December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

BATF strike again
by Anonymous 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

CHRISTINE L. PETERSON Friends skeptical of official account October 8, 1998 http://www.bakersfield.com/top/i--1304241419.asp By CHRISTINE L. PETERSON Californian staff writer Disbelief permeated the tight-knit communities of Taft and Ford City Thursday as residents and friends of Darryl Howell questioned law enforcement's account of his death in his gun shop. The Kern County Sheriff Department's version of the events that the gun shop owner grabbed a loaded .45-caliber handgun Wednesday, struggled with officers and then placed the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger just didn't fit with what they knew of the father of two. Sheriff's officials said a Taft police officer, not knowing where the expended round went, immediately fired three rounds that struck Howell, 45, on the right side of his body. He died at the scene. "Everyone in Taft knows this is stupid," said Shannon Ong, 34, Howell's niece. "They think the police officers are trying to make it seem like he was a criminal." Ong believes there could be nothing further from the truth that the man who grew up in Taft and graduated from Taft Union High School where yearbooks say he played football and was in the band was a wonderful man who ran an upstanding business. While at least one family member and friends said Howell was vocal in support of gun rights, they did not believe he would condone any illegal behavior or sell illegal firearms. "The way that press release makes him sound, well, he just would have never done anything like that," Ong said after reading a copy of a sheriff's news release on the incident. ATF agents went to Alpha Omega Surplus and Supplies Store as part of a four-year firearms trafficking investigation, said ATF special agent Tracy Hite. She said ATF was assisted in serving a warrant by the Taft Police Department and Kern County Sheriff's Department. "This was a lengthy investigation that led us to several locations," Hite said, explaining that there were search warrants for five locations and arrest warrants for three people in Kern County. Ong estimated her uncle had the business for 15 to 20 years, first within Taft city limits and then in the county. At the business Thursday, some family members and friends gathered at the shop. A bumper sticker on a window bore the message: "Only tyrants and criminals fear honest armed citizens." Recorded programs blared from speakers outside the shop. "I just don't understand it," said friend Jamie Walchock. She said that while she didn't share Howell's support of guns, she respected him because he looked on the bright side of life, listened to and worked with people on their problems and was satisfied with making ends meet. She said Howell talked about moving. "In the 12 years I have known him, I have never seen him upset," Walchock said. To her, Howell was a law-abiding citizen; she said he didn't like helmets so he stopped riding his motorcycle when the helmet law went into effect. "I know in a million years he wouldn't ever shoot himself or lunge at a police officer," Walchock said. Ken Bishop, who would sometimes visit Howell at his shop, said Howell was "somewhat of a patriot" and would share his opinions about guns. He said that law enforcement's statement that Howell had illegal firearms seems "off the wall." Mike Hodges, the publisher of Golden Empire Review, said Howell asked to have a column printed in the paper titled, "Notes from Moron." Taft was called Moron in 1908, according to "Kern County Place Names." The city changed its name to Taft in 1909. In the column, Howell quotes several passages from the Bible. The column Hodges attributed to Howell states, "It is not an hone to be in the Militia! It is our God-given duty! We are commanded to be his soldiers. It is time to lay aside our daily' jobs and return to duty! R&R is over! To arms, to arms! Where are His soldiers? "Right now, where is your squad members? Right now can you honestly state that you are aware of their location and their ability to respond to duty?" Hodges said after Howell died, he reread the column. "It gave me an eerie, shaky feeling," Hodges said. He said he didn't believe Howell would ever resist arrest. While Howell didn't agree with some gun legislation, he abided by it, Hodges said. "I know Darryl wouldn't kill himself and he wouldn't hurt someone else," Hodges said. "My personal experience is he was a real giving person." 10/07/98 Article Man shot to death at Taft gun shop http://www.bakersfield.com/top/i--1304325052.asp

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TCR9 -- A Soldier of the Great War
by Robert Hettinga 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text From: CONSILRPT(a)aol.com Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 04:44:22 EDT To: "The Consilience Report" <consilience-report(a)lists.lyris.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Subject: TCR9 -- A Soldier of the Great War List-Subscribe: <mailto:subscribe-consilience-report@lists.lyris.net> List-Owner: <mailto:owner-consilience-report@lists.lyris.net> Reply-To: CONSILRPT(a)aol.com X-Message-Id: <bba934b5.362312e6(a)aol.com> Sender: bounce-consilience-report-262839(a)lists.lyris.net Precedence: bulk ____________________________________________________________ THE CONSILIENCE REPORT: A Bionomic Meditation Number Nine 10/13/98 _____________________________________________________________ A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR Last Waltz in Vienna ================ In the summer of 1918 the Great War was grinding through its fourth year. Thirty millions already dead or wounded -- or more -- no one really knows -- and the wreck of Europe still staggered on, like a blind man into oncoming traffic. In Italy the Austrian army was making its last futile bid for a military victory with an attack across the Piave River. In ten days they would lose 100,000 men -- twice all the American deaths in Vietnam, but barely a footnote in the endless slaughter of WW1. If you had been on the Italian front that June -- if you had been, say, young Ernest Hemingway from Michigan, tending your ambulance -- and had looked up at just the right time and place, you might have seen one of the biplanes of that era: an observation craft buzzing westward from the Austrian lines. The skinny boy-officer in the rear cockpit was a spotter for an artillery regiment of the Austro- Hungarian army. He had dropped out of high school in his senior year to enlist and experience a small part of the catastrophe. He was Lieutenant Friedrich August von Hayek, eldest son of a distinguished family of the minor Austrian nobility. He was just nineteen years old and, like all the young men so engaged that year, had no good prospect of getting much older. Hayek had been born in Vienna in 1899, in the reign of "der Alte Kaiser," the Emperor Franz- Joseph, next-to-last of the durable Habsburg dynasty. Unlike many of his age and class, Lt. von Hayek survived his war. He contracted malaria in the long retreat in the fall of 1918 but made it back -- thin and sick, but alive -- to a city that was no longer the glittering capital of a polyglot empire. Vienna was now just the largest city in the tiny rump state of the Austrian Republic -- redundant, impoverished, and on the edge of starvation. But it still possessed enough intellectual and cultural capital for one last burst of achievement before the Nazis rolled in fifteen years