December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Cato forum tomorrow: should money laundering be a crime?
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Steve Schear wrote: >Nerthus wrote: >>Might be a bit of a stretch, but I think this is because money today is >>inherently a liability, that is a debt that someone, somewhere has promised >>to pay back. > >You've got this all backwards. The bearer certificates (paper money) issued >by governments is an interest-free loan by those holding the paper to the >issuer. This is true, but it is only part of the picture. The paper currency issuer (the central bank) is enjoying seigniorage, that is -- in the case of the US - -- the Federal Reserve is collecting revenue from the interest earned on the outstanding paper dollars. This earned interest is given to the Treasury and accounted for as revenue for the federal government. However, this tells us nothing about the currency's real worth. We need to look deeper to find the source of the paper currency's value. When the US government wants to create money, it issues debt instruments such as T-Bills to the Fed or to a commercial bank. The bank then credits the government's deposit (checking) account for the face value of the T-Bill. The bank believes it will collect this money back plus interest in a certain amount of time. The government can then ask the Fed to issue some paper cash in exchange for the deposit currency (new paper is then created). The T-Bill is nothing but a promise by the federal government to pay back a debt. The government has taken a loan from a bank and promises to pay it back in 1,5,10 or 30 years with interest. The money to pay it back comes directly from the tax revenues the government collects from its citizens. Thus paper currency is based on the debt saddled upon future generations of citizens/taxpayers. Interestingly, this is not much different than John Q. Public getting cash advances on his credits cards for a few years and then wondering why he is $25k in the hole and growing at 18% per annum. Many people, especially politicians, always go for the short term gain, regardless of the long term consequences. Debt-based currency (primarily a 20th century phenomenon) has ushered in a new era of political and financial irresponsibility. Eventually the debts must either be reneged on or paid off. When that time finally comes, neither option will paint a pretty picture. Nerthus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNIxg7Ra1d3zm4nqOEQJnnwCfaOLKaiCiYuqUJRSVBLc1Q6aZ4VIAoNJY EdB96VwVlxlcI9u3Glnwjf1y =vMJq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: [Censored] Quote of the Day (fwd)
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate wrote: >I've had to threaten several DPS officers (Texas state troopers) >with this because they like to park their cruiser in the drive outside >my fence but still within the property line without asking my >permission to do paperwork and eat. > >They don't do it anymore. Damn, Jim, it's been nice having you here. Huntsville's agape for sugary puckers "threatening an officer." Still that beats joining the roadkill at the bottom of Lake Travis for messing with Texas.

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Re: [Censored] Quote of the Day (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi John, Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 17:34:30 -0500 > From: John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com> > Subject: Re: [Censored] Quote of the Day (fwd) > Jim Choate wrote: > > >I've had to threaten several DPS officers (Texas state troopers) > >with this because they like to park their cruiser in the drive outside > >my fence but still within the property line without asking my > >permission to do paperwork and eat. > > > >They don't do it anymore. > > Damn, Jim, it's been nice having you here. Huntsville's agape > for sugary puckers "threatening an officer." > > Still that beats joining the roadkill at the bottom of Lake Travis > for messing with Texas. Sorry dude, it isn't against the law in Texas to threaten an officer when they are committing a crime, and trespassing on private property without permission, in pursuit of a suspect, or a warrant is most definitely a crime in this state, even for police. In this state if I catch somebody on my property at night in the process of what I *believe* is theft is even grounds for me to use deadly force; but *only* between sunset and sunrise. About 3 years ago we had a female UT-Austin student shoot and kill a peeping tom in the middle of town. She saw the guy through her window, got her gun, went outside and dropped the guy. No charges were filed because it was after dark and his trespassing on the apartment property was enough to invoke the above referenced law. There was a lot of screaming and yelling from a bunch of bleeding hearts about it, but the law still stands. You really should try to understand why you cow-tow to 'The Man'.... ____________________________________________________________________ | | | | | We built your fort. We will not have it used against us. | | | | John Wayne - Allegheny Uprising | | | | | | _____ 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: Remailer Trivia / Re: Singapore & Freedom (fwd)
