December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Prepping for Y2K armageddon so far has caused our taskforce little more trouble than post-its on each device showing an ode to Mercury for getting the lead out in time to lope upstairs shedding clothes for the bacchanale planned to celebrate the end of computer oversight of our infrapasture. We urge ourselves: good riddance to everything overmanaged by the matrixed interdependent skeins of networks and switches and redundancies and dev nulls and robot backups, time to get back in touch with fecund reality, slurp gutters, chew roots, sniff musks, chuck pixels. One mole aint into that, though, and uplinks us it's going to be evil incarnate under sky, without electromechanical life and love and think support systems, untethered, fending for ourselves, trying to walk and talk, itching filth, urging senses to pinpoint food and drink, getting no feedback, becoming terrified, running across a roadkilled computer, gathering around, toggling inputs, rooting peripherals, suckling outputs, so the saint preaches, you'll be gasping: why have you abandoned us, oh motherboard, boot up. Hooting, itching to get offline topside we backslash: Rev gospel, dirtworm.

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FW: PRIVACY Forum Digest V07 #21(excerpt)
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Snip from the latest Privacy Forum Digest on commercial filtering software for enterprises, encryption and "criminal skills". cheers, C.G. -- A Navigo Farmer > -----Original Message----- > From: privacy(a)vortex.com [SMTP:privacy@vortex.com] > Sent: Sunday, December 20, 1998 4:58 PM > To: PRIVACY-Forum-List(a)vortex.com > Subject: PRIVACY Forum Digest V07 #21 > > PRIVACY Forum Digest Sunday, 20 December 1998 Volume 07 : Issue > 21 > [...] > > Date: Wed, 16 Dec 98 12:25 PST > From: lauren(a)vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) > Subject: Privacy Discussions Classified as a "Criminal Skill" > > Greetings. Is discussing privacy in the PRIVACY Forum a criminal skill? > According to one widely used commercial web filtering tool, the answer was > yes! The controversy over software to block access to particular sites, > based on perceived content, has been continuing to rage. Attempts to > mandate the use of such software in environments such as libraries and > schools have raised a variety of serious concerns. In addition to fairly > straightforward freedom of speech issues, another factor revolves around > how accurate (or inaccurate) these filtering systems really are. > > I've now seen firsthand that errors by a filtering system can indeed be > quite > serious, an event that seems to certainly validate some of these concerns. > But there is something of a silver lining to the story, as we'll see > later. > > I recently was contacted by someone at a large corporation, who was trying > to reach the PRIVACY Forum web site, which is constantly being referenced > by > individuals and commercial, educational, government, and other sites > around > the world. This person was upset since whenever they attempted to reach > the http://www.vortex.com site and domain that hosts the PRIVACY Forum, > their web software blocked them, informing them that the block was in > place > due to the site being categorized as containing "criminal skills." > > As the webmaster for the vortex.com domain, this certainly came as news to > me. The message they received didn't give additional information--they > didn't even know exactly where it came from. It was apparent though, that > the entire organization was probably blocked from reaching the PRIVACY > Forum, since the filtering software in question was affecting a main > firewall system. > > After a number of phone calls and discussions with the system > administrator > for that organization, the details began to emerge. The company was > running > a filtering software package from Secure Computing Corporation of San > Jose, > California. This package received weekly updates of blocked sites in a > wide > variety of categories, one of which was "criminal skills." > > The administrator had no idea what rationale was used for these decisions, > they just pulled in the list each week and applied it. He immediately > placed > vortex.com on a local exception list so that it would no longer be blocked > to > their users. > > I then turned my attention to Secure Computing. After a number of calls, > I > found myself speaking with Ken Montgomery, director of corporate > communications for that firm. He confirmed the information I had already > received. The filtering product in question ("SmartFilter") was > apparently > not being marketed to individuals, rather, it was sold to institutions, > corporations, etc. to enforce filtering policies across entire entities. > The product covers a wide range of information categories that users of > the > software can choose to block. He said that the majority of blocked sites > were in categories involving pornography, where there was (in his opinion) > no question of their