later. Here, Hayek considered his prospects in a changed world and prepared to enter the University of Vienna. A Shift of Attention =============== His first love had been the natural sciences. His grandfather had been a prominent ornithologist and Hayek, like his father, had been a fervent amateur botanist. One of his brothers became an anatomist, the other a chemist. By the time he was sixteen he had progressed from a collector's interest in taxonomy to paleontology and evolutionary theory -- but the war changed things. The experience of serving in a multinational army, shifted his interest from the natural to the social sciences. As he drily remarked: I served in a battle in which eleven different languages were spoken. It's bound to draw your attention to the problems of social organiization. As unbearable as 1914-1918 had been, events were already in motion to ensure that the rest of the horrible twentieth century arrived on schedule. Austria's senior ally -- the other Kaiser -- had just put the Russian emigre Vladimir Ulyanov (nom de guerre: Lenin) into a sealed train bound for St Petersburg, like a plague bacillus into the artery of a sick man. And within a year another Austrian veteran, Adolph Hitler, would make his way to Vienna, tramping through a rougher neighborhood than Hayek's, completing his own education among the crackpots and anti-semites that had long been flourishing like weeds in the brilliant but decadent capital. Europe, broken and bleeding, waited patiently while the scenery was shifted and the principal players learned their lines for the next act. Hayek had little to do with that -- few would be ready to listen to him or his ideas until the National Socialists and Communists had shot their bolt, and not many even then. Some Piety ========= We would like to think that everyone knows of, and esteems Hayek but, for the benefit of students arriving late here is a brief recitation: F. A. Hayek (1899-1992) was one of the foremost economists of this century before he morphed into a later and even more important career as a social and political philosopher. He won the Nobel prize in economics in 1974 and America's presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991. Those are some of the bare facts as they are cited in reference books, but there is much more to be said: He was a mighty scholar, an original thinker, a gentleman in a nearly-forgotten sense of that word. Above all, he was a man of unflinching moral courage who did as much as anyone to keep the idea of individual freedom alive. In an age when many of our leaders have tried to tell us that liberty is an embarrassing relic of another age -- something that we should happily trade in for something shinier -- our nation, or our race, or equality, or security, or social justice, or some other fabulous chimera -- Hayek quietly, persistently said: No, we won't. For that, and for other things, we owe him. Hayek had a long and useful life, doing important work on into his 70s and 80s, but he won't quite have made it into his centenary year of 1999. We expect that hosannahs will be going up from all of the various libertarian enclaves as his 100th birth- day approaches, but TCR would like to be among the first to pay our respects. We expect we will need two or three more essays to talk about his life and work, connect it to our present concerns, and to try to make it clear that he is somewhat more than just another dead economist. There's something to be said for the old Greek ideal of piety -- civic reverence toward what has gone before -- and if anyone in our century deserves a bit of that, it is certainly he. London ====== Between the wars, even before the Nazis would have made his departure obligatory, Hayek left Vienna and alighted in London, a place he found very much to his liking. In 1895, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, doyen and doyenne of English socialism, had founded the London School of Economics and Political Science, intending for it to be the West Point of their sect. But things had loosened up a bit, and Lionel Robbins, the moderate scholar who headed the economics department, decided that a young visiting lecturer from Vienna was a comer. Robbins discovered that Hayek, notwithstanding his anti-socialist views, seemed to know more about the history of the English monetary system than any man in England. His English was passable and he was a genial, well-bred sort -- "clubbable" as the English say. Robbins offered young Dr Hayek a faculty position. LSE didn't have quite the cachet of Oxford or Cambridge but, for a young foreigner whose own country offered poor prospects, it was a plum. The Great Debate ============= In the small world that concerned itself with economic theory, Hayek emerged in the early Thirties as the great rival of John Maynard Keynes. In the journals, they conducted a public debate about monetary and fiscal policy and what, if anything, economists (and the governments they advised), could do about the Great Depression that seemed to be swallowing up the wealth of the planet. Keynes, brilliant and charismatic, had dabbled in several fields, but now believed he had solved the problem of booms and busts -- what the economists genteelly referred to as "economic fluctuations." When Keynes published his _Treatise on Money_, Hayek, uncharismatic but persistent, fired back with a series of penetrating criticisms. Later Keynes extended his ideas in_The General Theory of Employment, Credit, and Money_, and again Hayek returned fire. Personally, Keynes and Hayek became good friends, sharing a passion for history and book collecting. Publicly, they fought on. As we all know, Keynes won the debate and Hayek lost it, or so it seemed at the time, as governments gravitated to Keynesianism. Then came the Second War, which seemed to justify extension of government control over whatever bits of their economies that central planners in Washington and London had not already comandeered to fight the depression. We can't pause here to consider the substance of the Keynes-Hayek debate (and aren't compe- tent to do so), except perhaps to say that it was rooted in a basic conceptual clash about whether macroeconomics as proposed by Keynes and others really made any sense. Hayek (and the Austrian school from which he sprang) held that the aggregate measurements of economic activity -- which Keynes proposed to track and control through state action --were statistical illusions that could only mislead policy- makers about microeconomic reality. Later, Hayek himself said of the great debate: In the middle 1940s... I was known as one of the two main disputing economists: there was Keynes and there was I . Now Keynes died and became a saint; and I discredited myself by publishing _The Road to Serfdom ... A Discreditable Book ================ In the summer of 1939, even after Austria's annexation by Hitler, Hayek took train across Europe for his annual holiday in the Austrian Alps. He was a vigorous forty and an experienced mountaineer, confident that even if war befell, he could walk out of the country across the mountains, depending on his skills and knowledge to reach Switzerland. He did his best thinking in the mountains and here, perhaps, in Nazified Austria, he mapped out his own little piece of the next war. He had seen, at closer-hand than his English colleagues, the extinction of liberal Europe, the ascendency of barbarism, and the steps by which it had been wrought. He had already published a little article called "Freedom and the Economic System" in a popular