December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 22:06:38 -0800 > From: Blanc <blancw(a)cnw.com> > Subject: Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality > BTW, you should consider that when Einstein proposed the creation of a > bomb, it was within the context of a war being advanced globally by an evil > madman who was gathering every resource to subdue and decimate everything > in his way, and that the rest of the world was desperate for a solution. Um, actualy Einstein didn't propose a bomb. I believe Leo Szilard approached Einstein with a letter asking the President to begin an initiative. The motivation was because most of the really worthwhile German physicists working on the Nazi programs left the Nazi sphere. The fear was that since Germany had the *only* supply of heavy water in the world and the only state backed program in the field that if the US didn't do something they would loose the bomb in a series of bright flashes. I also, don't believe the war had actualy started when Einstein was approaced by Leo on Aug. 2, 1939. > Also you should remember that some brilliant people, like Newton, who was a > shy man and didn't necessarily see himself as others did/do, did not care > if anyone else saw the results of his work. He certainly went to great pains to publish it, even anonymously in some cases and out of his own pocket. > Once he had solved the > problems in his own mind, he was not exceptionally concerned that others > were also struggling with the same, nor whether "the community" needed the > answer. He was pursuing knowledge for reasons of his own. He pursued knowledge for deep religous reasons, according to his notes. Newton was also the Exchequer of England and had 3 peopled hanged for stealing gold from the government mint. He took the job because he had pissed so many people off at the time because of his attitude that he couldn't find work. It was prior to him becoming know as the 'Lion of England' and gaining life tenure. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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: rant on the morality of confidentiality (fwd)
by Blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: >The same guy informed me later that he discovered a closed-form solution to >some very interesting problems 9related to Black-Scholes) which according to >the open literature either can't be done accurately at all, or require >incredible amounts of cpu time for monte carlo simulations. he doesn't >wish tio publish it (although it would make him quite a celebrity) and >now he's going crazy trying to figure out a way to sell it in such a way >that he can't get screwed again. How would crypto help if at all? ........................................................... I don't know about crypto, but I just attended a very informative financial forum on protecting intellectual property, presented by two representatives from Arthur Andersen and Preston Gates & Ellis, LLP. I picked up a little brochure which the attorney firm had available for attendees: We counsel and represent inventors, authors, publishers, visual artists, and musicians as they face a host of new and important issues. Preston Gates attorneys negotiate the use of creative expression in the full range of media, from CD-Roms and on-line services to interactive television and video games. We monitor and advise clients on developments in consumer protection, defamation, infringement, and other legal areas that affect their ability to develop and market creative properties. {etc} web site: www.prestongates.com, email: infotech(a)prestongates.com .. Blanc

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Silly Shrinkwrapped Encryption
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Could someone poke through Lotus Notes with a debugger and see exactly how this "giving 24 bits to the government" is implemented? Most commercial software simply introduces redundancy in order to limit the keyspace to 40 bits, regardless of the advertised length of the key. This claim that they deliver 64 bits of key to the customer seems a bit bogus. Of course, they could have done something clever, like generating a completely random 64 bit key, and then encrypting 24 bits of it with a giant government-owned RSA public key, and including this additional information with each message. However, it seems unlikely that they would employ such strong encryption for message recovery, while offering only 64 bits for message encryption. Is Lotus Notes encryption documented anywhere? Are the differences between the export and domestic versions disclosed to overseas customers? -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Subject: Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality > Date: Thu, 08 Jan 98 16:42:43 -0800 > From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri(a)netcom.com> > every respondent to my post has missed the key points. Not quite. Of course I don't agree with all of them either. There are two rules you should consider: - It's ok to have an open mind, just don't let it slosh out on the ground. - Understanding a view is not equivalent to supporting a view. You might also want to consider that two opposing views might very well *both* be right...it depends on where you sit on the fence as to what the tree looks like. > >Scientists even in schools and foundations are often secretive, too. > > > >The notion that "science" is about blabbing one's latest discoveries or > >theories is overly simplistic. Many scholars and scientists choose not to > >publicize their work for years, or decades, or, even, never. > > if so, they are not SCIENTISTS. a key aspect of SCIENCE is publishing > results. science cannot advance without it. name me one scientist > who did not publish an important result, or is considered a good > scientists for doing so! I must agree here. If a technologist (ie one who studies science for profit, hence creating a technology) chooses not to publish their results that is fine. However, a scientist is one who studies nature and its interactions, profit is not and should not be a motive. Simplistic or not; in fact some things are better understood when simplified (ala the scientific principle). A scientist has an obligation to discuss and publish their results for other scientists (and even technologist) when they are reasonably sure their results will stand up to indipendant verification (a critical issue in science, not in technology however). Don't be confused by Timy's claim to be a scientist, he is a technologist at heart. Many of his views and beliefs are motivated by issues of control *not* curiosity. > >Consider Andrew Wiles, Princeton math professor, and the prover of Fermat's > >Last Theorem. He labored in secrecy for many years, only going public when > >he felt his results were complete. (As it turned out, they were not, and he > >needed another year or two to fill in some gaps.) > > but he PUBLISHED his results, he gave a LECTURE on his findings. I am > not saying that secrecy and science are mutually exclusive in this way. > secrecy is a useful tool, I am not in general against secrecy. but > secrecy can be ABUSED, and our government is ABUSING it. Further, the *reason* he was so secretive was because of the history of failed attempts and early 'proofs' that later failed. He was motivated by getting it right and ruining his reputation; not because he thought proving Fermat's Last Theorem would provide him riches and laurels for the remainder of his mortal coil. > have you > been following that Clinton was just fined $286,00 for lying to > a judge? Which means, per the Constitution, that he should be removed from office. He broke a public trust and that means he looses any public station he currently has and is barred from future office. > I could give > >dozens of examples of where the open literature either did not exist or was > >not used...and science still advanced. Of course, this is a specious argument. If it was already in the literature it wouldn't be science advancing (learning something that wasn't known before). The whole point to science is to understand and explain what we see and don't see that creates the cosmos we inhabit. Now if your point is that Intel taking some trade secret only they are aware of and using this to make quicker chips is science then you don't know a damn thing about science. > but science eventually published the results. It is *required* for doing 'science', it isn't for doing 'technology'. As a matter of fact a little perusal of history demonstrates that science requires open and unhindered dialog while technology requires closed channels of communcication and mechanisms of control. A perfect current example is the move to cloan humans. The guy, Creed?, is right "you can't stop science"; you can however stop technology and businesses do every day. Until that oocyte goes viable it's science, from that point on it's technology. > human endeavor. how can you argue with something so obvious? You don't know Timmy very well do you... > all this is uninteresting to me-- I was making a moral point in an > essay that is obviously unintelligable to most people here. its my > big mistake in this world, to pretent that morality plays a role. Actualy your mistake is assuming that there is *one* morality. Don't fret though. Just about everyone wants to jam everyone else into their nice little easily understood molds. It makes it much easier to justify their actions to themselves and potentialy to others if they get them to swallow even once. > of how things should be? things ARE, PERIOD. good lord, no wonder > Ayn Rand is so uninfluential. Reasonable men don't change the world. If we aren't motivated by our ethics and belief that our actions can change the world into the way it 'should be' then what is the motive? Money? Even that is a veiled mechanism to make the world the way we think it should be (ie we have more money or social station than currently endowed with). Changing the world is what *makes* life worth living. The question *is* why do you want to change the world and *who* gets to profit by it? ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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: rant on the morality of confidentiality
