December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: IP: Uncle Sam Wants Spooks.
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:04 PM 10/26/98 -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote: > "We teach a concept called open source and > public domain intelligence -- that is, taking what > is in the public domain and creating new > knowledge by analysis and interpretation," he So does John Young, EFF, FAS, etc. > Applying for a job with the CIA is easy: Send a > resume. The CIA scans the resumes it gets Applying for a job with the NSA is easier. Just fax your resume. Doesn't matter where.

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:42 AM 10/26/98 -0800, Michael Motyka wrote: >> How does this differ from the motives of your ordinary politician? >> >> Post-revolution, will there be caliber limitations when hunting them? > >Hunt all you want. The post-revolution utopia will be administered by >persons of the same mentality as those we have administering our >Democratic Republic now. They will use the same if not more advanced >techniques to acquire and maintain power. "Nature abhors a vacuum", >right? Most of nature is a very high quality vacuum, actually. Governments have not always been so parasite-infested; this disease progresses slowly, numbingly, unnoticed, like leprosy.

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:43 PM 10/26/98 -0400, Robert A. Costner wrote: >At 01:15 PM 10/26/98 -0500, Duncan Frissell wrote: >>9. "I do not posses any government-issued photo ID and thus cannot travel >>to the location stated in the subpoena. > >ROTFLMAO... > >This last one is too funny to not use. I don't have a subpoena, but I can >just see myself writing back explaining this and requesting assistance with >a plane flight to solve this problem. Actually you don't need state id to fly, legally. But the airlines will hassle you and not put your bags aboard til you are. There are references on the net to flying without state id.

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Re: files (was: Re: dbts, etc.)
by dporter＠denova.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Steve Bellovin (smb(a)research.att.com) wrote... > . . . to trace the the perturbations caused to the system. . . > The more anonymity, and the more privacy cut-outs, the > harder this is. . . > To be sure, one can assert that the philosophical > gains -- privacy, libertarianism, what have you -- are > sufficiently important that this price is worth paying. . . Steve, as you point out most of us are driven primarily by practical concerns. This is a philosophy: pragmatism. Beyond mind exercise, philosophy is valuable exactly to the extent it is practical. DBS increases freedom. Increased freedom is practical because it reduces risks -- of confiscation, imprisonment, and death -- and because it usually increases efficiency. All of these pragmatic considerations seem much more important than the ease of maintenance, at least to me. Doug

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Re: files (was: Re: dbts, etc.)
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My 1.43 US cents (hey, two canadian cents aren't worth much nowadays!) On 27 Oct 98 10:52:00, D. Porter wrote: >Steve, as you point out most of us are driven primarily by practical >concerns. This is a philosophy: pragmatism. Beyond mind exercise, >philosophy is valuable exactly to the extent it is practical. Pragmatism, as far as philosophy structure is concerned, is opportunistic in the sense that it gets a free ride on other's failures to come up with basic premises that are compatible with reality... >DBS increases freedom. Increased freedom is practical because it reduces >risks -- of confiscation, imprisonment, and death -- and because it >usually increases efficiency. All of these pragmatic considerations seem >much more important than the ease of maintenance, at least to me. Well, this is a point not shared at all by the collectivistic-oriented philosophies, which places the "good of the collective", whatever it may mean, above the values you mentionned. And to deprive them of the ability of imposing confiscation, imprisonment and death it to cut them out of their tools... Ciao jfa "The tree of liberty must be watered periodically with the blood of tyrants...." "Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms." -- Aristotle, "Politics"

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Re: your mail
by Joel O'Connor 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

