December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Article V - an analysis (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 15:34:35 -0800 > From: Todd Larason <jtl(a)molehill.org> > Subject: Re: Article V - an analysis (fwd) > On 981125, Jim Choate wrote: > > > > Why is this problematic? > > Whether it's problematic or not depends on your goals. It gives reason to > doubt that your interpretation of the effects of a Convention called under the > current constitution would hold, as (as you now say), such a Convention > has the power to change the rules by definition. How? Explain what part of Article V leaves this hole open. Explain the relevance of the operational proceedures used during the transition from the Articles to the current Constitution to the modification of the Constitution itself within the bounds of its own structure? Congress wasn't even involved in that original process because it didn't technicaly exist until after the ratification. Why would a precedence involving state legislatures be found to hold on a national legislature? There is also the issue that the Constitution once duly implimented is the supreme law of the land and it takes precedence over precedence. This is apples and oranges. Bottem line, if 3/4 of the states ratify there isn't anything that keeps it from being law. The most that Congress can say is whether it's a direct vote in the legislature or a vote by convention. > There was a time period (I don't know how long, but certainly no more than > a few months) where some states were operating underthe Constitution and > others were still under the Acts. Which is relevant how? > I don't think it specifies, but what has always happened is that the *same > resolution* which proposes the amendment specifies which ratification method > will be used. That can't work if the resolution comes from the states. Only Congress has the authority to decide that issue. So the only way a proposed amendment can be placed up for debate and at the same time specify how it is to be voted on at the state level is if it comes from Congress in the first place. A proposal submitted by the states would force the debate of how it was to be decided. Once that was settled it would be passed back to the appropriate state legislature for direct vote or the initiation of a convention if sufficient votes could be found. > There's only a time limit because Congress has started specifying one, in the > same resolution which proposes the amendment and specifies the ratification > method. (Exception: in the case of the ERA, I believe they later extended the > limit). The power to specify a time limit isn't mentioned in the Constitution > as you note, but has also never been tested. I assume your speaking of the prohibition amendments again and their limits (7 years I seem to remember). That raises an interesting point. Suppose that the states submit an amendment proposal, can Congress modify it? I'd say not because of the 10th. If they could then the power of the states to submit amendments would be moot. ____________________________________________________________________ Technology cannot make us other than what we are. James P. Hogan The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Maturity Is Needed
by Mixmaster 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In response to: cyp >Jim Choate is so stupid that even when he accidentally gets something >right, he quickly "corrects" himself so that he is wrong again: > >> I had typed x/ln(x) as the asymptotic limit for the number of primes less >> than x. >> >> This is incorrect. It should be, >> >> x/log(x) >>Wrong, doofus. x/ln(x) is the correct asymptotic limit. What role could >>logs to the base 10 possibly play? Do you think God favors the number 10? >>What a fool you are!Your observations over the years usually seemed >>thoughtful, and intelligent, and therefore helpful. What an human waste this guy is. It reminds me of the old days of Reputation. A boorish attack reflects more poorly on the attacker than the victim, if it is an inappropriate attack. Even if stupid, or just mistkaen, a comment here is intended toward a larger, instructive purpose. This idiot just wastes bandwidth. Life's too short for this crap. Perhaps it's worth trying to reason with people a bit: Victorian times, like ours today, were a period of huge changes, which meant behavioral changes. It cannot be an accident that manners, good form, and respectable society merged into the legendary image of modern social graces. It was done of efficiency, and, so, of necessity. Inefficient entities decay in capitalism. Manners were needed for efficiency. Only today do they seem quaint, or insulting of class or social station. They were where the action was, among professionals trying to forge new economic relationships. This immature jerk is gonna lose. An Educated Observer

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the economist on cybercash
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

on disappointing/lackluster acceptance of digital cash.. mondex,visa,1st virtual,digicash etc http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/current/index_fn7557.html

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Re: manners....
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:54 AM 11/19/98 +0800, Bernardo B. Terrado wrote: >Well I thought this list was a list of intellectuals, not only good in >hacks and coding and programming and the likes but also well "tailored" >with their manners, I have posted similar mails asking something but I >have never received one like this. At least the less obvious thing to do >is to ignore my message, simply delete it!, is that a hard thing to do? Yo, Bernie - until you started asking for pirated commercial software, I was wondering whether you were trolling by asking newbie questions or just a real newbie who hadn't looked at any of the literature yet. Knapsacks are, after all, broken long ago, and anything written since about 1980 that talks about them will also say that. I'd recommend getting Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" and spending a while with it, then looking for academic stuff beyond that if you want, and also reading the documentation for PGP for practical stuff (in particular, Phil's comments on Snake Oil.) There are also some FAQs out there, such as the sci.crypt FAQ. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart(a)pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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Maturity Is Needed
by Mixmaster 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In response to: ein >Jim Choate is so stupid that even when he accidentally gets something >right, he quickly "corrects" himself so that he is wrong again: > >> I had typed x/ln(x) as the asymptotic limit for the number of primes less >> than x. >> >> This is incorrect. It should be, >> >> x/log(x) >>Wrong, doofus. x/ln(x) is the correct asymptotic limit. What role could >>logs to the base 10 possibly play? Do you think God favors the number 10? >>What a fool you are!Your observations over the years usually seemed >>thoughtful, and intelligent, and therefore helpful. What an human waste this guy is. It reminds me of the old days of Reputation. A boorish attack reflects more poorly on the attacker than the victim, if it is an inappropriate attack. Even if stupid, or just mistkaen, a comment here is intended toward a larger, instructive purpose. This idiot just wastes bandwidth. Life's too short for this crap. Perhaps it's worth trying to reason with people a bit: Victorian times, like ours today, were a period of huge changes, which meant behavioral changes. It cannot be an accident that manners, good form, and respectable society merged into the legendary image of modern social graces. It was done of efficiency, and, so, of necessity. Inefficient entities decay in capitalism. Manners were needed for efficiency. Only today do they seem quaint, or insulting of class or social station. They were where the action was, among professionals trying to forge new economic relationships. This immature jerk is gonna lose. An Educated Observer

