December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: (eternity) democracy is a bad idea on the net too! (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 06 Dec 1998 01:07:38 -0800 > From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart(a)pobox.com> > Subject: Re: (eternity) democracy is a bad idea on the net too! (fwd) > At 02:47 PM 12/5/98 -0600, Jim Choate wrote, not in this order: > > Two major negatives to a free-market approach that are never discussed. > > >There is also the question of data degredation, in the sense of worth, > >over time versus the archival/historical worth of the data. > > Huh? We talk about this all the time. How much does data storage cost, > and how long is the information useful to readers and writers, And you drop it at that point. No, you do not adequately discuss the ramification of the economic nor of the social and historic motives to drive the long-term archiving of all data in the network. The current Eternity model is brittle in several ways. The problem is the current economic model that all its supporters are wedded to. If that model changes and takes on the range of responsibilities (some of them outside a simple profit/cost approach) that such a service should carry it would work. I made reference to a couple of these in my responce to Adam so I won't reitterate them here. ____________________________________________________________________ If I can put in one word what has always infuriated me in any person, any group, any movement, or any nation, it is: bullying Howard Zinn The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: (eternity) cost metrics (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 6 Dec 1998 00:26:19 GMT > From: Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> > Subject: Re: (eternity) cost metrics > Jim Choate writes: > > Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> wrote: > > > I think a better deciding factor of which files remain and which don't > > > is hard, anonymous ecash. [...] > > > > There is some window for abuse in this method. It allows a well endowed > > entity to bias the information available. > > The alternatives, such as say one vote per person have problems too. I'll agree that any system that relies on charging the originator of the information, versus the user of the information, is flawed in this way. Does your local grocery store charge the truck that delivers its tomato's? Does a book publisher ask that the potential author pay for the book run and advertising? Does the newspaper charge their reporters to put their articles in the paper? > Cash allows you to measure the scale. No, it allows a mechanism in the short-term for the Eternity market to be manipulated by parties with a political interest and large buckets of cash. > So straight cash seems I think to be a good metric. The point of the cash is to provide a motivation to keep Eternity up, NOT a measure of the worth of any specfic piece of information from the perspective of the server operator, it's the users of that data that define it's worth. That worth can and probably will have many facets that can't be reflected in simple dollars and by definition outside the keen of the Eternity networks current worth estimation model. In the majority of cases the Eternity operator won't have a clue as to the actual market worth of some data. There is also the issue of information worth collapse once the data is available off the Eternity network that hasn't been touched. This works to the negative of the Eternity networks long-term goal. For example, let's say a whistle-blower comes in with some juicy info. The Eternity server network, through some mechanism that I've never seen sufficiently described, determine that the originator must pay some amount of money to post it. The data gets posted and users grab it over the next few days. Then once it's available in the alternate channels (eg printed on a webpage of a newspaper) the future market potential for the Eternity servers goes through the floor. This motivates the Eternity network to over-value the worth of data which further keeps folks out. > Note also my earlier comment that I view an important eternity > objective to be preventing negative votes on data availability. You > can only disseminate more, say contradictory, information not remove > information. Well, considering that Eternity doesn't do anything regarding archiving and long-term storage there really isn't a worry here. All that's required is to keep the price up until the window of relevance is gone. Then back out, the price drops back to it's original cost but now that it's relevance is gone it slowly (or not) fades away. Depending on the particular nature of the > You can attempt to disseminate more copies (make > available with higher redundancy, and fund faster download) perhaps, > but this does not drown out the other information. Actualy this is a complete change of track and irrelevant. The POINT is that if there is a piece of information that I want to keep out of the hands of others I simply go to server after server and ask for a copy. This activity raises the price. Since I've got lots of cash and I want that document to be expensive I continue to buy copies further inflating the price. > If you worry that mega-corp M will buy all available space at a > premium, there is an easy solution: Straw man, if the Eternity servers have a clue as M Corp. buys more space the server operators buy more drives to sell since their now in the data space business and not the information brokering business. Hence M Corp. has distracted the Eternity services from their primary operations. So a workable strategy for M Corp. would be to inflate the price on the data they want to hide as well as continue to dump monies into the Eternity network buying space. Then at some point they abruptly stop their support and the Eternity services collapse because they've now grown to such an extent they can't survive without this artificial market manipulation. So the Eternity servers go down, further obfuscating the original information that M Corp wanted to hide. The Eternity model also completely ignores the consequences of such a manipulation in regards the re-building of a new service after the collapse. The amount of trust that potential users have will be low further increasing the difficulty of keeping the servers operating long-term. Because the Eternity network relies only on the immediate short-term worth of data it is brittle. > > There is also the question of data degredation, in the sense of > > worth, over time versus the archival/historical worth of the > > data. > > As long as people are interested to keep the data around in low > priority low access speed storage they will pay for this to happen. > > If they don't care -- well they don't care. People who do care can > fund it, and evangelize to others on the merits of doing this. No one > has any special right to force others to pay for keeping junk around > for the sheer historical sake of completeness of it. So, a primary ideal of the Eternity service is that as long as the data has a worth below some level they'll drop it. This is one of the reasons that a long-term service like this won't work. It isn't reliable because I can't come back 50 or a 100 years from now to get a piece of data unless there is sufficient interest by other parties to access it as well. This is short-sighted and limits the use of Eternity. ____________________________________________________________________ If I can put in one word what has always infuriated me in any person, any group, any movement, or any nation, it is: bullying Howard Zinn The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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by Diana 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Key changes at notatla
by Antonomasia 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 New mix keys at notatla already in use. Old ones expire 21Dec1998. mccain mccain(a)notatla.demon.co.uk 49894e1cc7629bbb54a3b5f98ba6f6d6 2.0.4b41 MC - -----Begin Mix Key----- 49894e1cc7629bbb54a3b5f98ba6f6d6 258 AASe8KR46cRA75Jk4YMcE32gpS1uqAveFpRxPVg7 qATY4aPIyVM40QHa/OrHdVc8twmKMNemcdZNCpdb EDCtaVXLalJ7njbiLs8NMAEVP7WxMQP+1swjvHpR qP1ikuvy89iNpTbDtl9uf11PNeXiWclrCyFkvS6m 4cXFPskXoa4xWQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQAB - -----End Mix Key----- teatwo teatwo(a)notatla.demon.co.uk 4568791f20d5e004225c78e04625bca4 2.0.4b41 MC - -----Begin Mix Key----- 4568791f20d5e004225c78e04625bca4 258 AATVHyCqv2SGgaEbY0HVnBONNsSQwElFCdvSyxhq cGL4FZ5A1LGBAGNN+aHnfw0X8hvNsFB7EcmBsZ1v fUt64xRG5gy2+A3rMlad36iZfqrNBKncGh+Y/uEx nb+hTyANZNlHsUdAfo+lozx0xoB070e6K3rkgxDG GytOW9VjDTVR3QAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQAB - -----End Mix Key----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 5.0i Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNmrcCTROc55Xv6voEQIs4ACeOat7f/0Kn5gLPazrp6rd+gGgsdEAn0nJ 4jhmxQQTvZWFg7d+BxM7WHHR =pz5z -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ############################################################## # Antonomasia ant(a)notatla.demon.co.uk # # See http://www.notatla.demon.co.uk/ # ##############################################################

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The Open Source Initiative needs your help [FYI - Stu]
by Stu Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Subject: The Open Source Initiative needs your help From: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr(a)thyrsus.com> Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 19:48:39 GMT Approved: linux-announce(a)news.ornl.gov (Mikko Rauhala) Followup-To: comp.os.linux.misc Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce Old-Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 23:19:37 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Xref: cyclone.swbell.net comp.os.linux.announce:3567 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The Open Source Initiative needs your help. The Open Source certification mark is a valuable tool for turning on everybody interest in software on to our way of doing things. But for it to keep working, we have to make sure it doesn't get legally diluted. (This is a legal requirement; if we don't enforce the mark, we lose it.) We're a handful of unpaid volunteers. There are a lot of potential diluters out there. We need you to help us keep an eye on them. If you see the term `Open Source' (or even the lower-case `open-source') being used to describe software with distribution conditions that don't fit the Open Source Definition, please inform us at mark-misuse(a)opensource.org All the misuses we've seen so far are accidental. We gently set those people straight. In the process, we try to educate them and bring them fully into the open-source community. If there is ever deliberate or malicious abuse, we will be ready to do what is necessary on behalf of the community. Thanks in advance. - -- Eric S. Raymond The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money. -- Alexis de Tocqueville - -- This article has been digitally signed by the moderator, using PGP. http://www.iki.fi/mjr/cola-public-key.asc has PGP key for validating signature. Send submissions for comp.os.linux.announce to: linux-announce(a)news.ornl.gov PLEASE remember a short description of the software and the LOCATION. This group is archived at http://www.iki.fi/mjr/linux/cola.