December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Why Doesn't Wired.....
by jimp＠wired.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article <v4cAlOwscUg6077yn(a)io.org>, werewolf(a)io.org (Mark Terka) wrote: > .....if it is sooooooo hooked in the online culture have a PGP public key > that 'net users could use to send in their credit card numbers for > subscriptions? Here it is. We're just implementing it. Send us a message (send to talk2subs(a)wired.com) -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.7 mQCOAy8EM1EAAAEEANqhOZTAwWI/99ZZ7t77VHH02n+xM4CQEk2DJe2zZhpjKP8v EHndzBPr3dIsHOZUJABi7ztk5NiQhNVR5EBE7Tqz/7HhGFUE2ErVjAS3OQckcmvW BrCgNXfe0G4tlX1paXFGHsoVT3UgE2IKjttwmZA1WtOH1lbgLCGi/5f257vHAA9A AbQnV2lyZWQgQ2lyY3VsYXRpb24gPHRhbGsyc3Vic0B3aXJlZC5jb20+ =xdqc -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -- Jim Petersen Argue for your limitations.... jimp(a)wired.com And they are yours.

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No Subject
by david＠arch.ping.dk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It is interesting that the situation is so symmetrical. Given collusion with the bank by the other party, with regular ecash we protect Alice's but not Bob's anonymity. With this "reverse ecash" we protect Bob but not Alice. (Alice is the payor, Bob the payee.) If people were allowed to exchange coins anonymously, either system will provide anonymity for both parties. (In the reverse ecash system Alice hands the the blinded proto-coins along with some regular coins to the bank and receives blinded new coins.) Earlier there was discussion of an ecash coin-exchanging service ("Charlie") designed to provide payee anonymity in the regular ecash system. Bob would send his newly-received coins to Charlie along with blinded proto-coins. Charlie would then exchange them at the bank and send the new (blinded) coins back to Bob. Charlie and Bob can be anonymous to each other, but Bob has to trust Charlie with his coins. A similar service would work for the reverse ecash system to protect Alice's anonymity. Bob blinds some proto-coins and sends them to Alice, who further blinds them and sends them to Charlie along with some regular coins of the same values. Charlie exchanges the regular coins for new coins using the doubly blinded proto-coins. He gives the blinded coins back to Alice, who unblinds them and gives them to Bob, who removes the last blinding to reveal the valid coins. It is Alice in this protocol who has to trust Charlie with her coins. Hal

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Fwd: Yup
by Brian B. Riley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ---------------- Date: 01/03 10:00 AM Received: 01/04 10:37 AM From: Bruce Alan Johnson, baj(a)sover.net To: Brian B. Riley, brianbr(a)together.net MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Police in Bangkok, Thailand, arrested an American tourist who climbed repair scaffolding to the top of Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn) and refused to come down. After 10 hours, the man was subdued by police and turned over to the American Embassy. He identified himself as God, but officials determined he was Brandon Simcock, 27, an employee of Microsoft. (Bangkok Post) ..."Termination Notice. Reason for Termination: Impersonating CEO." ----------------- End Forwarded Message ----------------- Brian B. Riley --> http://members.macconnect.com/~brianbr For PGP Keys <mailto:brianbr@together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key> "Journeys are about discovery, about lives touching briefly and then parting, except on the Internet, where distant lives can intertwine, and where a journey of discovery never has to end." -- Jim Heid

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Re: In Search of Genuine DigiCash
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:25 PM 8/22/94 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >Anonymity is what gives digital cash it's raison >d'etre, it's technological advantages over conventional schemes. I'll try to to come at this from another tack. Cryptography gives anonymity. Anononymity reduces the overhead. The reduced overhead should make digital cash more economically efficient than on-line systems like NetBank, or credit-cards or much of anything else, at the moment. The economic efficiency is what may make digitial cash economical as a way to provide liquidity for internet commerce. The major selling point is *not* privacy. The major selling point is economic efficiency. >If anonymity, untraceability, and other "Chaumian" notions are only >seen as peripheral side effects, then we already _have_ "digital cash" >in the encrypted credit card systems some folks are already offering. They are peripheral side effects. They also are the very things that make digital cash a more efficient medium of exchange. They are not necessary and sufficient conditions for the adoption of digital cash for the very same reasons you outlined above. Privacy is like flight. It's cool. It's literally marvelous. But flight also gives you speed, and speed is what sells flight as a usable technology to most people. Is that a better explaination? >Without the technological approach to untraceability and anonymity, >all we have is the usual "trust". Granted, credit card numbers ought >not to be sent over unsecured channels, but fixing that is easy (with >end-to-end encryption). Trust-based systems are not the foundation for >a free society most of us are seeking. Printing is a faster way to transcribe information than copying a book by hand. A secondary benefit of printing is that improves information flow through a culture. A consequence is increased education, which gives you an enlightment ethic and eventually Jeffersonian democacy. I think we're looking at the elephant from opposite ends here, Tim. You seem to be holding the trunk, I believe... >"Digidollar" was one of the many names coined by folks on this list, >along with Cypherbucks, Digimarks, etc. Ah. How grateful I am not to be burdened with its parentage... Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

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Re: MIT Fascism
by No Taxes through No Government 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>True enough. Most of our rules have been bundled together. Either you >accept all of them or you walk away. So Tim, if you don't like the FBI The above false information incorrectly assumes that all laws apply to all people.

