Dec 27 22:33:23 1997 From: Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> Message-Id: <199712280430.WAA00201(a)einstein.ssz.com> Subject: Explosion takes down SSZ!... To: users(a)ssz.com (SSZ User Mail List) Date: Sat, 27 Dec 1997 22:30:51 -0600 (CST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1714 Hi all, There was a power failure in my area this evening, a power transformer blew from the sound I heard just as the power went out. After verifying the UPS would keep the system up at least 20 minutes I shut the whole thing down. The system seems to be back up at this time except for a problem with the eth1 interface. I believe this is related to a glitch and will be working on it over the next few minutes. The system may be a bit unstable because I will need to reboot at least once... Sorry for any inconvenience. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ 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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New hi-tech dog tags use encryption?... [CNN]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > PENTAGON INTRODUCING HIGH-TECH DOG TAGS > > electronic military dog tag December 27, 1997 > Web posted at: 7:58 p.m. EST (0058 GMT) > > From Correspondent Jonathan Karl > > WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Through triumph and tragedy and two world wars, > the military dog tag has been an American icon for generations of > soldiers and sailors. > > Today's armed forces wear the same basic dog tag that their > great-grandparents wore. But that's about to change. > > By 1999, the 1.4 million members of the active duty military will be > issued a high-tech dog tag that contains a computer chip. CNN's > Jonathan Karl reports > icon 2 min. VXtreme video > > The old dog tags had just five lines for information, which included > spaces for name, religion and blood type. The new digital tags, > however, can contain volumes of multi-media information, including > medical histories, X-rays and cardiograms. [text deleted] > "We have to be very concerned about how we protect the information > -- in who's hands would it be, should it be encrypted, could the > encryption be broken, what would happen if it ended up in the wrong > hands," says Defense Secretary William Cohen. [text deleted] > If issues of cost and privacy can be solved, the old metal dog tags > seem certain to become just another piece of military history. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ 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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