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:09 AM -0800 1/8/98, Jim Gillogly wrote: >Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: >> scientists who agree to government secrecy to develop >> their inventions are agreeing to a lot more than >> mere secrecy. they are committing to a paradigm that >> is at odds with science itself, which only advances through >> the open literature. > >Why limit your annoyance to government scientists? Scientists >in private industry are in the same position, developing (e.g.) >algorithms and analytical methods protected by trade secrets. >Society recognizes this tendency and tries to advance science >anyway by offering patent protection. You don't make money by >giving away your intellectual capital. Seems to me that schools >and independently wealthy scientists/foundations are the only >ones who don't merit your censure on this count. Scientists even in schools and foundations are often secretive, too. The notion that "science" is about blabbing one's latest discoveries or theories is overly simplistic. Many scholars and scientists choose not to publicize their work for years, or decades, or, even, never. Consider Andrew Wiles, Princeton math professor, and the prover of Fermat's Last Theorem. He labored in secrecy for many years, only going public when he felt his results were complete. (As it turned out, they were not, and he needed another year or two to fill in some gaps.) Corporate scientists now outnumber academic or foundation scientists, and they are quite understandably under various restrictions to keep results secret, at least for a while. Science does not "only advance through the open literature." There are many other checks and balances which accomplish the same effect. I could give dozens of examples of where the open literature either did not exist or was not used...and science still advanced. --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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British Ministers Adopt Unbreakable Crypto
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The UK is replacing the traditional "red boxes" used by ministers to carry their work home with them with high tech laptops. They will use a signet ring and fingerprints to control access to the computer. There will be a "Duress Finger." :) ----- LONDON (AP) -- It's a briefcase even James Bond could love. Britain's more adventurous Cabinet ministers soon will be spiriting laptop computers inside their signature ``Red Box'' briefcases, complete with fingerprint recognition systems and silent alarms. The stacks of papers, briefing documents and constituency correspondence that now go home with each minister in lead-lined red briefcases will be replaced in a few months by a specially designed super-secure laptop -- capable of carrying infinitely more homework. At $4,000 each, the prototypes unveiled Tuesday are seen as a symbol of the modern Britain so often touted by the Labor Party and are being billed as a way to make government work more efficiently. They will not, however, be foisted on ministers who prefer the old-fashioned paper route -- but those holdouts will miss an electronic voice that chirps ``Good morning, minister'' each time the computer is turned on. Each computer, built into the briefcase, will come with a security system that uses a signet ring and fingerprints to control access to the computer. Ministers who eschew jewelry can have the signet ring's smart-card incorporated into another device, such as a keychain or pen. The fingerprint function also requires an alternate finger to be programmed in case the minister cuts the one designated, thereby corrupting the fingerprint. ``It has certainly been billed as very James Bond-ish and I suppose we are 'Q,' '' said Alan Rushworth, managing director of Rhea International, the company that designed the security system, likening himself to the 007 character who outfits James Bond with all his gadgets. ``There is even a duress finger,'' Rushworth said. ``That is for if a terrorist or gunman has a gun to the minister's head forcing him to open the computer. It will appear to function normally but doesn't, and sends a silent alarm to the Cabinet Office.'' No ``top secret'' documents will be loaded on the computers because such material is seldom transmitted electronically for security reasons, a government spokeswoman said. Even American security experts could not breach the computer's security system, Rushworth boasted. ``The Cabinet office has used its best government hackers for extensive penetration testing and they couldn't break it,'' he said. ``It has also been tried by our cousins on the other side of the Atlantic -- and they couldn't get in either.'' -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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plan 9 features (Re: autonomous agents (fwd)) (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 00:33:14 GMT > From: Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> > Subject: plan 9 features (Re: autonomous agents (fwd)) > Sounds interesting. I am not familiar with plan 9 besides the > enthusings of a colleague reminiscing about the work done at York > Univ, UK with plan 9. > > Java has a lot going for it as a candidate due to portability and code > distribution support. I think the only thing missing from java is the > bidding and scheduling mechanisms. Your other forwarded message on > plan 9 looks interesting also. I have been working on a potential distributed data haven model using the Plan 9 architecture. I have finaly amassed enough machines where I can actualy dedicate the i/o, process, and file servers on seperate machines. The problem that I see for the immediate future is getting nodes that don't happen to reside on my premises for additional testing in about a year. I don't have a clue to how to get people to spend $400 bucks for the software (which the ATT license prohibits from commercial use) *and* dedicate several machines to