That's cool man, I see your point. Guess I shouldn't knock it when I've only had one experience. It's true, I got on the train quicker than I've ever gotten on a flight and didn't face any harrassment. Actually, I faced more harrassment from my Gestapo math teacher in high school trying to board a bus than getting on the train. He looked at me and told me I was trouble and searched every crevice of my bag, personal being and space. "But doctor, both your hands on my shoulders. . ."you get the point and that's exactly what's happening to us each and every day. ---Chip Mefford <cmefford(a)video.avwashington.com> wrote: > > > > I've taken that same route, except up > to no. Vermont rather than RI, > > I travelled anonymously, for an extra 50 bux, > I had my own little private cabin, I was never > searched, my bags were never xrayed by incompetent > androids, was able to find company from the > hordes that you describe to sit with me in my > lil cabin and spend some time (wink wink, nudge > nudge) and so forth. > > yeah, an entire day spent with a whole pile of > folks can really be a horrible drag, and I'm > told that travelling on the weekends thats > what you can expect. > > But, shuffling in and out of Polizei Central, > subjecting myself to xrays and potential > cavity searches, showing ID to every bone > head that demands it, just seems a little > too kyrstalnachtish for my taste, I don't care > if I EVER fly again. > > Its easier, less hassle, more anonymous to > travel by train than it is to drive, or > for that matter, walk. > > yes, its VERY easy for the SS > to stop and search a train, but the plane > is a forgone situation. By entering an > airport, you've already consented to be > stripped of nearly every right you thought > you may have had. > > I had an experience like you describe travelling > from Atlanta to DC by bus once when a young-un. > I too, swore I'd never do it again, and I didn't, > not till I mustered out of the military and they > stuck me on a 10 hr busride to the nearest > depot to go home, and yes, I still hated it. > > to each his own, > > take care > > chipper > > On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, Joel O'Connor wrote: > > > I traveled by train all the way to Florida from Rhode Island once. 24 > > hours straight it took man and I swore I would never do it again. > > 40-50 people per car and basically one bathroom per car. Come morning > > time man, the lines for the bathrooms stretched out of the cars. > > Screw that, I could have flown and made it in 3 hours. Plus it's > > easier for the gov't to stop trains and search them, I'd rather go > > with the flight. > > > > > > > > > > ---Chip Mefford <cmefford(a)video.avwashington.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > Where possible, > > > > > > fuk a bunch of airlines anyway. > > > > > > Travel by train is a lot more enjoyable, relaxing, fun. > > > Folks that travel by train could fly, but would > > > preferr to enjoy the ride, cause it ain't no cheaper, > > > > > > except, !! > > > > > > you can pay with cash and show no id and go > > > where you would like in the lower 48. > > > > > > anonymously. > > > > > > On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, Anonymous wrote: > > > > > > > At 02:43 PM 10/26/98 -0400, Robert A. Costner wrote: > > > > >At 01:15 PM 10/26/98 -0500, Duncan Frissell wrote: > > > > >>9. "I do not posses any government-issued photo ID and thus > > cannot travel > > > > >>to the location stated in the subpoena. > > > > > > > > > >ROTFLMAO... > > > > > > > > > >This last one is too funny to not use. I don't have a subpoena, > > but I can > > > > >just see myself writing back explaining this and requesting > > assistance with > > > > >a plane flight to solve this problem. > > > > > > > > Actually you don't need state id to fly, legally. But the > > airlines will > > > > hassle you and not put your bags aboard til you are. There > > > > are references on the net to flying without state id. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > == > > Ogre bounces like sonar. . .Peace. > > Ogre > > > > _________________________________________________________ > > DO YOU YAHOO!? > > Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com > > > > == Ogre bounces like sonar. . .Peace. Ogre _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: Airline ID Checking (was: RE: your mail)
by Joel O'Connor 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Who knows for sure anymore. Because of the "Anti-Terrorism" bill, it is required that security be beafed up. When they scan the ID, it is to check against their records that you are who you say you are. . .so they say. In actuality, they are tracing movements of people, so if the shit comes down, they will know where everyone is, no matter where you flew to. Even with trains, all's it will take is one bomb and you better believe security will be pumped up as high as it is with airlines. Who knows anymore, there's so much going on at every spectrum of this globe that the probability of keeping up with a minor fraction is hard enough. The gov't control's all major transportation routes, which control's movement and where everyone is at all times. Soon, there will be no where to run to. ---X <xasper8d(a)lobo.net> wrote: > > Does anyone know what the airlines do with the info they collect off the ID? > Are they just noting whether the names match, or is it more sinister? > > When I was below legal drinking age (21 in my state) I would drive up to the > window (how barbaric! liquor sales to guys in cars!) and give the > sub-moronic guy my REAL ID under the assumption that: he expects it to say > something that proves I am over age, or else why would I be handing it to > him? [nicely enough, this shifts all of the risk of the transaction to him, > should it go wrong.] > > Similarly, if you booked a flight under the name Nevah Umind, when you hand > over a piece of ID, they look to see it says Nevah Umind (unless, of course, > your name happens to be Nevah Umind) and that's all they want, right? > > And if we all booked flights under the same name, then wouldn't that throw > 'em WAY off? Pick a name, DON'T scan your license in, DON'T edit it, DON'T > laminate it, and (for pete's sake!) DON'T use that name. Their querying > will tell them, "I have a match, he's okay" (These are not the droids you > are looking for, eh!) and away you go! > > X > > > ~> -----Original Message----- > ~> From: owner-cypherpunks(a)minder.net > ~> [mailto:owner-cypherpunks@minder.net]On Behalf Of Joel O'Connor > ~> I traveled by train all the way to Florida from Rhode Island once. 24 > ~> hours straight it took man and I swore I would never do it again. > ~> 40-50 people per car and basically one bathroom per car. Come morning > ~> time man, the lines for the bathrooms stretched out of the cars. > ~> Screw that, I could have flown and made it in 3 hours. Plus it's > ~> easier for the gov't to stop trains and search them, I'd rather go > ~> with the flight. > ~> > > == Ogre bounces like sonar. . .Peace. Ogre _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the ForegoneAlternative