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Re: U.S. in violation of Geneva convention?
by Anonymous Sender 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Harmon Seaver wrote: > > This isn't a ski mask burglary. We KNOW Saddam ruled Iraq. > > We KNOW what crimes were committed. Simple syllogism. > > No we don't. We only know what the propaganda mills have told us. > Twenty years ago it was a different story. The propaganda mills were working for Saddam, not against him. http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/04/1599076.php "Over the last dozen years I made 13 trips to Baghdad to lobby the government to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open and to arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders. Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard - awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff." http://www.techcentralstation.com/041103H.html "It appears there is another, more troubling, reason Jordan decided not to report these hideous crimes until the regime was safely out of the way: CNN didn't want to lose its on-the-ground access to a big story." Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, and countless Iraqi refugees all report similar stories of widespread torture and murder. Is it your position that these are all propagandists? Dismissing as "propaganda" any reports that oppose your argument, while accepting as truth any claim that supports it, is simple intellectual dishonesty.

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U.S. in violation of Geneva convention?
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-- On 16 Dec 2003 at 2:36, Anonymous wrote: > I saw several people commenting the issue of Geneva > convention on CNN during the day. Also I saw an expert on > this field from another country commenting on the issue > stating that it was a clear violation of the convention. In > either of these interviews were there any discussion on > whether it didn't apply to this specific case due to what > clothings he happened to wear or whattever. I got the > impression that it was clear that the U.S. treatment wasn't > fully appropriate. If you were watching the BBC, you would have thought most of the Iraqi population were outraged by his capture. I think you are suffering from New York Times syndrome "If even the New York Times admits that the kulaks are happy and prosperous under Stalin, that shows you how great the Soviet Union really must be when you discount all that capitalist propaganda." --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG Lh9C/c3J2U0bybWlK/P0f5hnnZT1z+2QEe1K9Ev2 4cVVWOLkCVsvYQG/u75vRB5xVrL2GjBeaEl+j6x07