the enterprise. But I'm not going to give up, maybe some folks will volunteer just to do it...:) I took the liberty of forwarding the man page for the auth() function to the cpunks list. It describes the 56-bit DES based authentication mechanism. I personaly don't care for DES so at some point I will be looking to replace that mechanism with an alternative. I also need to take some time and look at porting the Plan 9 file server adapter for Unix to Win95/NT. Either that or I mount the file systems to a suitably enhanced Linux box and then export from there. This would imply that the Win95/NT boxes need to be on the physical network of the Linux box or else excessive opportunities for MITM attacks are present. Not that simply being on the same network provides complete protection either. I hope that OpenNT will provide enough Unix-like features to minimize the port effort. The Plan 9 mechanism also needs to be enhanced in such a way that besides the access token involving encryption the actual transfer of packets are also content encrypted. This has potential compatibility problems with un-enhanced Plan 9 servers that I haven't had a chance to look at. Once I have a system up and running it will allow non-Plan 9 systems to access the resources by using what is called 'hand-held DES encryptors'. Unfortunately, there is not a real description of how this is to be accomplished in a real-world manner. My hope is to have something available sometime this summer that will allow folks to play with it at least in a limited way. If you get the chance and have the resources you should look into at least getting the Plan 9 documents. They're like $150 but call and verify that price since I didn't this morning. Also note, there are now two releases of Plan 9 floating around out there. The only distinction I am aware of is one is the 'old' release and the current is the 'new' release. Don't have a clue as to how to tell them apart or what compatibility problems will exist. My best estimate is that in about a month I will have the resources to install and begin developing the model. I am currently between employers (I don't work at Tivoli-IBM anymore) so I'm job hunting in the Austin area over the next few weeks. I'll make reports to the list on the results as I manage to get results. I don't know about Java on Plan 9, I'll look into it. Take care. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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: (eternity) Automating BlackNet Services
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Scratch Monkey writes: > Here's a way to do an automated "high risk" server, using many of the > same methods as the eternity implementation but with longer delays and > more security for the server. This design ties in pretty well with what I understood Tim May's suggestion to be of using BlackNet to provide eternity services. I notice that you are assuming that all document delivery would be via digital dead-drop (alt.anonymous.messages). Depending on the usage pattern of this service it has the potential to be higher bandwidth than by Eternity USENET design. The BlackNet with dead-drop only scheme you propose will become more expensive in bandwidth than Eternity USENET at the point at which the volume of satisfied document requests being posted to USENET for different recipients exceeds the volume required to repost the traffic at the desired update rate. This is because you may have multiple requests for the same document, all of which must be posted to alt.anonymous.messages. One thing you could do to reduce this overhead would be to combine requests for the same document. To do this you could add an extra delay to satisfying requests to increase the chances of accumulating more requests for the same document. Alternatively, documents which were sent out within the last 24 hours or so could have just the bulk symmetric key encrypted for the subsequent recipients sent together with a message-id. (A separated multiple crypto recipient block). A more subtle problem you would probably want to address with this design is that you don't really want anonymous requested documents to be linkable, so you would need to do stealth encoding of the messages. This tends to be more complex for multiple recipients, but it is doable, and is made easier by standardising on public key size. In general I think I consider my Eternity USENET design more secure than your design and of similar overhead depending on whether the usage pattern results in lower bandwidth. I make this claim because users are offered better security with E-USENET because they are completely anonymous, and don't need to submit requests. They can passively read E-USENET, perhaps on a university campus, or with a satellite USENET feed. The readers are much harder to detect. This is significant because remailers are complex to use, and the users should be assumed to be less technically able (ie more likely to screw up remailer usage). Publisher anonymity is of basically the same security. A lower bandwidth alternative, to either E-USENET or what you have termed Automated BlackNet alternative is therefore to send messages via use-once mixmaster remailer reply blocks of the sort used by some nymservers. Clearly this is also lower security because the user must creating reply blocks which ultimately point back to himself. However the performance win is big. With this architecture