December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

members
by privacy.at Anonymous Remailer 10 Dec '03

10 Dec '03

Hello I'm curious. You say the list got some 400+ members right now and that's only the lne node too. Can you provide some statistics on the users? How many addresses are .gov? Any valid TLA addresses in there?!

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Type III Anonymous message
by privacy.at Anonymous Remailer 10 Dec '03

10 Dec '03

-----BEGIN TYPE III ANONYMOUS MESSAGE----- Message-type: plaintext Tim, I AM GETTING TIRED OF SEEING CYPHERPUNKS RESTRICTING WHAT INFORMATION FLOWS AND TO WHERE IT FLOWS... -----END TYPE III ANONYMOUS MESSAGE-----

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Re: Larry Lessig on ending anonymity through "identity escrow"
by Tim May 10 Dec '03

10 Dec '03

On Dec 5, 2003, at 5:53 PM, Jamie Lawrence wrote: > >> I have nothing against Lessig, but it bugs me that he's considered by >> some to be one of the Great Cyberspace Thinkers when his ideas are so >> easily dismissed...and were argued on both sides so many years ago. >> >> Larry Lessig ought to read, and think deeply about, the first ten >> years >> of traffic on the Cypherpunks list. Especially the first five years. > > Lessig is a very smart man, in the framework he's very smart at dealing > with. And probably more beyond that. > > Unfortunately, I don't think copyright is an appropriate framework from > which to launch a discussion about wider modes of human communication. > > Correcting him early and often is absolutely in order - hopefully he'll > rethink a thing or two. This actually fits in with something Lessig is widely known for, his "technology-custom-law" trichotomy (*). (* He may call it something different...I haven't checked in a while. And I recall he may have a fourth component. I was talking in similar terms many years ago, too. Not that I am saying Lessig borrowed from my ideas, as I am sure many of us independently realized this. Cf. via Google some of the things I wrote about VCRs and how they changed the ground truth of what was legally copyable. Or how Gutenberg created a technology which made existing custom (e.g., the Church) and law (e.g., the Guilds) effectively moot.) Those who make Grand Plans about such things as "pseudonymity with legal warrant access" need to take systems and computer science (and hence math) into account. This usually comes through thinking about possible attacks, weaknesses, and design flaws. For example, I have cited the obvious case of someone, call him "Tim," using "Larry's LEO-Friendly Remailer." But Tim is _not_ a LEO-friendly remailer, and Tim has taken in articles from other such non-LEO-friendly remailers. The only way Larry knows that Tim is doing this is if Larry "peeks" (examines the content to see what it is, to see that it does not contain seditious or pornographic or non-LEO-friendly packets). Or Larry can wait for the eventual "legal warrant" and then find that Tim was remailing packets which could not be traced. Oops. Larry can then cancel Tim's account. More generally, I think Lessig has failed to understand the very fundamental, underlying structure of true Cypherpunks-style remailers: ::request-remailing-to: foo(a)anotherremailer.org This can be any arbitrary text, and all that is passed on to the next remailer or recipient. And this text block is not tagged in any way with sender ID. And this text can be encrypted, readable only by the specified "nextremailer." And this text block can included further requests for remailing, and so on and so forth. Tim again. With this structure, nested and packaged as a payload, for Lessig's scheme to actually give "warrant-only traceability," it must ban such nested remailings. Which means, ban on crypto. (For if crypto is allowed, then even a warrant cannot crack it. "Oh, then we'll have key escrow...") And so on. A little bit of thought reveals numerous such attacks on a "LEO-friendly remailer." And the "fixes" are all in the direction of, in the final analysis, banning strong encryption. Of course, Lessig may say that he is only advocating an ultra-weak system of remailers that only dummies will use. He may say he does not propose to actually ban "strong remailers." Some argue that weak systems--remailers or crypto--will thrive "because most crooks are lazy" has been dealt with many times. Sure, some people doing things use weak systems, out of ignorance, out of laziness, out of a sense that they are immortal and cannot be caught. But others doing illegal or marginal things are amongst the earliest adopters of relatively robust systems: offshore banks, encrypted disks, and, ironically, secure anonymous remailers. (When the Finnish police finally forced Julf Helsingius to reveal the pseudonym attached to the Church of Scientology "NOTS" documents, they found that inside was a packet from a true Cypherpunks remailer, whose last node was at C2Net, the company Sameer Parekh founded. End of trail. This showed that even as early as 1995 someone was thinking ahead to the day when the Finnish police would force a "weak pseudonymity" system like PENET (Julf's system, based on earlier code written by another hacker) to give "warranted access" a la Lessig. So much for people being too dumb to use a strong system!) If Lessig is truly _only_ proposing that some idiots be encouraged to use weak remailers and weak crypto, then, fine, no harm done. However, the goals Lessig is avowedly seeking, of access to identities through "legal warrants," then his system will rapidly become unused after the first few "legal warrant" convictions. So long as strong systems cost little more than weak systems, strong systems prevail. (And, for various reasons, strong systems are in most cases cheaper to use than weak systems.) In a kind of reverse of Gresham's Law ("weak money drives out good money"), strong crypto drives out weak crypto. (Actually, this is not so much a reverse of Gresham's Law as its manifestation in terms of what money is: people seek to get rid of (= spend) weak money and hold on to (= hoard, save) strong money. So they spend their "debased" currency and hold on to their gold double eagles. This actually confirms the above point.) Bottom Line: In the ecology of encryption, remailers, and digital money, weak systems that are LEO-friendly will ultimately lose out to strong systems. Unless the strong systems are outlawed, and maybe not even then. --Tim May "I'm sorry that Tim is being a bother again. He has a long history of being obnoxious and threatening. So far, he has not broken any laws. We have talked to the authorities about him on numerous occasions. They have chosen to watch but not act. Please feel free to notify me if he does anything that is beyond rude and actually violates any laws and I will immediately inform the authorities." Thank You Don Frederickson (co-owner and CEO of got.net, Santa Cruz)