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Re: Sunny Guantanamo (Re: Speaking of the Geneva convention)
by Michael Kalus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 17-Dec-03, at 5:43 PM, Jim Dixon wrote: > >> According to the US Government though they are not soldiers. They are >> "unlawful enemy combattants". > > I can only interpret this as your saying that the US Government's > judgement in this issue is correct, and they are not POWs. > I only tell you what they are telling us. I do not agree with this assessment personally. >> >> The war in Afghanistan is over. This is were they were caught. Thus >> they >> should be released, no? > > Oh, we are back to their being POWs. Fine. In that case, the answer > to > your question is no. > > The war in question was begun by an attack on the United States, by the > murder of 3000 people in New York City. Is this war over? Not > according > to tapes attributed to al Qaeda. They still profess to be at war with > the United States. > Where the war begun is probably debatable. The US had (and has) their fingerprints over a lot of things that are happening. And all of these you could construe as an act of war. > Is the war in Afghanistan over? Not according to news reports. Osama > bin > Laden remains free. The Taliban remain active. But the regime has been replaced, thus the war is over, no? That was the case in Europe. Germany was defeated, a new government installed (with a lot of people from the old one) and you called it "done deal". Same in Japan. So what's different this time? > >> If they are terrorists and they have proof of >> this they should put them in front of a court (and I guess that should >> be a civil court, not a military tribunal as I don't quite see since >> when the US Army is performing law enforcement duties). > > Please make your mind up. Now they are terrorists again. > I am answering to your statements. We have already established that if they are POWs then they should be released because the war is over (see above). If they are not POWs but held because of terrorist charges, than they should be tried no? > Whose law requires that terrorists be treated in this fashion? > Our "enlightened" western society, led by the USofA who proclaims to know what right and wrong is (and who wants to teach it to all those "primitive" cultures in the middle east). > The US Army's responsibility is not to enforce the law. It is to > defend > the United States. They seem to be doing a good job at the moment. > Sure sure, nobody has flown another plane in a building. Is this because of the US Army and all those nifty security screenings at the airport (just last weekend I flew out of Dallas and saw more than enough ways to get something through security), or because nobody really wanted to do it right now? Guess we'll never know. But of course the Spinmeisters are going to say it's because of the war in Iraq and added security. I wonder who or what they are going to blame the next time someone gets blown up. > In the United States it is the responsibility of the police to enforce > the > law in their jurisdiction. There is no US police force with > responsiblities in Guantanamo. US law does not apply to Cuba. Nifty, isn't it? "Well people, we see your point. But you have to Understanding, even though we control Guantanamo Bay and even though Diego Garcia is a British Island which we just annexed, we can't really do anything to help those poor people. But don't fret, if they would be in an Afghani jail they would be off worse. Remember, we are the good guys, we only do what's in humanities best interrest." If they would be held in New York State they would have more rights. So let's just not even try that, we might actually HAVE to treat them according to the gospel that we preach. >> But they are not POWs by their own account. If they could be charged >> with any of these crimes above, then what takes two years to actually >> convict them? > > By your way of thinking, if I am taken prisoner in a war, I can decide > that I am not a POW and walk free. That's not what I said. What I DID say was that if they are not POWs and are not charged with a crime, they should be set free. > > In what war has this been common practice? See above. >> Some of them ARE US Citizens. Others are citizens of other states. >> International Law means that if I (holding a German passport) have to >> be >> allowed to contact MY government in order to receive any aid that I >> might require. This right has not been given. > > What "International Law" says that unlawful combatants get to contact > their governments in this manner? > The term "unlawful combatants" doesn't exist either. So the question is mute. Let's say "Human being" instead. > What if the government contacted, say Afghan or Pakistani, would prefer > that they not be contacted as you desire, or prefers that you be held > as > a prisoner indefinitely? Than you have a problem with your government. But neither British, nor Canadian nor French authorities were notified / could be contact OR, after they found out, were allowed to talk to their people. > >> Granted, I would not be protected under the rights of the US >> constitution, but I do have other rights and those are clearly >> violated >> as well. > > What's so clear about this? Do you actually have any knowledge at all > of customs and practices in countries in the region? Do you care at > all > about the opinions of local people, about their customary practices? I > think not. It is not only about people from Afghanistan, it is also about other countries, see my text above. >> >> Treason would need to be proofen. Considering that no charges have >> been >> brought forward after almost two years it is pretty clear (or at least >> appears to be) that there is no proof that any of these people did >> anything wrong. > > Do you know for a fact that there are US citizens held at Guantanamo? > If > so, who are they? > There have been several reports. What about John Walker? Whatever happened to him? >>> >> It doesn't. But if that would be the case than the captured Afghans >> should be returned to the Afghan authorities, why is this not >> happening? > > Perhaps the Afghan authorities don't want them back. > > Hello? > Perhaps you just look for the easy way out? Michael -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBP+DwTmlCnxcrW2uuEQL6iwCeOK5U56u8xVB9aT1SAqj+yi7OULcAoOd0 bml/UV9L7YtJFFoAq77OCilk =aXZZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: U.S. in violation of Geneva convention?
by Michael Kalus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 17-Dec-03, at 5:23 PM, Jim Dixon wrote: >>> Damn lucky, to be honest. >>> >> No I did not omit this little bit. This is not the question. > > Oh but it is. > Ah? Why? >> Guilt or not guilt is not (supposely) decided when captured but in a >> court of law. You remember, "Justice" the thing the US supposely is >> standing for? > > Are you saying that the United States has to be a light to the world, > that > it has an extraordinary responsibility to be morally correct, that its > actions should be judged by a different standard from those of other > countries? The US makes these claims on their own. If they are the "good guys" than they should act like it. Not only when it is convenient but also when it is not. Morale is not about the "best bang for the buck" but about integrity. The US Government clearly does not possess a lot of integrity when it comes to morale. > What are you, some kind of pro-American fanatic? Last time I checked I was a human being. > >> Whatever he did before, it does not matter at this point. At this very >> moment the people who have to abide are the victors and that means the >> US Government (and thus the US Military). >> >> Two wrongs still don't make a right. > > What exactly is wrong with inspecting a prisoner's teeth and giving him > a haircut? Televising this for propaganda purposes. > > Why exactly do you say that mass murder, invasion, genocide somehow > are outweighed in the scales of justice by a medical examination? > No, what I am saying is that no matter what he did, the US still has to play by international rules (or should at least). Using those images from Saddam as Propaganda clearly is wrong. Michael -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBP+DxBGlCnxcrW2uuEQJqKQCgujw7xjSVAPdzXDcEW9abBkRyaF8AoNOL H+VuSTqSPFSTA834qQS2X36C =ULJm -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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