BlackNet can win significantly over E-USENET because the volume is reduced to just indexes of available documents. Also I consider indexes are probably low enough risk for people to mirror on the web or cache on the web or whatever. My E-USENET prototype design has a separate index mechanism. (I understand there is some magic inside mixmaster which prevents packet replay, which helps avoid message flood attacks, though didn't locate the code fragment responsible for this functionality when I examined the sources.) Also I found your use of hashes and passwords so that the server does not necessarily know what it is serving interesting. I have similar functionality in my prototype E-USENET implementation. I mainly included the functionality because the prototype is also being used as an publically accessible eternity USENET proxy, to allow the operator to marginally reduce risks. I think this approach is of marginal value, in that the attacker will be easily able to compile an index from the same information as users. This is really a form of secret splitting: the key is one part, and the data the other part. The key can be considered to be part of the URL. > Both the client and server software should be trivial to write, and in > fact I am working on that now. The server is partially written, but I am > at a handicap because I do not have access to usenet at this time. If > anyone knows of some canned code (preferably sh or c, but perl would work) > that will perform functions such as "Retrieve list of articles in > newsgroup x" and "Retrieve article number y", a pointer would be nice. http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/eternity/ I have done most of the work already I think. What you are trying to do is so similar that you should be able to acheive what you want with some light hacking of my perl code. For testing purposes I am in the same position as you; dialup ppp connection and linux machine. What I did was to implement both newspool access code, and NNTP access code. For local testing I just create a dummy news-spool. The eternity distribution comes with a few documents in this dummy news spool. A real local news spool would work also. Then you can simulate everything you want offline. You can change the config file to switch to an open access NNTP news-server at any time for a live test. All the code to read USENET is there, and to scan chosen NNTP headers, etc. I would highly recommend perl as a rapid prototyping language. What you see took 3 days (long days, mind, motivation was at an all time high around then). Adam

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(fwd) Automating BlackNet Services
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Scratch Monkey, a nym, described this BlackNet variant on the eternity list(*), which raises some interesting issues I think. I am currently forwarding eternity discussion backwards and forwards between the lists and adding Cc's on my replies. Adam (*) To subscribe see http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/eternity/ there is a CGI form to subscribe, or send message with body "subscribe eternity" to majordomo(a)internexus.net. ------- Start of forwarded message ------- To: eternity(a)internexus.net From: nobody(a)REPLAY.COM (Anonymous) Organization: Replay Associates, L.L.P. Subject: (eternity) Automating BlackNet Services Sender: owner-eternity(a)internexus.net Precedence: bulk On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, Adam Back wrote: > This suggests that another approach would be to have two classes of > services. Users of high risk documents can put up with 24 hour turn > around, and lower risk documents can be served by an alternate > service, intermediate risk documents can exist by using low risk > resources until detection. Here's a way to do an automated "high risk" server, using many of the same methods as the eternity implementation but with longer delays and more security for the server. For now I am calling this scheme (which is not much more than an automated participant in the BlackNet scheme) ABNS, for Automated BlackNet Server. 1) Server program resides on host with large disk and full news feed. 2) Server program watches alt.anonymous.messages. 3) Alice anonymously posts data to alt.anonymous.messages, in a format similar to eternity documents. However, the data would typicaly be encrypted to the public key(s) of the 4) Server notices the message, processes it and stores the data. 5) Bob anonymously posts a request for a document to alt.anonymous.messages. 6) Server notices the request, and anonymously posts a public key to alt.anonymous.messages along with a statement that the requested document is available. 