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Re: Netscape AOL Instant Messenger Confirmation (kB3bEjeb1I aohelsux)
by Paul H. Merrill 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>Again, some clueless asshole that can't tell the difference between >>solicited responses and Unsolicited spam mouths off. If you would like >>to talk about someone, talk about the jerk who set up an AIM name using >>the outdated address, not the company that repsonded. >> >>PHM >> >>AKA PHMerrill(a)AOL.Com (among other names and addresses) > >Again, the clueless asshole known as Paul *H.* Merrill jumps up and defends >AOL, incompetently-written web sites, and morons everywhere. > I obviously don't defend morons everywhere -- I didn't defend Mr Anonymous. >Someone told AOL to mail cypherpunks(a)toad.com. AOL could have checked to see >if the originating site was under the toad.com domain. This is trivial. They >didn't. It's rather easy to just require that somebody trying to mail an >address under the toad.com domain submit the request from an address under >toad.com. > I regularly send from one domain while requesting a "something" to be dealt with through another domain. (A little something called work, for instance. Shoot, even the ACM.Org address doen't pass that check but it certainly is valid and unambiguously mine. >In other words, Paul, you believe that if somebody goes and types your >address into some system and asks it to send you 512MB of MPEG video, that's >okay because it was solicited. It wasn't solicited by you but somebody >solicited it. > My point exactly -- so when you want to ream someone for the half gig MPEG, ream the requester. >Oops. That's "blatent propoganda." I'd better rephrase. In other words, >Paul, you believe that if somebody goes and types YOUR address into fifty >different systems, signs you up for a bunch of mailing lists, and generally >causes you a lot of inconvenience, that's okay because it was solicited. You >don't know who it was solicited by, but somebody obviously did. If you then >object to the sites sending you mail rather than just silently >unsubscribing yourself every week, are you then just 'some clueless asshole'? > The totality is not Okay. But the individual systems that were solicited to send are not at fault, assuming that they give me an out. OTOH the asshole that requested it all is quite another topic. That "spammer" is the one that should be taken to task. >Are spammers now not to be held accountable for their spamming because they >bought a list of addresses from someone who claimed that the people all >asked to be on the mailing list? > there is a significant difference between buying a list and answering a request. Granted that the net effect of having a confirmation message sent to some one person shows little difference, but the methodology and intent are nt the same at all. >Why don't we just sign Cypherpunks up for Ignition-Point, the FP list, the >ACLU action advisories, Sixdegrees, and whatever else we can find? Or should >We just sign up Paul, really, because he doesn't have a problem with this. >In fact I'm sure we could make some 'marketting research' to show that he >might be interested. Hey let's get the entire CDR subscription list and >sign everybody up for FP and ACLU because if you're on Cypherpunks you're >obviously interested in those things. The analogous activities have been going on for many years and they have never been a Good Thing. > >The root of the problem is sites which require email addresses for no good >reason, and/or don't have the decency to perform a simple check to see if >the domains match. They're lazy. They're irresponsible. When confronted, no >matter how civil, they react much like you do, Paul, and they don't want to >be inconvenienced by having to fix their usually badly-designed web sites. > Anyone that believes that a domain check will do anything other than check a domain is delusional. Hey, they even think like the post awful -- one person, one email address. >If I recall correctly Tim has the same opinion and has stated it a few >times as have others so I'm not alone. > >Now I leave you, Paul, so you can go back to your 24 hour vigil and you and >your quick response team can scour the net for attacks against AOL and the >true clueless assholes, and defend them with your last breath. > Why, thank you. But it is not really needed. >Yet Another 'Clueless Asshole' > I never cease to be amazed at how little grasp of the concept of causality so many presumably technically literate people are today. When one wishes to remove a problem, it is a much better approach to attack the cause than to attack the symptom. PHM