magazine. It contained the germ for an argument he knew many people wouldn't want to hear. His loyalty was to England now, but he began to wonder if his new countrymen really understood how easily their liberty could slip through their fingers. An ex-enemy alien, with a German accent and a "von" in front of his name was not considered a suitable candidate for a government post -- it would have involved PR problems that Mr Churchill didn't need. So Robbins and Keynes became government advisors, while Hayek taught. His contribution to the war effort was philosophical and polemical rather than bureaucratic. And, as it turned out, the war that preoccupied his thougtsa wasn't precisely the same one that the English thought they were fighting. In his spare time between 1940 and 1943 he wrote _The Road to Serfdom_, and published it in Britain in 1944. It was a book that nearly ruined his reputation as an economist and set his life on a new course. On the Road ========= When Hayek was awarded the Nobel prize in 1974, the first reaction of many was surprise that he was still alive. A few recalled that he had debated Keynes many years ago, then he had published a polemic that upset everyone and wrecked his career. Where had he been? Unlike his friend and rival Keynes, Hayek didn't think of himself as a wit. When he dedicated RTS to "The Socialists of All Parties," he was not being arch or ironical. They were precisely the people he was addressing. If it was a polemic, it was an uncommonly polite one. In a long and disputatious life Hayek always carefully attributed only seemly motives to his opponents -- never suggesting that they sought anything but the good and the true. In his own case it may have been so, but he was a very unusual man. His opponents were often not so delicate. What he told them, in fine, was that he believed in their good intentions: There can be no doubt that most socialists still believe profoundly in the liberal ideal of freedom and that they would recoil if they became convinced that the realization of their program would mean the destruction of freedom. Then, for two hundred pages, he tried to so convince them and bring about that recoil. He argued that the planned economies to which so many well-meaning people had pinned their hopes for a better world would inevitably and tragically lead to a worse one. That all of their ideas had already been tried in Germany or Russia or both. That the results were there for anyone with the eyes to see them. That their good intentions would not save them. The book was written by an Austro-Englishman specifically to warn his new countrymen -- full of examples and arguments calculated to move an English mind. It received a respectful hearing there, where Hayek was something of a minor public figure. It never occurred to him that it would become a popular best-seller in the United States, where he was completely unknown. When Hayek arrived in the United States in the spring of 1945, he was planning to lecture to audiences of economists at a few universities. Instead, he discovered that RTS had been published not just by the scholarly University of Chicago Press, but had been condensed in The Readers' Digest, the largest-circulation magazine of its day, then re-printed in a cheap edition as a Book-of-the-Month. In the pre- television, pre-Internet world of 1945 it was a media blitz. He was astounded to discover that he was an instant celebrity. In New York, instead of lecturing to a few professors he found himself addressing an overflow crowd in a 3000-seat auditorium, and carried live on network radio. Aftermath ======== It would be pleasant to report that the socialists of all parties had actually been persuaded, or at least cowed, by RTS, but of course no such thing happened. Not then, and not now. Hayek had his bewildering few weeks of American celebrity, and here and there RTS penetrated deeply. Hayek continued to work and write, spent time in the United States and in liberated Europe, and did what he could to marshal a revival of what he quaintly still insisted on calling "liberalism." His American critics, calling themselves liberals, insisted that he was a reactionary conservative and an enemy of progress. A comedy of errors that persists to this day. Although Hayek and RTS outlived many critics -- always the most satisfactory way to win an argument -- there were plenty of them. One of the three American commercial publishers that rejected the book found it so politically repulsive that they reportedly said it was "unfit for publication by a reputable house." As he recalled it: The English socialists, with few exceptions, accepted the book as something written in good faith...In America it was wholly different... The great enthusiasm about the New Deal was still at its height...the American intelligentsia...felt that this was a betrayal of the highest ideals which intellectuals ought to defend. So I was exposed to incredible abuse... It went so far as to completely discredit me professionally. When efforts were made to bring Hayek to the University of Chicago a few years later, the school's economists rose in angry disdain. Hayek had to settle for a berth with the prestigious Committee on Social Thought, where he was pointedly not expected to profess economics. It was only in 1974 when he made his trip to Stockholm to receive his Nobel gong, that there was a general revival of interest in the forgotten man. And there the tale will have to rest for now. Postscript and Preview ================= At the Fourth Bionomics Conference in 1996, Eric B. Baum of the NEC Research Institute gave a workshop on genetic algorithms, featuring a program he called "The Hayek Machine." The name was not whimsical -- it pointed back to an obscure book by Hayek called _The Sensory Order_, a foray by the economist into theoretical psychology -- published in 1952, but based on notions he had sketched out in the 1920s. Genetic algorithms are a subset of artificial intelligence research, but they also have important implications for economics, psychology, biology, and other disciplines. Baum's Hayek1 and Hayek2 are "dumb" programs operating with limited infor- mation about their environment, but which manage to solve complex problems. It is Adam Smith's Invisible Hand, as enriched by F. A. Hayek and formalized by cutting-edge computer science. We think the value of history is self-evident, but our interest in Hayek is mainly forward-looking. He tried, very persuasively, to show us the social world as a field of self-organizing institutions co-evolving in an almost Darwinian fashion -- what he called spontaneous order. Hayek's work anticipated and partly inspired research now being carried out in many disciplines. It implies a world-view that is still inchoate and hard to encapsule in a word or a phrase. "Complex self-organizing systems" catches some of it. But it could just as well be called simply Hayekian. It also happens to be a way of looking at things that is congenial to libertarians. If the social world were not, in fact, essentially Hayekian, then order could never arise spontaneously. But our growing understanding of complex systems in many contexts is confirming the reasonings and intuitions of Hayek. Our human world is a place where order need not be imposed by planners and despots -- a world where a free society operating within an impersonal framework of basic rules is an available option. As intimated above, we hope to tease out various Hayekian insights in future TCRs: spontaneous organization, the role of information in the economy, and his re-thinking of the problem of constitutional govenment, among others. And along the way: an occasional nod of gratitude to the old soldier himself. ====================================== Resources: 1. A Soldier of the Great War Our title was swiped from the excellent novel of the same name by Mark Helprin. It is a fictional reminiscence of an old man who, in his youth, fought with the Italian Army in World War One. A convenient way to learn something about that war, which also happens to be a fine piece of writing. 