7) Bob notices the post from the server, and anonymously posts a second request to alt.anonymous.messages, this time encrypted with the server's public key. This second request could include Bob's public key. 8) The server notices and decrypts the second request, and anonymously posts the requested document to alt.anonymous.messages, encrypted with Bob's public key if one was provided. The reason for steps 6 and 7 are to prevent multiple servers from responding to the same request with (potentialy) very large files. Of course, if Bob knew the data was available from a particular ABNS, he could skip steps 5 and 6. Both the client and server software should be trivial to write, and in fact I am working on that now. The server is partially written, but I am at a handicap because I do not have access to usenet at this time. If anyone knows of some canned code (preferably sh or c, but perl would work) that will perform functions such as "Retrieve list of articles in newsgroup x" and "Retrieve article number y", a pointer would be nice. So far, this is not too exciting, but the addition of a couple of extra technologies could make it very usefull... If the "Steganographic File System" being proposed by Ross Anderson comes to fruition, the ABNS could recieve a filename and password as part of each submission, and then promptly 'forget' them. In this way, not only does the server not have access to the contents of the file, it doesn't even know what files it has! Retrieval requests would include the appropriate information to enable the server to fetch the data. The addition of digital cash to the picture would make it really viable, because the server could charge for storage, or retrieval, or both. So picture this: Alice has some data she wants to sell. She encrypts this data to the public key of an ABNS, along with the filename and password to be used for file access and an amount of cash sufficient to pay for storage costs for maybe 6 months. She would also specify a 'value' for the data, which the ABNS will charge for access to this data and of which Alice will recieve a cut. She could also send a small advertisement (for which here storage fees should be minimal) as a separate document, and give it a value of zero. The server decrypts the message and verifies the cash. It then stores the file in the designated filename/password location in the SFS (stego file system). It makes a hash of the filename/password, and stores this hash in a 'table of contents' file that would also contain: - - the 'paid-until' date for the data. - - the public key of the submitter. - - the 'price' for the data It would then forget the filename and password. Bob learns of the existance of the data (how? I haven't thought about that yet but it doesn't seem to me that it would present much of a problem) and wishes to purchase it. He sends a message to the server by encrypting to the server's public key and posting to alt.anonymous.messages. In his message he includes the filename/password of the data he wants, along with an appropriate amount of cash and Bob's public key. The server decrypts Bob's request: - - First, it pockets the cash. (Everything else is just to keep customers) - - It then creates a hash based on the filename/password of the data that Bob is requesting. - - It looks up that hash in the table of contents file. - - If it is not found, it anonymously posts a message encrypted to Bob's public key indicating that the data is not available, but that Bob now has a line of credit at this particular ABNS. :) - - If it _does_ find the hash in the contents file, it checks the paid-until date. - - If the file is not paid up, the server treats it as if the file were not present (and in fact, it deletes the file at this time, something it could not do without the filename/password that Bob supplied). - - If the file is present, and storage fees are paid up, and Bob has enclosed enough cash (or has enough credit), the ABNS accesses the file in the stego filesystem and anon-posts it to Bob's public key. - - The server then forgets the filename/password, but remembers the hash. - - Of the 'fee' collected from Bob, the server allocates it as follows: - 70% is kept. - 10% is credited to the hash retrieved by Bob, to extend it's "Paid up" time. This means that documents that bring in a lot of money can pay for thier own storage costs, without the contributer needing to keep paying. - 20% is encrypted to the public key listed in the table of contents and posted to alt.anonymous.messages, as a royalty to the contributor. Of course, this is just one possible policy for the server to have. Market forces will shape the eventual pricing scheme. I'm actualy not sure if such a system would be used, because Alice may have no motivation to send her data to an ABNS when she can run the server herself and take 100% of the money. Comments on this aspect of operation would be appreciated. Either way, the same software could be used. I hope to post initial versions within a couple of weeks, assuming I can hack myself some account with nntp access for testing. -Scratch Monkey- 85d8e7d860504ba9e90527e7e89210d7 This is a new persistant nym. PGP key(s) will be posted soon, and I will verify that the keys belong to the same person who posted this message by providing the string that produces the md5 hash above.

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Freedom Forum report (freedom of association) (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 18:55:24 -0700 > From: Jim Burnes <jim.burnes(a)ssds.com> > Subject: Freedom Forum report (freedom of association) > (It is left as an excercise to the reader to figure out why > prohibition > needed an amendment to the constitution while prohibition of > other > mind altering substances did not ;-) What amazes me is that such groups as NORML and other pro-drug organizations have not had their lawyers raise this issue. As far as I can tell nobody has *ever* raised this issue in regards to the drug prohibitions. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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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