not belonging there. > > The "criminal skills" category reportedly was broadly defined to cover > information that might be "of use" to criminals (e.g. how to build bombs). > He had no explanation as to why my domain had been placed in that list, > since by no stretch could any materials that are or have ever been > there fall into such a categorization. He did discover that the > classification of my domain had occurred over a year ago (meaning > other sites could have been receiving similar blocking messages for > that period of time when trying to access the PRIVACY Forum) and > that the parties who had made the original classification were no longer > with their firm--so there was no way to ask them for their rationale. > (All of their classifications are apparently made by people, not > by an automated system.) > > However, it seems likely that the mere mentioning of encryption may have > been enough to trigger the classification. The administrator at the > organization that had originally contacted me about the blocked access, > told > me that the main reason they included the "criminal skills" category in > their site blocking list was to try prevent their users from downloading > "unapproved" encryption software. This was a type of information that he > believed to be included under the Secure Computing "criminal skills" > category (the "logic" being, obviously, that since criminals can use > encryption to further their efforts, encryption is a criminal skill). He > also admitted that he knew that their users could still easily obtain > whatever encryption software they wanted anyway, but he had to enforce the > company policy to include that category in their blocking list. > > As PRIVACY Forum readers may know, no encryption software is or ever has > been distributed from here. The topic of encryption issues does certainly > come up from time to time, as would be expected. For the mere *mention* > of > encryption in a discussion forum to trigger such a negative categorization > would seem to suggest the fallacy of blindly trusting such classification > efforts. > > Mr. Montgomery of Secure Computing initially suggested that it was up to > their customers to decide which categories they wanted to use in their own > blocking lists--he also stated that as a company they were opposed to > mandatory filtering regulations. I suggested that such determinations by > their customers were meaningless if the quality of the entries in those > categories could not be trusted and if errors of this severity could so > easily be made. I felt that this was particularly true of a category with > an obviously derogatory nature such as "criminal skills"--the > ramifications > of being incorrectly placed into such a category, and then to not even > *know* about it for an extended period of time, could be extreme and very > serious. > > To their credit, my argument apparently triggered a serious discussion > within Secure Computing about these issues. I had numerous subsequent > e-mail and some additional phone contacts with Mr. Montgomery and others > in their firm concerning these matters. First off, they apologized > for the miscategorization of vortex.com, and removed it from the > "criminal skills" category (it was apparently never listed in any > other of their categories). > > Secondly, they have agreed with my concerns about the dangers of such > miscategorizations occurring without any mechanism being present for sites > to learn of such problems or having a way to deal with them. So, they > will > shortly be announcing a web-based method for sites to interrogate the > Secure > Computing database to determine which categories (if any) they've been > listed under, and will provide a means for sites to complain if they feel > that they have been misclassified. They've also suggested that their hope > is to provide a rapid turnaround on consideration of such complaints. > > While by no means perfect, this is a step forward. I would prefer a more > active notification system, where sites would be notified directly when > categorizations are made. This would avoid their having to > check to see whether or not they've been listed, and needing to keep > checking back to watch for any changes or new categorizations. If more > filtering software companies adopt the Secure Computing approach, there > would be a lot of checking for sites to do if they wanted to stay on > top of these matters. Secure Computing feels that such notifications are > not practical at this time. However, their move to provide some > accountability to their filtering classifications is certainly preferable > to > the filtering systems which continue to provide no such facilities and > operate in a completely closed environment. > > So, we make a little progress. The PRIVACY Forum and vortex.com are no > longer miscategorized and have been removed from all Secure Computing > block > lists. Secure Computing was polite and responsive in their > communications with me, and will establish the system discussed above in > reaction to my concerns. Web filtering of course remains a highly > controversial topic with many serious negative aspects, but we see that > when > it comes to dealing with the complex issues involved, it would be a > mistake > to assume that all such filters all created equal. > > --Lauren-- > Lauren Weinstein > Moderator, PRIVACY Forum > http://www.vortex.com > [...] >