2. Hayek had been born in Vienna... There are several biographical sketches of Hayek here and there, but no proper biography exists. For this essay we relied heavily on _Hayek on Hayek: An Autobiographical Dialogue Edited by Stephen Kresge and Leif Wenar_. It has been cobbled together from several tape- recorded interviews with Hayek in the 1970s and '80s, and gives us Hayek in his own words. It's a companion to the collected works of Hayek, being published in 20-odd volumes by University of Chicago Press with the support of a dozen classical liberal/libertarian groups in several countries, including Cato and the Reason Foundation. The introduction by Stephen Kresge is the best short summary of Hayek's life and works that we know of. The book includes some wonderful photos, including young FAH in the regalia of an Austrian officer, and writing al fresco in the Alps. All extended Hayek quotes arefrom this work. Available from Amazon (1994 HC edition) for $27.50: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0226320626/002-2884821-8302613 2a. The Hayek Interviews One of the tapes included in _Hayek on Hayek_ is a 1977 interview conducted by Prof. Tom Hazlett. It was printed in Reason magazine in 1992 following Hayek's death. Available at: http://www.reasonmag.com/hayekint.html Also, for those who want to see and hear the man himself, several recordings are available from the Idea Channel. Selected clips can be seen/heard for no charge at their website: http://www.ideachannel.com/HayekDiscussions.htm 3. The Hayek-Keynes Debate No short piece can resolve this tangled and very theoretical fifty-year-old controversy. The most lucid and concise account of this dispute (for non-economists) we know of is an essay by Fritz Machlup in _Essays on Hayek_ (1976). Machlup is another eminent Austrian who taught at Princeton and is a past president of the American Economics Association. He is sympathetic to Hayek but fair to Keynes. The book is, unfortunately, out of print, but probably not difficult to find. As to the final fate of Keynes, we can only note that his reputation is much diminished in recent years, while Hayek's has risen. At the 1997 convention of the American Economics Association, there was a session called "Is there a Core of Practical Macroeconomcs That We Should all Believe?," suggesting that there is considerable disarray in the macro school which was once confident that it was smart enough to not only understand but "fine-tune" modern economies. See also: Ben W. Bolch, "Is Macroeconomics Believable?" in The Independent Review, vol 2, No4 (Spring 1998). 4. _The Road to Serfdom_ The fiftieth anniversary edition was published by University of Chicago in 1994, and is still in print. It includes a new introduction by Hayek's friend and fellow Nobel laureate Milton Friedman and Hayek's lengthy preface to the 1956 edition. RTS has been roundly praised, here and elsewhere, as a classic, and it surely is. But it should be noted that much of the book's argument turns on people, issues and events of the 30s and 40s which some readers born after WW II may find a bit murky. The "classical" central-planning socialism criticized by Hayek in 1944 has been succeeded by socialism "lite" -- the pervasive regulate-and- redistribute regimes with which we cope at century's-end, and a bit of translation is required to see that it is the same vinegary wine in a new bottle. A reader who wants a short, sharp summing-up adjusted for recent fashions in statism might prefer _The Fatal Conceit_ (1989), Hayek's parting shot in his ninetieth year. No single book encompasses all of Hayek's thought, but those who are not much interested in technical economics, are pressed for time, and want to read the best single, systematic statement of Hayek's philosophy might better take up his _The Constitution of Liberty_ (1960). RTS is available for a paltry $8.76 from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0226320618/o/qid=908170736/sr=2-1/ 002-2884821-8302613 CoL (1978 trade PB edition) is $19.95: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0226320847/qid%3D908170912/ 002-2884821-8302613 TFC (1991 trade PB edition) is $12.00: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0226320669/r/002-2884821-8302613 4. The "Hayek" genetic algorithm program... A brief abstract of Dr Baum's presentation is available at: http://www.bionomics.org/text/events/conf96/ abstracts/abBowlBaum.html 5. Hayek on the Web There are a number of good Hayekian resources on the Net, but the only one you really need is the excellent Friedrich Hayek Scholars' Page at http://members.aol.com/gregransom/ hayekpage.htm It's maintained by Professor Greg Ransom of Mira Costa College, and contains links to every substantial bit of Hayekiana on the Web. A cornucopia. ============================================== TCR is published by Steve Hyde and John LeGere, and written, more often than not, by John LeGere.. Comments, brickbats, and inquiries can be addressed to us at CONSILRPT(a)aol.com Please feel free to forward this issue to whomever you please, leaving our boilerplate intact. If you know discerning people who would like to receive TCR, send a subscription request to CONSILRPT(a)aol.com. =============================================== --- You are currently subscribed to consilience-report as: [rah(a)shipwright.com] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-consilience-report-262839E(a)lists.lyris.net --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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NSA Declassifications
by John Young 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Forward: A selection of National Security Agency declassification decisions is offered at http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/nsa/index.html ___________________ Steven Aftergood Project on Government Secrecy Federation of American Scientists http://www.fas.org/sgp/

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Re: TCQ ascii version