by Charlie Comsec 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> wrote: > > With both Nynex and Bell Atlantic, I've gotten phone service under a > > nym. No SSN, no credit references, no problem. > > > > Just don't call yourself Bill Clinton. > > That isn't the same as having it listed under the nym 'anonymous', when > you can get a phone company to start service, accept payment under that > 'name' and keep it that way in their records let me know. Further, with > the cross to the service address your anonymity isn't. But that isn't analogous to making an anonymous post to a public forum such as a Usenet NG or a mailing list. The best telephone analogy to that I can think of would be to place a phone call from a payphone to one of those call-in radio programs, say what you have to say, then hang up and listen to the responses over your radio. Signing up for a telephone under a pseudonym implies that you desire incoming calls (private replies) and is more analogous to a 'nym server. - --- Finger <comsec(a)nym.alias.net> for PGP public key (Key ID=19BE8B0D) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBNI2qrwbp0h8ZvosNAQF0MAf9E6GecTJszUYlfj6D1WCX8HUpJcVBo2gY DwLJOs8l3tgf292xFbcInQpQncJyIWHWY3svOZyGcmxgtUDjAi61vaeAYasU44sA KXJV0NjZgqXtE2bIAAWDSQsRzWalawnOp0UfNv1f3arHJrOx03YttAA8IuzB0365 uyCaZhjZDnhaSYd+Z+yfICcth4PVInRmm+gW6kpthMV3bY/+14hVjC6DAdh3W38E 5mlVG/99OLd2J+dSbo3al0eFmTnLcqyUK0w5kqkWpnStvTYuos1TSvuIX7toBOZi WIDLn83zHYbFwpp25hs68SrbTZ+IrQeiuannd14UtAXvWoGjzNLCQw== =Ldte -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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ABC NightTerror
by Nobody 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mr. Gump, A few comments on your CyberTerror show on Dec. 8th. First, I would like to compliment you on how well you articulate with Uncle Sam's cock in your mouth. Second, I would like to suggest that if you would make a habit of burning the government press-releases that you parrot so regularly, that you might be inspired to ask questions of your DCZombie guests that would be of interest to citizens in outlying areas of the country who have not yet received their digital mind- control government implants as of yet. Next time that you interview someone who tells yourself and all of America that this or that organization, agency, or national infrastrucure is in great danger of being compromised by small children, threatening the financial and physical safety of all of humanity, why don't you try asking them when they intend to announce their resignation for allowing conditions to come to this on their watch? Do you sleep well at night, knowing that those who view your show go to bed dreaming of putting children in prison, instead of lynching warlords who claim to have made our national security vulnerable to those children? I suggest that ABC News spends the $50.00 per month necessary to connect the ClueServer, or buy one. Bubba ROM DOS TruthMonger #3 "It's not FUD until *I* say it's FUD!" cc: Nightline(a)abc.com

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Re: Burnmore & Databasix
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A Voice <scorpion(a)anon.nymserver.com> wrote: > Gary L. Burnore wrote : > > >The anonasshole is now working on his "way out of this". > >Expect many more of his posts to contain bits of how more > >than one person posting anonymously is > >making the accusations. All is falling down around the anonasshole. > > Been lurking and reading this anon vs. Burnmore thing for a while. He's engaging in wishful thinking. Fanciful, paranoid theories about his critics (such as imagining that he only has one <g>) are apparently intended to divert attention from his own tactics and activities. > >We'd expect no less. I do wonder how long it will take before those who > >believe remailers are a good thing start to realise this asshole has > >it in for them. Everything it posts could be used by the anti-remailer > >front as a reason to shut them all down. Much of this "anti-remailer front" works for DataBasix. Notice the classic disinformation tactics that Gary Burnore is engaging in here. But notice that Gary was part of this "anti-remailer front" that used ALLEGED forgeries and "spam baiting" to get two remailers shut down. It is interesting that he now attributes the activities of himself and his associates at DataBasix with this unnamed "anti-remailer front". > That, IMO, is what you're up to. You and the Databasix thugs took a > couple of re-mailers down. You staged the whole thing. > > It should be clear to any thinking person that this group of thugs have an > anti-privacy motivation. > > Sadly, I also think they do this for shits and giggles. Gary Burnore, Belinda Bryan <eridani(a)netcom.com>, William "Wotan" McClatchie <wmcclatc(a)primenet.com> seem to want privacy for themselves but at the same time they also want to be able to identify their critics. Strangely enough, several of Gary's non-anonymous critics have reported harassment, forged posts, spam-baiting, etc. Probably just a "coincidence", right? Which makes one wonder why Gary and Belinda wanted to get ahold of the logs from the Huge Cajones Remailer which would have identified anyone who ever sent or even received anonymous mail through that remailer. Gary and Belinda have consistently stonewalled that question. My guess is that they were counting on Jeff keeping that dirty little secret of theirs hidden. Helena Kobrin and the Church of Scientology weren't able to bully that information out of Jeff and neither were Gary, Belinda, and DataBasix, for the simple reason that Jeff was smart enough not to collect it in the first place!