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New PGP key for Lucky Green
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Folks, I am about to revoke my old DSS key ID 0xB663B0FD for administrative reasons. My new DSS key is attached. The new DSS key is signed with both my old DSS key and my ancient RSA key. If you signed my keys in the past, please sign the new one. Please discontinue use of my old DSS key. Thanks, - --Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.0.2 iQCVAwUBNn24CwSQkem38rwFAQE81AP/SA/AVTvMyWettjxaVOMvSdkSOzZITGPv bkZDp0posq014TrttVOUakHfLkYMe20bqMqkFLGwmzyfC6T33QYEnWXVZ7br/LCX YLg1+5ymS6ceCTgH8nfV+JIOGraxG7k818mF4NinR2xksfG8+p+yxoasSDVMwh0K wrt6/YCsYdQ= =ufA7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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NSA Org Chart
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks to Defense Information and Electronics Report we offer NSA's organizational chart, which was obtained by DI&ER under the FOIA: http://jya.com/nsa-chart.htm

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qXt8in0ocFjj3wHmDXe6PVJil1/NP0rd
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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the greatest date line in america!!
by www.hk.super.net/ 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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SURVEY SHOWS COUNTIES ARE BEHIND ON Y2K FIX
by DOOM Anonymous Untraceable User 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A survey by the National Association of Counties shows that one-third of the nation's counties aren't even aware of the Y2K problem -- and about 75% of the 119 counties with populations below 10,000 haven't developed a plan for updating their computer systems to deal with the millennial data change. Total Y2K spending among counties is expected to reach $1.7 billion, according to the association. (Information Week 14 Dec 98) #!/usr/local/bin/perl -0777-- -export-a-crypto-system-sig -RC4-3-lines-PERL @k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_ ]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256; &S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}

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repost(?): Why i am not truly pseudonymous yet (was: Re: keyword scanning and countering writing style analysis)
by Zooko 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunks: I tried to send this message to the cypherpunks in April 1998. I suspect that this, and many other messages that i sent, never reached the cypherpunks list. If any of you remember reading this, or have a copy of it in your archives, please let me know. Regards, Zooko ------- Forwarded Message Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 07:06:44 +0200 (MET DST) From: Zooko Journeyman <zooko(a)xs4all.nl> To: zooko(a)xs4all.nl Newsgroups: list.cypherpunks Subject: Why i am not truly pseudonymous yet (was: Re: keyword scanning and countering writing style analysis) References: <199803252037.UAA06168(a)server.eternity.org> Adam: I think that the state of the art on this is probably close to the boundaries of the science of machine learning. I recently saw a presentation by a researcher from Bell Labs. His machine learning system, which is being patented, had success rates better than competing systems (including better than a hand-scripted system!) at identifying into which categories a phone call or letter to AT&T fell: "Billing", "Subscription", "Complaint", "Delay", "Installation", etc. Presumably the NSA has similar systems with all of our favorite keywords. (Toto: insert funny jokes here.) Anyway, if _i_ were forced to bet on it, i would say that such systems are not yet good enough to reduce the cost of matching nyms to "insignificant", but that such systems probably _will_ be that good before too long (and our old articles will still be useful as data then...). Now the question about counter-measures, i don't know. (There is a trade-off between safety and expressiveness here. We could all buy a copy of AltaVista's translator software and language databases, and then run our missives through a couple of pidgin foreign languages before posting them. [Toto: insert funny joke about JYA here.]) <sigh> I think this issue is growing in importance. I currently use a very weak nym, which anyone with a little skill should be able to crack [Toto: bonus points if you _privately_ send e-mail to one of my eunymous accounts]. I'm starting to think that this is the worst of both worlds, as potentially malicious sorts are not significantly slowed down, while potentially beneficient people are kept a bit more distant from me and are thus less likely to be of use