by Robert Hettinga 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Authentication-Warning: tarnhelm.blu.org: majordom set sender to owner-isig(a)blu.org using -f Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 03:08:01 -0400 (EDT) From: Charles Demas <demas(a)tiac.net> To: isig(a)blu.org Subject: Re: TCQ ascii version MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-isig(a)blu.org Precedence: bulk Reply-To: isig(a)blu.org On Tue, 13 Oct 1998, David Meyer wrote: > You are not the person who posted the original message, but I'll extend my > request to you: provide some reasonable, legitimate, requirement for > anonymity. How about a government employee taking part in political discussion without the fear of suffering some form of reprisal by their elected superiors? How about a gay person that's still in the closet that wants to discuss how to explain their situation to their family without the fear that their sexual preference would be exposed? How about those that are HIV positive looking for support while living in a small town that is very afraid of those with HIV, and where the knowledge that one is HIV positive has driven people from the community? How about someone that feels they may be getting sexually harassed but isn't sure that they want to confront their harasser, but wants some advice? How about a rape, incest, or domestic violence victim that is looking for some support group but doesn't want to go public yet? How about the alcoholic, drug user, gambler trying to come to terms with their problem. How about the relatives of those with that type of problem that are looking for a private way to deal/handle the problems associated with their relative's problem? How about the runaway that is looking for a way to go home, or the suicidal person that is looking for help. Must they go public to get that help, or should they be able to ask questions anonymously? How about the person that wants to turn in someone that's going to commit a crime? There are lots of good reasons that people want privacy and anonymity, and lots of them have to do with the prejudices of others about the issue that the person wants to keep private. Chuck Demas Needham, Mass. > I can think of one reason to treasure anonymity: fear of retribution. > For what? Oh, anything. Doesn't matter what. You are planning to do > something that will cause someone else to take notice of you and respond > in a way you fear. Send you to jail? Fire you? Break your fingers? Close > your internet access? The problem is that these things are seldom done > on a whim. Mostly, for just cause. Who says it is just? You do. You say > "I am about to do something that's going to bring heaven and earth down > around my shoulders if I do not protect my identity." This fear may be > real or imagined. > > Please explain, with some detail, what reason a sane, guiltless person > might have for anonymity. Giving away $million$? > > -- > To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to majordomo(a)blu.org > with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: > unsubscribe isig > Eat Healthy | _ _ | Nothing would be done at all, Stay Fit | @ @ | If a man waited to do it so well, Die Anyway | v | That no one could find fault with it. demas(a)tiac.net | \___/ | http://www.tiac.net/users/demas -- To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to majordomo(a)blu.org with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe isig --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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IP: [FP] Boiling the frog: Much will depend on 'electronic money'
by Robert Hettinga 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com From: "ScanThisNews" <mcdonalds(a)airnet.net> To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Subject: IP: [FP] Boiling the frog: Much will depend on 'electronic money' Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 20:27:18 -0500 Sender: owner-ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Precedence: list Reply-To: "ScanThisNews" <mcdonalds(a)airnet.net> ====================================================================== SCAN THIS NEWS 10/11/98 [Forwarded message] FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 4, 1998 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz Boiling the frog: Much will depend on the new 'electronic money' EDITORS: A version of this feature first appeared in the October edition of Las Vegas Magazine. An Internet press release (how trendy) from the folks at MasterCard International, datelined "Purchase, N.Y., July 22, 1998," informs us: "MasterCard International hosted today an online forum with thought leaders from global business, government and research organizations to discuss lifestyle changes that will occur as smart card technology gains acceptance over the next five years. "Representatives from IBM, Hitachi, British Telecommunications plc, the U.S. federal government's General Services Administration, The Tower Group and Emerge Online participated in the roundtable, which was moderated by Richard Phillimore, Senior Vice President of MasterCard's Chip Card Business unit. "'Five years from now, multi-application smart cards will be an established technology in the payments business,' Phillimore said. 'As the benefits of multi-application smart cards are proven in the marketplace, the conversion from magnetic stripe to chip-based payment cards will be very rapid. By the year 2010, we expect all of MasterCard's credit and debit cards and terminals will be chip-based.' "Smart cards will deliver increased consumer value and utility to today's credit cards, Phillimore added. 'Chip technology will enable cardholders to use their cards for many more purposes, such as electronic ticketing, loyalty programs, and secure remote shopping -- a true Lifestyle Card that can be tailored to meet the unique needs and preferences of a single individual.'" When mentioning those ominous-sounding "loyalty programs," I should point out, the online MasterCard gang are referring not to government loyalty oaths of the "am not now and never have been a member of the Communist Party" variety, but rather a system in which cardholders receive discounts for "loyally" shopping through one company -- the system probably familiar to most consumers today via those "discount club cards" issued by your supermarket, offering you 30 cents off a package of toilet paper if you let the teller scan your card at the checkout stand. Of course, the store gets something back in return for that discount. In addition to the obvious hope that you'll keep going back to the store whose discount card you carry (essentially, a surcharge is being applied to "hoppers" who show no store loyalty), the management can now easily track how many of its outlets you visit, and what you buy there. The initial commercial applications may be innocent enough -- "Let's save postage by only sending coupons for this new brand of breakfast cereal to the home addresses of our shoppers who already buy the more expensive competitor." But you don't have to be the kind who walks stooped over to avoid the black helicopters to foresee the day when the government inspectors may arrive, asking to see the electronic profiles of all customers in a given geographic area who have used the fast-spreading cards to buy anything from home AIDS test kits to hydroponic "grow lights" to "High Times" magazine to pistol ammunition. It's all stored in the computer, you know. And how long do you think Jack, your friendly local produce manager, is really going to refuse to let the FBI access his computer without a court order? About as long as it takes them to ask for his Social Security number and threaten to call their friends at the IRS, suggesting Jack may be in need of an immediate tax audit? The cheerful little MasterCard press release doesn't take long to broach the subject of "expanded uses" for the new cards with their embedded memory chips: "The panel also addressed the use of smart cards for identification purposes. Many agreed that identification was the 'killer application' that would encourage adoption of smart card programs. Kotaro Yamashita, COO of Financial Services at Hitachi, Ltd. said, 'We see identification applications issued by governments as being big in many places outside of Asia, for example Central America.' However, Marty Wagner, Associate Administrator of the Office of Government wide Policy at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) cautioned that 'National identity card programs could run into trouble in the U.S. due