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Re: [Censored] Quote of the Day (fwd)
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate wrote, strictly adhering to permissible topics here: >You really should try to understand why you cow-tow to 'The Man'.... DPS sumbitch ran me down near DFW, me and my crap filled van, my mangy hide and shaggy hair, my NY plates, my wildly dumped substances, and sat behind for a few drags of AC in 100 degree heat, miked in the number, adjusted his mirrors, tilted the vidcam skyward, and climbed out, a big, very big widowmaker high on his fat ass, hustled his privates, spat juice, and farted hard enough to quiver the VW and me. Where you heading son, what's the hurry, why you messing Texas highways with this garbage? Not on my watch, Yankee, let me see paper on this wreck, the vehicle, you. What's that smell? Anyway, 24 later, I got the rig back, trashed more so, not so different, the lining had been long gone, so searching it was easy. What was new were ten bullet holes penetrating side to side, .30 caliber I guess, and a shotgunned rear window, inside out. No ticket, no fine, just a reminder of highway justice, on the orderly property of the State of Texas, lawfully administered by cop, judge and jury on the spot, for cost saving efficiency. BTW, any chance your recent system troubles are related to your threats to law and order? DPS got cooperative service interrupters? Administering info highway justice.

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Crypto-buff & conservative GOPer for president?
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

*9 ASHCROFT: HEALER OF THE BREACH? Under the header "The Gospel According To John," New Republic's Zengerle profiles Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO). Ashcroft, "the most authentic social conservative currently receiving serious consideration" for the GOP nod, is "laying claim to the Reagan legacy," in an effort to "prevent his base from splintering." An ally of the religious right, "who view Ashcroft as a fellow traveler," he "holds morning prayer meetings in his office, and on Sundays he attends Assembly of God services in an underground movie theater at Union Station." He has proposed a bill to make social Security taxes deductible, will unveil his own flat-tax proposal and "continues to push" for term limits. His "strategy has one salient flaw, however: it is risky for a candidate of such low national name recognition to cast himself as a healer of the breach." A prominent conservative: "Steve Forbes can't legitimately say that he's been fighting the good fight for this community for the past ten years. ... He's kicked this constituency in the teeth for a better part of the decade. If I'm John Ashcroft, I'd point that out" (12/22 issue).