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: latin1 iQCVAgUBNmbrGFrUI/eHXJZ5AQGXPwQAszpIGeQE6YMeHvlgKCUm285yTsaR84kj K0ZHh6Eu50kpqIfNI3kuJt9ufqM+jPZhiYxNFdT+BtcbEqPGaGLdrD1xqAM6gVY+ 6Ht90AzHrdiwx2Tdlpg1oZo32obiWHLgb5eO4rOeQkmcmmuonKRKb1yNGagnhmbZ a6y3SgRqOoI= =pLE9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Palm III proves a hi-tech helper for car thieves
by Richard Fiero 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Taken from http://www.theregister.co.uk/981204-000007.html A 3Com Palm III and software that lets the handheld control TVs and VCRs through its infrared port are all you need to nick a car these days, it seems. Danish IT journalist Lars Sorensen made the discovery when testing the sofwtare's legitimate uses. The software samples a TV's remote control signals so it can replicate them -- Sorensen wondered if it would do the same with a car's infrared lock and found that it would. Here in the UK, estimates from the Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre, quoted in New Scientist magazine, suggest that three million of the 22 million cars on the road are vulnerable to Palm-toting thieves. Interestingly, older cars that are more at risk than newer models. Most modern vehicles contain locking systems that change the locking code every time the key is used from sequences of 10 to the power 64 (a one with 64 zeros after it) making it virtually impossible to predict the code at any given instance. That said, Sorensen was able to enter a 1998 model, so no one can be sure they are safe.

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Wassenaar Encryption Agreement
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The United States and 32 other nations that belong to a group called the Wassenaar Arrangement, which coordinates export policies for technologies that have both civilian and military use, have signed an agreement restricting exports of encryption technology from their countries. The Clinton administration, which has already imposed such controls in this country, says the agreement will help American companies compete on a more equal footing with their counterparts abroad. Privacy organizations are critical of the agreement, and a counsel for the advocacy group Americans for Computer Privacy says there will still be enormous differences in how the countries put the agreement into practice. (Washington Post 4 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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Crypto deterrents
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

White men traded as 'sex slaves' of black prisoners By Fergal Keane, in Illinois WHITE male prisoners in American jails are being "sold as sex slaves" by black fellow inmates for money, tobacco, drugs and alcohol, according to campaigners who are urging action to end widespread homosexual rape behind bars. Damaging claims of complicity by prison guards are also emerging. Five wardens at a Californian maximum security jail are facing charges relating to the rape of an inmate by a notorious sexual predator. The wardens allegedly forced a troublesome prisoner to share a cell with a black gang leader, who was rewarded with extra food and clothes for imposing "discipline" on the man. According to the campaigners, the sex attacks often carry ugly racial overtones, with many white prisoners claiming that they were sexually abused after being placed in cells with black inmates. Most victims are too scared to complain, it is claimed, and those that do say they have been ignored by the authorities. The scale of the scandal has been uncovered by the pressure group Human Rights Watch, which next year will publish a report documenting the "staggering prevalence" of prison rape. The situation is not just provoking concern among civil liberties groups. In the state of Illinois, a prominent conservative figure, Republican legislator Cal Skinner, is also pushing for tougher government action. He claims that many of the rape victims have been infected with the HIV virus and that American prisons are becoming a breeding ground for Aids. Mr Skinner said: "There are sexual slaves in too many prisons. People are being given a death sentence." He wants to see the mandatory Aids testing of all prisoners with the segregation of those found to be HIV positive. He believes it is one of the few ways of protecting vulnerable inmates from the potentially fatal effect of prison rape. The renewed concern over rape in prisons has come too late for Michael Blucker, 29, a white man from Crystal Lake