to privacy concerns.' " # # # The process of accustoming Americans to carrying around cards which can be used to buy anything from a candy car to a soda pop to a round-trip airline ticket to London -- but whose embedded chips will also relay to corporate and government snoops the social security number and other personal information (and resultant tax obligations) of anyone making that purchase -- is well underway. There's an old folk warning that if you throw a frog in boiling water he will quickly jump out. But if you put a frog in a pan of cold water and raise the temperature ever so slowly, the gradual warming will make the frog doze happily, triggering the soporific response he instinctively displays when the sun shines on his lily pad ... In fact, the frog will eventually cook to death, without ever waking up. Likewise, some mighty high-powered public relations types are figuring ways to emphasize the convenience of "electronic cash" - and downplay the effect it may have in removing any remaining privacy from the way you spend your pay. The goal? To cook the frog, without any ruckus. Convenience, convenience, convenience, was the happy spin Time magazine put on a new "single electronic card that may replace everything in your wallet," in their issue of April 27, 1998. As the magazine was listing all the bothersome stuff you now have to lug around - cash, ATM cards, credit cards, proof of insurance - it made a not-so-subtle swipe at anyone who would resist the happy consolidation of such burdens: "Your ID cards. PRESENT: You lug various bits of your legal identity. FUTURE: Non-conspiracists could consolidate pertinent info in one place." Get that? If you don't want the government tax man to see your bank balance and a record of how many times you've flown to Zurich or the Cayman Islands, if you don't want the theater manager to see your alimony payments or your concealed-carry handgun permit, if you don't want your boss to see your prescription for post-cancer-surgery drugs, if you don't want EVERYONE to gain a precise accounting of how much you spent last month at Frederick's of Hollywood, or renting X-rated videos, or shacked up in a motel room across town, or purchasing alcoholic beverages, or buying vaginal contraceptive foam (including which brand you prefer), why, you're just some loony "conspiracist." Also note that "could" ... as though we'll still have any choice. But why worry? Digital cash will be great, argues Joshua Cooper Ramo in the big "Future of Money" piece in the April 27 Time: "Think about the $2,000 check you send to your daughter at college for expenses. How is that money really spent? Books ... or beer? Electronic cash takes that relatively simple transaction -- passing an allowance -- and makes it into a much more intelligent process. ... "Your daughter can store the money any way she wants -- on her laptop, on a debit card, even (in the not too distant future) on a chip implanted under her skin. And, perhaps best of all, you can program the money to be spent only in specific ways. You might instruct some of the digits to go for books, some for food and some for movies. Unless you pass along a few digits that can be cashed at the local pub, she'll have to find someone else to buy the drinks." Ha ha. Kind of cute, isn't it? But look again. Isn't the underlying theme one of "control"? Try substituting a different scenario for Mr. Ramo's. How about: "Think about the $1,000 Social Security check your agency sends a retiree in Las Vegas. How is that money really spent? Food and lodging ... or blackjack, roulette, and Margaritas?" If the purpose of government retirement insurance is to make sure old folks have food and a roof over their head, doesn't the government have an OBLIGATION to "earmark" portions of those checks so they can only be used to buy certain things, once the new e-cash technology gives them that capability? Couldn't we set e-cards to freeze a recipient's account if she tried to use any of the "money" to pay for a second prescription of pain pills written by a doctor other than her ASSIGNED doctor, or to buy a naughty book about how to evade taxes, or how to move money into offshore accounts? For that matter, what if your boss started earmarking parts of your electronic paycheck for rent or groceries -- at certain stores that pay for the consideration -- all "for your own good," you understand? After all, the kind of soccer moms who elected Bill Clinton can be counted on to favor almost (start ital)any(end ital) additional Big Brother controls over those irresponsible men in their lives, frittering away their paychecks on bar tabs, dirty magazines, power tools, and fancy chrome doo-dads for their pickup trucks. # # # Donald S. McAlvany, editor of the economic and geopolitical newsletter "The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor," is a fellow who has been looking into the move toward trackable "electronic cash" for some time. The lead article in the July, 1998 edition of his 16-page newsletter is headlined "Toward a Cashless Society: Implementing an Electronic Currency in America," and spells out a very different view of these developing trends from the one embraced by the jovial publicists at Time: "The global socialists who dominate America and most of the governments of the western world today (especially Western Europe) have long had a goal of moving the world away from the use of cash and into an electronic funds currency system, wherein virtually all cash in use is 'electronic currency,' " writes Mr. McAlvany. "If all financial transactions are forced through an electronic banking system ... the ultimate 'people control' system could be established. ..." Citing George Orwell's classic novel "1984," Mr. McAlvany reminds us: "Privacy is a major element of freedom, without which people and nations cannot remain free. Today, we have dozens of privacy-destroying systems being put in place by governments all over the world. They include video camera surveillance in public places; electronic eavesdropping on computers, phones and faxes; dozens of computerized files on each adult American - compiled from credit card, banking, and tax records; physical surveillance of homes, in whole areas via satellite, helicopters, and other aircraft; the growing use of Social Security numbers to extract all kinds of information on Americans from business, banking, and government data cases; photo IDs required at airports; and the push by the Clinton Administration for a computerized (smart card) national identification card for all U.S. citizens. "But the greatest privacy-destroying system of all, one which would have made Big Brother's, Adolf Hitler's, Mao's, Lenin's or Stalin's mouths water is the elimination of cash and the forcing of all citizens into the computerized banking system for (start ital)all(end ital) transactions. Ultimately these transactions can be monitored, recorded, profiled, and used in 'people control.' If all of your personal transactions can be so tracked, a socialist government bent on identifying, profiling and controlling its 'politically incorrect' citizens or 'religious fanatics' or Bible-believing Christians; gun owners; critics of the government; non-tax compliers, can easily scrutinize and build a profile on such individuals. It can also, in the absence of a cash-spending alternative, deny the privilege to buy and sell to those who are politically or religiously incorrect." Since one of the main problems banks may have during the anticipated computer crisis brought about by the turning of the