to me. (e.g., people who know me as Zooko wouldn't notice if "Anna Rosenbaum" (my real name) were to disappear one night, and vice versa.) By the way, the reason for my failure should be instructive: my nym is so crackable not because of any technical detail having to do with remailers or encryption-- it is that i foolishly posted articles containing both nyms in the distant past, and those articles are now a permanent part of the The Net instead of decaying and disappearing like articles from even earlier years did. Another issue for me is the onerous cost of starting a fresh nym. The benefits (true pseudonymity) are uncertain (the bad guys' techniques might crack my best effort using current technology (especially because of textual analysis as per the original topic of this message)), and the costs are that i lose the advantages of concentration of reputation into a single nym. (I've already observed this, a little, with my current set of weak nyms. Adding a strong one would only exaccerbate my woes.) A final problem i have with true pseudonymity is that i _like_ meeting people in Real Life, and not only to fight or fuck them. Okay, this has been long and rambling, but i hope useful to some of you. One more point before i go: There are two ideas of pseudonymity that i have considered. In one, you are truly the only person who knows that the nym maps to your body. This has obvious advantages, and obvious disadvantages. In the other (which is basically what "Zooko" is and was intended to be), there is a large, ill-defined group of people who also know of the mapping. This has its advantages too-- social advantages (which are very important!), but the disadvantage is that it is trivially cracked by a mole. [In fact, i think i recall that about the time "Zooko" appeared on the scene one "Adam Back" sent me e-mail saying, "Hey-- you write a lot like Anna Rosenbaum did... Are you her?".] [So if anyone wants to do me a favor, look about in your archives and dissociate "Zooko" with "Anna". Thanks! It might actually do me some good in the long run, although not, of course, against the likes of the NSA. Perhaps against others.] Regards, Zooko P.S. For an Nth reason that i don't have a strong pseudonym, i never bothered to learn how to use a remailer front-end. Now with Xemacs 20 and Mozilla out, i could probably handle it... P.P.S. Today i found the 3rd person, including myself, who has used the name "Zooko" on the net. .----, | mailto:zooko@xs4all.nl . / | http://www.xs4all.nl/~zooko/public.html . / | "Any technology which is distinguishable +____. | from magic is insufficiently advanced." ------- End of Forwarded Message

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I76wQeB9zDPUp2NfsZqfInyfQ1A4ojlu
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Forwarded mail....
by Richard.Bragg＠ssa.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Comrades, comrades, please. What makes "The Revolution" so powerful is the way it transends such petty consideration as "National Boundaries". When our day comes there will be no treachery as there will be no "THEM" to be treasonous to. We will be in total control. There will be complete freedom of speech as long as it doesn't cover topics not suitable for public discorse (these will be desided as we need to). Anyone can use encryption, as strong as they like. Of course the only computers will be centrally controlled and plain text backups will be maintained for your peace of mind. We will do all that tedious backing up for you. Anyone can own and carry any firearm. Ammunition will naturally be rationed. We don't want the wealthy, bourgious <sp> to gain an advantage over the brothers and sisters in the masses. Be patient comrades, our day will come. Missouri FreeNet Administration <measl(a)mfn.org> on 19/12/98 05:41:51 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com cc: (bcc: Richard Bragg/UK/SSA_EUROPE) Subject: Forwarded mail.... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- ::Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 05:21:34 +0100 ::From: Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> ::To: sysadmin(a)mfn.org ::You should be expecting a visit from the boys in the suits very soon. ::Have fun. I hope your cellmate is a big guy they call "The Bull." ::Traitorous scum. ---------- Message Ends ---------- What I *really* love about these "patriots" is how they are not _afraid_ to stand by their words! Awwww, c'mon! You're on the "Side Of Right(tm)", so why hide? You afraid I'm gonna piss on your white picket fence? Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin(a)mfn.org -- If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they should give serious consideration towards setting a better example: Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate... This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers, associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the first place... --------------------------------------------------------------------

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