in Illinois, who was repeatedly gang-raped while serving a sentence for burglary. Blucker's ordeal is almost too horrific to contemplate: he was forced to become a sex slave to black prisoners at Menard State Penitentiary in Illinois. Prison rape is not confined to white victims but they are particularly vulnerable as black gang members make up such a large part of the American prison population. Blucker said: "I was the only white man in a gallery [wing] of more than 100 prisoners. Most of the guys were in for very serious crimes; they were people who weren't going to be getting out of there any time in the next 30 years." The first attack came when Blucker had been in jail just two weeks. He was set upon by three black prisoners, stripped, beaten and raped. "They would have killed me if I had refused. Killing means nothing to these people," he said. Once it became known that he had been raped, Blucker's life became even more of a nightmare. In the violent world of American prisons, an inmate who "allows" himself to be raped is regarded as fair game for every other inmate and is used as a sex slave, normally under the direction of a senior gang leader. In Blucker's case, one of the black prisoners sold him to other inmates on a daily basis. "He would physically threaten me and threaten to have harm done to my wife outside prison. Every day, I would be sold as a sex object while he was given money and cigarettes and marijuana and alcohol in return." When the threats of violence did not cow Blucker, his tormentor would beat him into submission. While filming in Butner prison in North Carolina, I met Ivory Rhodes, a black prisoner, who was attacked within days of being placed in the cell of a known rapist. The pattern he described was almost exactly the same as that experienced by Blucker. A violent attack and the threat of death followed by brutal rape. Rhodes's solution was to try to spend long periods in solitary confinement, a deprivation he preferred to risking his life in the main cells. Rhodes managed to avoid being raped again, but whenever he was transferred from one prison to another, the stigma of "rape victim" went with him. After his rape, Rhodes never moved out of his cell without carrying a knife. He described a world in which any weakness is preyed upon by the tougher and older inmates. The young, the first-time offenders, the middle class are especially vulnerable to attack. Blucker said: "There are people who say that if somebody attacked them in prison they would kill themselves or kill other people. That is bull. It just doesn't happen that way." What was almost certainly his worst experience occurred in the showers when he was set upon by a large gang of prisoners. "They pulled bricks out of the wall and they hit me in the nose and the eye and then on the back of the head, which knocked me out." Then he was repeatedly raped. "I couldn't tell you if it was one, three, 10 or 15 people. All I know is that I felt very unwell." At first, Blucker said, he was too frightened to report the rapes for fear of being killed by the other inmates, but after the shower incident he spoke to prison officials. The result, he claimed, was indifference. "I spoke to officers and medical people and no one believed me." Blucker subsequently took a court action against several prison guards and the prison psychiatrist but was unable to prove his claims. What is not disputed is that he needed extensive surgery for injuries sustained in the attack and that while in prison he contracted the HIV virus. Blucker was eventually transferred from Menard after lobbying a local politician. Now a free man, he is looking for a job and is actively involved in his church. God, he says, will save him from Aids. Fergal Keane is a BBC Special Correspondent

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SHANGHAI ENTREPRENEUR TRIED IN CHINA
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Chinese government has put 30-year-old Shanghai computer software businessman Lin Hai on trial for "inciting the overthrow of state power" by providing 30,000 e-mail addresses to a U.S. Internet magazine called "Big Reference" published by Chinese dissidents. Chinese authorities closed the four-hour trial for what it said were "national security" reasons, and "persuaded" one member of Lin's legal team not to attend the trial. Lin's wife Xu Hong, who was questioned by the police for six hours, has indicated that Lin's lawyer "said he didn't have a very good feeling -- that things won't be good for Lin and he will probably be found guilty." (Washington Post 5 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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MITNICK TRIAL POSTPONED AGAIN
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The long-awaited trial of Kevin Mitnick, the accused computer hacker indicted on 25 counts of "stealing, copying, and misappropriating proprietary computer software" from a number of cellular and computer companies, has been postponed until April 20 after Mitnick's lawyer asked for more time to prepare his case. The trial was slated to begin on January 19. Mitnick has been in jail in Los Angeles awaiting trial since February 1995. - Los Angeles Times 4 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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