century is clearing checks written on other banks -- banks whose computers may not agree with the home bank's "fix" for the transition from year date 99 to year date 00 -- Mr. McAlvany suggests that crisis might present a perfect opportunity to effectively require bank customers to change over from paper checks to "electronic cash." "Remember that during the financial crisis of the 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt presented the American people with the alternative of a bank holiday/gold confiscation/Draconian financial controls (start ital)or(end ital) financial destruction, they willingly chose the former and gave up a major portion of their financial freedom." # # # The removal of cash, of course, will be advertised as having many benefits. Since drug dealers buy and sell their product with suitcases full of hundred-dollar bills, it will be alleged that the switch will end the drug trade (as though a multi-billion-dollar industry won't promptly hire both fancy accountants and computer geniuses to figure out how to "go electronic" without throwing blips on the IRS radar screens -- or as though they won't just add newly "illegal" hundred-dollar bills to the list of contraband they now freely move outside official channels.) Expect a public relations campaign to expose the "health hazard" of all those dirty pennies and nickels you have lying around the house. Passed from hand to hand among AIDS patients and tuberculosis-ridden junkies, how can you let your children handle such stuff? Instead, buy Sean and Alysson a new pair of color-coordinated, his-and-hers Kiddie Smart Cards, which neatly deduct exactly $1.77 from their accounts when they buy lunch at school, without burdening them down with filthy, wasteful, inconvenient (and expensive to produce) coins ... coins they might otherwise save up, after all, to buy dirty magazines, or reefer, or who knows what else? Yep, it's all for your health, safety, and convenience. And why would anyone object ... unless, of course, they had something to (start ital)hide(end ital). What was your name again? And could I have your 18-digit bank tracking number, please? You (start ital)are(end ital) in this country legally, aren't you? Not some kind of a federal fugitive/deadbeat dad? There, that's better. See how easy things are when you cooperate? Just slide your card through the security/debit slot. Now pass your wrist over the scanner to make sure your embedded personal chip has the matching security code. Thank you; you may now move along. We know you have a choice when you dine out; thank you for patronizing Burger World. # # # A full transcript of the "smart card online forum" session referred to at the beginning of this essay, as well as a biography and smart card white paper from each chat participant, can be accessed at http://www.golinharris.com/mastercard. Subscriptions to The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor ("in no way involved in the tax resistance, militia, or sovereign citizens movements in the U.S.") run a substantial $115 per year. Send subscription info to P.O. Box 84904, Phoenix, Ariz. 85071, or telephone 800-528-0559. Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin(a)lvrj.com. Vin's twice-weekly newspaper column, "The Libertarian," is syndicated in the United States and Canada via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127. Watch for Vin's book, "Send in the Waco Killers," coming from Huntington Press in early 1999. *** Vin Suprynowicz, vin(a)lvrj.com Education rears disciples, imitators, and routinists, not pioneers of new ideas and creative geniuses. The schools are not nurseries of progress and improvement, but conservatories of tradition and unvarying modes of thought. -- Ludwig von Mises The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943 * * * ======================================================================= Don't believe anything you read on the Net unless: 1) you can confirm it with another source, and/or 2) it is consistent with what you already know to be true. ======================================================================= Reply to: <fingerprint(a)networkusa.org> ======================================================================= To subscribe to the free Scan This News newsletter, send a message to <majordomo(a)efga.org> and type "subscribe scan" in the BODY. Or, to be removed type "unsubscribe scan" in the message BODY. For additional instructions see www.efga.org/about/maillist.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "Scan This News" is Sponsored by S.C.A.N. Host of the "FIGHT THE FINGERPRINT!" web page: www.networkusa.org/fingerprint.shtml ======================================================================= ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ********************************************** --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: IP: [FP] Boiling the frog: Much will depend on 'electronicmoney'
by Robert Hettinga 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

> Below, please find the canonical anti-book-entry settlement privacy rant, >written by one of my favorite ranters in general, Vin Suprynowicz. ...which, of course, we've seen already. Sheesh. Sorry about that, folks. Call it mail-buffer overload, or something. :-). Sometimes it's not the the cross-fire, it's the ricochets which get you. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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_PI_ movie
by Walter Burton 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 My wife and I went and saw the movie _PI_ this past weekend. I was attracted to it 'cause of the subject matter. One reviewer wrote that the protagonist was a "tortured genius steeped in an intriguing blend of advanced mathematics and mystical Jewish cabala." I suspect a fair number of cypherpunks' curiosity would be piqued by such a description. Well, don't waste the 5 bucks. It's self-indulgent, pretentious, second-year-film-student crap. It's whiny, "woe-is-me-tortured-genius" drivel. It's "squinty-cinematography-for-the-sake-of-squinty-cinematography" effluvium. Here's the plot, in a nutshell: 1. Ah, I understand advanced mathematics SO WELL; I see patterns EVERYwhere! But alas, I cannot enjoy life's pleasures because I am, de rigueur, a TORTURED GENIUS! 2. And my mentor USED to be a TORTURED GENIUS, but he stopped studying THE PROFOUND MYSTERIES, and now he's happy and FUN! What a WUSS! [Oh yeah, and I suffer REALLY bad migraines.] 3. Isn't PI cool? 4. Aren't Fibonacci numbers neat? 5. Whaddya suppose The Holy Unspeakable Name of God is? 6. Oh, easy, it's 9049348384737...[insert 198 digits here]...32343. 7. I RUSH to tell my mentor what I've discovered, but, alas, my ruthless taunting prompted him to re-open his investigation of THE PROFOUND MYSTERIES and he couldn't hack it -- his brain overloaded and he died of a stroke. Damn! 8. So I dramatically BURN all my PROFOUND MYSTERIES conclusions and the director inserts the requisite "shocking scene everyone will be talking about" by having me lobotomize myself with an electric drill. 9. Next, I'm sitting on a park bench, playing games with a child (Quintessential Innocence). I am finally ENJOYING LIFE, appreciating the leaves on the trees and such. But this kid, she wants to play math games with me, which of course symbolizes the fact that IT'S NOT OVER! 10. The end. And it's all shot on shitty stock in crackly black and white. So basically, it's about two gay cowboys and some pudding. \\/alter -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.0 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com> Comment: For my public key, send a msg with "public key" in the subj. iQA/AwUBNiM/4I0Llo1Bf1gWEQJmsQCfXb10feuUz/N/Jn5zxkFqymmS+gQAoI/8 4QQzJGO4rtATMDQ7zbfm0I8P =kw8W -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Hidden WebTV signatures