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Re: [Censored] Quote of the Day (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 20:22:01 -0500 > From: John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com> > Subject: Re: [Censored] Quote of the Day (fwd) > Jim Choate wrote, strictly adhering to permissible topics here: > > >You really should try to understand why you cow-tow to 'The Man'.... > > DPS sumbitch ran me down near DFW, me and my crap filled van, > my mangy hide and shaggy hair, my NY plates, my wildly dumped > substances, and sat behind for a few drags of AC in 100 degree heat, > miked in the number, adjusted his mirrors, tilted the vidcam skyward, > and climbed out, a big, very big widowmaker high on his fat ass, > hustled his privates, spat juice, and farted hard enough to quiver the > VW and me. > > Where you heading son, what's the hurry, why you messing Texas > highways with this garbage? Not on my watch, Yankee, let me see > paper on this wreck, the vehicle, you. What's that smell? > > Anyway, 24 later, I got the rig back, trashed more so, not so different, > the lining had been long gone, so searching it was easy. What was > new were ten bullet holes penetrating side to side, .30 caliber I guess, > and a shotgunned rear window, inside out. Why didn't you file against them? Texas judges don't take kindly to the DPS pulling this sort of shit. I worked at UT-Austin from 1984 to 1990 for the Physical Plant taking care of their nifty burglar alarm system (at the time really cutting edge compared to the rest of the industry) and got to work with UTPD, which because it is a state school are really DPS officers - unbeknownst to most folks, and find about half of them are real rednecks who get away with this sort of shit because nobody ever files on them. Did you know that if a DPS officer gets some number of complaints within a period (used to be 3 within 30 days) they were removed from active duty pending a review. It is even possible to have a officer fired if they recieve enough complaints. Most cops only get 3-4 complaints a year. It is *critical* for the system to work correctly that *every* infraction gets reported and if appropriate to file charges. Even if you don't win the cop will lose, the complaints go on their permanent record and get evaluated yearly and have a direct impact on their promotions and eligibility for other jobs. My brother has a really cheeky way to deal with this sort of shit. Once it is clear they are going to let him go he pulls some coin out of his pocket and hands it to the officer telling them "Here you go, go buy a personality." My personal method is to hand them my drivers license (if I'm on a public road and driving) and then refuse to answer any further questions. I usually answer with something like "I'm sorry officer, I'm not required to talk to you". My goal is to get the cop to either let me go right there or arrest me. Either way I win. Usually the most they get from me is a shrug. So far it's worked for me, never been arrested except one time when they had a computer screw up on a 6 year old ticket. Got arrested, posted bond, showed up at the hearing and requested to see the physical ticket. Charges were dropped because not only could they not produce the ticket but they couldn't produce any other evidence of the crime. My ace in the hole was that I still had the court receipt where I paid the ticket, never had to use it. > No ticket, no fine, just a reminder of highway justice, on the orderly > property of the State of Texas, lawfully administered by cop, judge > and jury on the spot, for cost saving efficiency. Only because you allowed it by not filing. I sympathize with your situation but find your acceptance a little puzzling as well. By your inactivity you are promoting such behaviour. Democracy doesn't work if you are complacent or of a compromising nature. While it's true you might loose the fight, if you don't even try its guaranteed you have no chance of winning. A system works because the people refuse to allow it to fail. My personal philosophy is that if people would stand up and shout more they would be more immune to harrassment and other similar activities because it reduces the payoff to such abusive activities. Shine a light on cockroaches and they run for the dark. It's one of the reasons that I support this mailing list even thought I disagree personaly with the vast majority of views expressed by it. Should something happen to SSZ and by extension me, quite a few people who know me personaly and professionaly will get more than a bit curious after a couple of days of downtime if they don't hear from me. I further advertise this because it makes shure that those who are intending to harass me know that it is not an individual they are dealing with. > BTW, any chance your recent system troubles are related to your > threats to law and order? DPS got cooperative service interrupters? > Administering info highway justice. My phone service problems w/ SWBT are because they are known for being incompetent. The problems that I have had with ISDN reliability are a known problem to the ISP's and heavy ISDN users through-out Texas. The reason that the ISDN folks and the POTS folks can't get their act together is that they use the same cable sets but keep different books and operate as an indipendant business division, one is residential and the other business. There are limited numbers of pairs in the neighborhood (it's only about 100 years old) so what happens is the