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 12:38 PM -0500 on 10/27/98, Steve Bellovin wrote on dbs: > For the record, though, I not only don't think that cryptography should > make the state vanish, I don't think that it will. Cryptographer ~== Libertarian, certainly. Much less Anarchist. I like to joke that David Chaum is a liberal statist with a privacy fetish. PRZ was, too, but, after his bout with a certain kangaroo court prosecutor, I bet he isn't so liberal anymore. :-) Crypto *is*, however, a liberty/anarchy magnet. It certainly changed my thinking about a whole lot of things, including how the state will collapse, someday, in a giant paroxysm of technological determinism. ;-). Dragging this back to the topic of the DBS list itself (and, frankly, the topic is a subset of the cryptography list, too, and lots of others,), the paradox of financial cryptography, and, more specifically, digital bearer settlement, is not that it gives you privacy and freedom (anarchy? :-)), it's because it gives you *cheaper* transactions. Transactions which just happen to be anonymous. You don't *have* to keep records in the normal course of business in order to keep your transactions from unraveling at some later date. You can monitor your own business operations, certainly. But you're not *forced* to, by some, um, regional monopoly. That's attractive. To lots of economic actors, besides terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles and money launderers. :-). To machines, for instance, but also to actors in markets which are, as they say in economics, perfectly competitive, where things are sold like commodities are. This is opposed to so-called monopolistic competition, where all of a company's products are branded as much as possible. McDonald's versus Burger King is a good example of monopolistic competition. McDonald's doesn't make something *exactly* like a Whopper, for instance, if they did, they'd be sued for copyright violation, or even patent enfringement, though they do make branded, and patented, almost-substitutes. Coke and Pepsi are the same kinds of thing. Except for the Secret Coke Formula, of course. :-). But, stuff like soybeans, or switched bits on a wire, or copies of Linux, or cash, or debt, or even equity in the portfolio aggregate like a stock index, are not *branded*, they're *graded*. Every item in a perfectly competitive market is perfectly substitutable with any other item in that market. If you're trading graded commodities, you don't *care* who you're doing business with. You care about what they're selling you. And it's something which you can verify the quality of on an independent basis. Those grades are certified by someone with a reputation, of course, but even those reputations are graded to the extent that they're priced in a market somewhere. A NYSE seat, for instance, has a price on it, and I think internet product-certifying reputations will too, someday. That's what a digital bearer underwriter is, when you think about it. I think, over time, that Moore's law and a geodesic internetwork gives us increasingly perfect, and not monopolistic, competition, and, in practically every market you can imagine. Graded surgical instructions, say. And to bring up that paroxysm again, if you could convert teleoperated machine instructions like surgery into graded, fungible, and cash-settled, commodities, why not force, currently the product of that most monopolistic of competitors, the nation-state? Anyway, I think that these perfectly competitive markets will be the of hallmark of a geodesic information economy, just like marketing and branding and monopolistic competition are the hallmarks of a late-industrial, hierarchically-organized, mass-media economy. But, again, it is the reduced *cost* of those cryptographically-enabled transactions which will drive everything else, and that is a logical outcome of the technology of financial cryptography and digital bearer transactions. The cost of anything is the foregone alternative. Cheers, Bob Hettinga -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.5.5 iQEVAwUBNjYjzcUCGwxmWcHhAQGOmgf9F3ZHnTP1Io83CJEPmyiTWww/ppvupmiW uHh2i+txJoigxNxDbMHtRQDzP9FXtADH8z+nbGmWZY4PnxbxmKcSFDfH0zXL2sMi beHYaUvya14gtchwPZkCx/XxaZ4RYnZeg7BvjlYWDjScZwgoJP5rV63tSW/gDri1 bnAt2Oa7pNpSmBFad7LNuSTOw0BVZzaoJ/Ucl+MSp2//frf4iL/7p/XjJcOlnhI7 0KyTtAjhfuV886clgpcFfceaS9G14q1FPZfh7yzZyWMReOEe3S1JDptEuuIX35AJ r/2GgSSulY2/v/D6qOgZk6FUgRNFxtMKts6FU8hce0CdN/Pprj97JQ== =xWio -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- 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: dbts: Cryptographic Dog Stocks, The Dirigible Biplane, and Sending the Wizards Back to Menlo Park
by Dave Birch 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Vin McLellan said Bob Hettinga said >>It's biometric >>*identity* which is the problem Actually, I would have thought that biometric revocation is the problem! Cheers, Dave Birch. === mailto:daveb@hyperion.co.uk ===== http://www.hyperion.co.uk/ ===

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Using a password as a private key.
by RedRook 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Assymetic crypto systems such as Diffie-Hellman, El-Gamel, and DSS, allow the private key to be a randomly chosen number. But, as a cute hack, instead of using a random number, for the private key, you could use a hash of the User Name, and a password. Doing so allows the users to generate their private key on demand. They don't have to store the private key, and if they want to work on a another computer, they don't need to bring along a copy. Has any one tried this? Is there existing software that does this? Any comments on the security of such a scheme?  The only draw back that I can think of is the potential lack of randomness in the key. If the user chooses a bad password, it would be possible to brute force the public key. Harv.RedRook(a)yahoo.com _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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