by Anonymous 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I have no idea to wherre to begin an analysis.... The begining is noticably the same. with more variation the farther along. A header or version identifier? obviosly can't be a straight hash. At 04:55 PM 10/11/98 , you wrote: > >On 11 Oct 1998 15:57:33 -0500, Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> wrote: > >> >>Peter Gutmann writes: >> >>> For those of you who don't read sci.crypt, Robert Ames <gnome(a)istar.ca> has >>> posted an article in which he observes that all WebTV posts contain an >>> X-WebTV-Signature: line containing base64-encoded data. For samples of >>> WebTV-generated posts, try the alt.weemba newsgroup, which is filled with >>> WebTV-user drool (caution: remember to employ protection when exposting your >>> mind to the content of the messages). Some samples: >>> >>> X-WebTV-Signature: 1 >>> ETAsAhQDqtur/jfleJ2CDOnNrVoeyALEQAIUOQyCBbzjx5HHfxeMERDgCjztXOU= >>> X-WebTV-Signature: 1 >>> ETAtAhUAmCCzQt+Tqt6fNX+L9+gDCECaqQkCFA0YCPz5tk85mUgq7iX/u4vWvOgG >> >>Could someone grep their news spool for a few hundred of these signatures >>and post them here? We can do statistical analysis on them and determine >>whether they all appear to be modulo the same q value. > > >Here ya go. 313 webtv sigs > >-- Phelix > > > > ETAtAhQeHk0+b8Au0iGpkJrZtwhsU2MVoAIVAJR/nr45zMDoq1G526NRP+3jHVIb > ETAtAhUAiWMjaBJx75P5wCgIxslClcSUU4cCFHT6dVYU49dtEvX4HCI4bcmEiKBU > ETAsAhRLS36vm1OTCBG3CIAwMpdtg3fR1gIUdgWUE1cbbagEl7VbQvsengViPHc= -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP Cyber-Knights Templar build 5.5.3ckt iQEVAwUBNiNNzaKPqmf00ZAbAQGtuwf8DCEKYf1rBbNCgCraoROS/62RfvZ6pmau nvt+5lF5r6Lk6xEEFz5XoMz+loIW/Y2MRZ9Wly9t9pIDa6r+o+g6AI3RMpjio0Mn b04MZL3uHLcKaxo7yThocc8CVUlQRoap7FfHPkMoUH04CpfJtWcS/E3IfsAPXovW w2XG6N9bEJbLyxc1I9dGSb63WRHE5ADbzgGkUKhNJirgZukdBLn/KMrnhsjeOlUT +sLMTHiH5/5NbXl+Te7+jV/BBUgYDnz3kZAZrQo0XTBzgG4J8ORg8s3NmCA0j120 vxpXTRgay43OYJEACLeRWhUcONdmdffuqqUQ5AmAaTDj9hRPZlPXNA== =U1Fq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: FYI: More on WebTV security
by Robert Hettinga 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: dstoler(a)gptmail.globalpac.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 05:38:59 -0700 To: Pablo Calamera <pablo(a)microsoft.com>, rah(a)shipwright.com, mac-crypto(a)vmeng.com From: dstoler(a)globalpac.com (dstoler) Subject: Re: FYI: More on WebTV security Cc: jimg(a)mentat.com Dear all, This message discusses Microsoft's recent press release where they announce unlimited 128 bit RC4 export approval for WebTV users in Japan and the UK with no key escrow. They announce secure email between WebTV users in addition to security for financial services, web shopping, etc. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1998/Oct98/EncryptionPR.htm (See the end of this message for key paragraphs of the press release.) I rarely post messages on the crypto mailing lists. I am sufficiently disturbed by Microsoft's recent WebTV press release that I feel compelled to comment. The press release implies that there is secure end-to-end email between two WebTV customers. Perhaps I am overly cynical, but I am guessing that they are using SSL (TLS) from a web based email application on the client to WebTV's servers. I presume email data is decrypted at the servers, then re-encrypted to the recipient when she uses the WebTV client to read email. This approach would allow access to private email at the servers by WebTV employees or law enforcement agencies. Note the careful use of the phrases "unauthorized party" and "without posing undo risks to national security and law enforcement" in the press release. I believe that WebTV's email security is directly coupled to their ability to establish and enforce good security policy within their operation and the trustworthiness of the employees who have access to sensitive data. I am concerned that carefully constructed wording of Microsoft's press release implies stronger email security than really exists. I hope I am wrong. David Stoler Key paragraphs from Microsoft's press release: WebTV Networks has been granted the first export license to use strong 128-bit encryption for any user and any application in Japan and the United Kingdom. So, for example, an e-mail message with personal information sent from a WebTV subscriber in Japan to a second WebTV subscriber in Japan will be sent securely because there is no known technology by which an unauthorized party could intercept and decipher it. Therefore, as part of the WebTV Network, the WebTV-based Internet terminal (starting at under $100) is now the most secure communications device available from a U.S. company. "WebTV Networks' export approval is a significant step for industry and reflects the U.S. government's commitment to promoting e-commerce abroad," said William Reinsch, U.S. undersecretary for export administration. "The WebTV Network provides secure communications for its customers and partners without posing undue risks to national security and law enforcement." --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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_PI_ movie
by Walter Burton 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

My wife and I went and saw the movie _PI_ this past weekend. I was attracted to it 'cause of the subject matter. One reviewer wrote that the protagonist was a "tortured genius steeped in an intriguing blend of advanced mathematics and mystical Jewish cabala." I suspect a fair number of cypherpunks' curiosity would be piqued by such a description. Well, don't waste the 5 bucks. It's self-indulgent, pretentious, second-year-film-student crap. It's whiny, "woe-is-me-tortured-genius" drivel. It's "squinty-cinematography-for-the-sake-of-squinty-cinematography" effluvium. Here's the plot, in a nutshell: 1. Ah, I understand advanced mathematics SO WELL; I see patterns EVERYwhere! But alas, I cannot enjoy life's pleasures because I am, de rigueur, a TORTURED GENIUS! 2. And my mentor USED to be a TORTURED GENIUS, but he stopped studying THE PROFOUND MYSTERIES, and now he's happy and FUN! What a WUSS! [Oh yeah, and I suffer REALLY bad migraines.] 3. Isn't PI cool? 4. Aren't Fibonacci numbers neat? 5. Whaddya suppose The Holy Unspeakable Name of God is? 6. Oh, easy, it's 9049348384737...[insert 198 digits here]...32343. 7. I RUSH to tell my mentor what I've discovered, but, alas, my ruthless taunting prompted him to re-open his investigation of THE PROFOUND MYSTERIES and he couldn't hack it -- his brain overloaded and he died of a stroke. Damn! 8. So I dramatically BURN all my PROFOUND MYSTERIES conclusions and the director inserts the requisite "shocking scene everyone will be talking about" by having me lobotomize myself with an electric drill. 9. Next, I'm sitting on a park bench, playing games with a child (Quintessential Innocence). I am finally ENJOYING LIFE, appreciating the leaves on the trees and such. But this kid, she wants to play math games with me, which of course symbolizes the fact that IT'S NOT OVER! 10. The end. And it's all shot on shitty stock in crackly black and white. So basically, it's about two gay cowboys and some pudding. \\/alter

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