ISDN guy looks at the various pairs, his records are out of date a week or more and as a result don't have the recent cable changes from my most recent POTS service call and therefore those pairs are listed as free so he uses them. This causes the POTS to fail, who comes out and now his records are out of date and he sees the ISDN pairs as unused and pulls them to fix the POTS. Round and round we go... [one of my users thinks this is a big conspiracy on the part of SWBT, the city, state, and federal agencies to put me out of business and shut me up. Personaly, I can't imagine being that big a fish.] Doesn't the fact that SWBT now has some say in Bell Atlantic and Bell South just warn the cockles of your heart....;) [anyone know how a clam, cockle, got involved in this saying?] Don't know if it is really on topic but both Bell Atlantic and Bell South use Tivoli to support their backbones and other services machines. There is currently a big internal fight (as I understand it) because SWBT has bought major stakes in both companies and SWBT wants them to use SWBT's custom self-developed piece of shit (personal opinion here as a long time SWBT customer, not indicative of either Tivoli or IBM's official or unofficial views; I'm just a lowly Senior Engineer and they don't let techies like me in on the political talks) network management software instead of using ours. I can say this, in the last 3 months since moving to this new house I have had 8 trouble tickets. None have been repaired in less than 2 days and the longest was like 6. Every time SWBT says it's my hardware, I swap out routers or check my wiring, but it ends up being their problem. I've been charged $30 for a onsite call that should have been paid by SWBT. I have repeatedly been advised to invoke their Level 2 Protocol Analysis support at $60/30 minutes and I have to pay the bill first and will only get reimbursed *if* SWBT decides it really is their problem. When I talked to them the other day I mentioned that I am thinking of getting the PUC involved along with a lawyer. Their responce was, verbatim, "Sir, do whatever you want to do." I gave them a couple of chances to make it right and I warned them I would fight. I'm currently starting proceedings with PUC. Did you know that if you are late on a SWBT bill one time your billing period is reduced, your monthly payment goes up, and it does this for a year following the occurance. So I figure that if you think your phone service is bad now wait a year you ain't seen nothing yet... ____________________________________________________________________ | | | | | We built your fort. We will not have it used against us. | | | | John Wayne - Allegheny Uprising | | | | | | _____ 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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Hackers crack Yahoo, call for Mitnick release [CNN]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > HACKERS BREAK INTO YAHOO!, > CALL FOR RELEASE OF MITNICK > > Yahoo December 9, 1997 > Web posted at: 5:54 p.m. EST (2254 GMT) > > NEW YORK (AP) -- Hackers broke into Yahoo!, the Internet's most > popular site, demanding the release of an imprisoned comrade and > threatening to unleash a crippling computer virus if he is not > freed. > > Computer security experts were skeptical of the hackers' claim that > they had implanted such a virus. > > The hackers, calling themselves PANTS/HAGIS, got into Yahoo!'s World > Wide Web site at about 10 p.m. Monday, leaving a digital ransom > note. > > "For the past month, anyone who has viewed Yahoo's page & used their > search engine, now has a logic bomb/worm implanted deep within their > computer," it read. "On Christmas Day, 1998, the logic bomb part of > this 'virus' will become active, wreaking havoc upon the entire > planet's networks. > > "The virus can be stopped. But not by mortals." > > The note said an "antidote" program will be made available if hacker > Kevin Mitnick is released. Mitnick was indicted last year on charges > involving a multimillion-dollar crime wave in cyberspace. > > Diane Hunt, a spokeswoman for the company, said the message was up > for only 10 to 15 minutes and a few thousand people saw it. > > "We immediately took action to see the extent of the damage and > moved to correct it," she said. "And about that virus? There is, in > fact, no virus." > > Yahoo! is a computer directory widely used for searching the > Internet. The note appeared briefly in place of the Yahoo! home > page, preventing people online from using the search engine, which > got 17.2 million visits in October. > > Jonathan Wheat, manager of the Anti-Virus Lab at the National > Computer Security Association, said it is at least theoretically > possible to exploit security flaws on the Internet and implant such > a virus. But he said he doubts this group of hackers -- already > known to security experts -- pulled it off. > > "That's pretty much ridiculous," agreed Jamonn Campbell, an > information security analyst at the association. > > Wheat said there was little reason to be concerned that the popular > Web site was hacked. > > "A lot of Web sites get hacked constantly," he said. He said that > while Yahoo! is a high-profile site and should be expected to have > better security than most, "no site is completely hack-proof." > > Copyright 1997 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This > material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or > redistributed. y

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