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Re: Re: Netscape AOL Instant Messenger Confirmation (kB3bEjeb1I aohels
by Paul H. Merrill 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----Original Message----- From: lcs Mixmaster Remailer <mix(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu> To: paul h. merrill <paulmerrill(a)acm.org>; cypherpunks(a)einstein.ssz.com <cypherpunks(a)einstein.ssz.com> Date: Wednesday, November 25, 1998 12:20 AM Subject: Re: Re: Netscape AOL Instant Messenger Confirmation (kB3bEjeb1I aohels >Do you even bother to read the posts you try to flame? Read the last part of >that. > Yes, I do. I do not buy the domain check idea due to the unworkability in a changing and multi-faceted society. I do not buy the concept the anyone that sends a piece that you don't want is a "spammer" (there really are enough of them out there already without diluting the Title through misnomers.) I do not buy attacking symptoms and ignoring causes -- and in this case Causers. PHM >Paul H. Merrill wrote: >> >>Again, some clueless asshole that can't tell the difference between >>solicited responses and Unsolicited spam mouths off. If you would like >>to talk about someone, talk about the jerk who set up an AIM name using >>the outdated address, not the company that repsonded. >> >>PHM >> >>AKA PHMerrill(a)AOL.Com (among other names and addresses) >> >>Anonymous wrote: >>> >>> This does wonders for my opinion of AOL. Even the administration has no clue. >>> >>> AOL administration spammed the Cypherpunks <cypherpunks(a)toad.com> list, using >>> an address for Cypherpunks which has been defunct for over a year now, with: >>> >>> >Thank you for registering for Netscape AOL Instant Messenger! >>> > >>> >Your registration for screen name aohelsux has been received. >>> > >>> >Please reply to this message within 48 hours to complete >>> >the registration process. Simply reply to the present message >>> >and type 'OK' as the text of your message. >>> >>> P.S. "Well they just responded to an address someone gave them," like >>> certain advocates of AOL, lamers, and Microsoft we have on the list have >>> said, is not an excuse. It's easy to set up domain validation. The spammers >>> just don't care.

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CABLE TV DESCRAMBLER........Now Only $7.00 !
by BADJEEP97＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is really cool! PREMIUM CHANNELS........Descrambled! EASY to assemble plans for only $7.00 ! YOU WILL BE WATCHING all your FAVORITE PAY STATIONS featuring MOVIES, SPORTS. Adult entertainment, and any other scrambled signal NEXT WEEK! You can EASILY assemble a cable descrambler in less than 30 minutes! You have probably seen many advertisments for similar plans......... BUT OURS are BETTER! We have compared it to all the others and have actually IMPROVED the quality and SIMPLIFIED the design !!! ** We even include PHOTOS! ** OUR PLANS ARE BETTER! We have NEW, EASY TO READ,EASY to assemble plans for only $7.00! We have seen them advertised for as much as $29.00 and you have to wait weeks to receive them! WHAT THE OTHERS SAY IS TRUE! Parts are available at "The TV HUT" or any electronics store. Trademark rights do not allow us to use a national electronics retail chains' name but there is one in your town! Call and ask them BEFORE you order! They are very familiar with these plans! You will need these easy to obtain parts : 270-235 mini box 271-1325 2.2k ohm resistor 278-212 chasis connectors RG59 coaxial cable #12 copper wire Variable capacitor They may have to special order the variable capacitor, But WHY WAIT for a special order? WE have them! WE have secured a supply of the capacitors directly from the manufacturer and We WILL include one with your plans for an ADDITIONAL $10.00 only! All you need now is the EASY TO ASSEMBLE plans to show you how this educational device in 30 MINUTES! It is LEGAL, providing of course you use these plans for EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES only. See first hand and LEARN how this SIMPLE circuitry works! If you intend to use these plans for any other purpose DO NOT ORDER them. IT'S FUN TO BUILD! We're sure you'll enjoy this project! This is a unique opportunity for hobbiest of ANY skill level to learn simple circuitry! Learn how easy descrambling is! $ 7.00 for plans only $10.00 for variable capacitor only $17.00 for The easy to assemble plans and one variable capacitor! Please send check or money order payable to: Kraftworks P.O. Box 11752 San Rafael, Ca. 94912 WE pay postage and handling! Please allow 14 days for delivery. This is a one time only mailing! You have already been placed on our remove list and will not receive another offer from us! Thank You

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ATF funding voice recognition research
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ATF - Proof of concept task - Prototype automated firearms licensing and verification system which integrated voice recognition and reverse voice recognition, telecommunication, Internet to query ATF database across LANs and WANs http://www.0-1.com/y_ats.htm The company doing the research seems to be a beltway-bandit ("minority owned" mil-welfare) type place. They're also evaluating sniffers for DISA... "Semtex --better than duct tape"

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enemy of the state movie
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

fun wired article on new movie "enemy of the state" with privacy /cpunk implications. bamford quoted, info on NSA, rotenberg, spy satellites, etc. http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/16507.html happy xgiving folks I am thankful for cyberspace <g>

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