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Re: Is Matel Stalinist?
by Tyler Durden 09 Dec '03

09 Dec '03

Tim May wrote... "This is silly, socialist nonsense. I know some of the book buyers at the "Borders" store in Santa Cruz (the very one that the "anti-bigness" lefties tried to ban from opening in Santa Cruz). Not only do they have a "local authors" section which is larger than the similar section at the "local" bookstore, but they have a sophisticated system for re-ordering books based on sales. If a title sells, they know it. And can order replacements." Nothing particularly socialist about my original statement. I was trying to point out how the knee-jerk mimicry of top-down structures prevented even big companies from making as much money as they could, by awarding and leveraging local talent and information. It would be nice to think that part of Border's success is from doing some of this. As for the small, independent bookstores, I personally helped trounce one in particular...the owner was not only a know-it-all DICK he really wasn't a very good businessman. He tried to tell his customers that they should want what he was selling and it didn't work. (Every now and then I'd try to send a customer or two his way to get the kind of books the Central Office wouldn't let us carry, and on several occasions the reply was "No thank you, I'm never shopping THERE again..."). So I'm not advocating 'requiring' big retail companies to get smarter, nor am I advocating non-shopping at the big Borders and Barnes and Nobles. My point was that a lot of corporate cultures blindly mimic hierarchies even when that's not appropriate, because it just about the only social model anyone's ever experienced. >And being a shareholder in a bunch of non-Silicon Valley companies, I can >also assure you that their 'high-level strategic decisons" are NOT "made >almost entirely in the vacuum of power." Well, I'm thinking of the Lucents, Nortels and Alcatels of the world. Oh, and all the big old financial houses as well. Those two sectors I can claim some decent familiarity with (I too am a shareholder in various companies). When Lucent bought Chromatis, or when Sandy Weil told Jack Grubman to uppe his rating on AT&T or...well, these major, corporation-shaking decisions were pretty much made in a vacuum of power. There's no way shareholders could give the thumbs-down to those absurd deals, or even (really) chuck out those responsible. Of course, you'll argue that the shareholders could vote with their feet until something was done, but that's besides the point. The point here is that shareholders, Boardmembers, and upper management alike are so used to an environment where little or no feedback is possible that something like this happens so often. I'm not saying "there should be a law"...it's a cultural thing, and the culture sucks, because we're used to being told what to do by somebody else who's "in charge". >You silly Bolshies are obviously on the wrong list if you think strong >crypto is going to help your cause. Not so fast my fine, crypto-fascist friend. Let's look at Grubman. At the time Sandy Weil gave him his marching orders he probably had (at least) 10s of millions of dollars-worth of immature Citigroup options. You can also bet he was paying out the friggin WAZOO for whatever upper-east-side space he had (as well as whatever East Hampton 'bungalo' he had). So in a way, he was on the hook, and stood to make a hell of a lot more on the AT&T deal. So he probably didn't really WANT to put lipstick on that pig, but he didn't have a lot of choice. (OK, he had plenty of choice, but that's a different matter...) Now let's say some kind of really sophisticated blacknet were available, able to support even short-selling and whatnot. In that case Grubman might have secretly shorted the AT&T deal and then given Sandy the finger, all the while preserving his tattered (but then still-salvagable) reputation as at least an "honest" pump-and-dump analyst, while being able to keep himself afloat in high-end hookers and other goodies (that's what I would have done!). >From this perspective, crypto would have allowed enough holes to be punched in the deal so that real market forces could tear it apart like pirana, which is what should have happened. -TD _________________________________________________________________ Winterize your home with tips from MSN House & Home. http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx

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Re: Anti-globalization
by Declan O'Reilly 09 Dec '03

09 Dec '03

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 02:18:37 +0200 Anatoly Vorobey <mellon(a)pobox.com> wrote: > That was a rhetorical question. In the "old Soviet oligarchy", you > would get into real trouble for publicly speaking against it. In > "today's corporate oligarchy", this is obviously not true. Therefore > the comparison is flawed, and it's not at all true that "just the names > and titles are different". > > -- > avva Oops , my bad Thanks Anatoly Declan O'Reilly

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Re: cypherpunks discussions
by Sarad AV 09 Dec '03

09 Dec '03

hi, I just a pick a book and learn and if i am in doubt, ofcourse i do have a lot of stupid ones. but thats how i learn. I have friends who will help me with my queries. I prefer not getting flamed like every one else and that too in quick succesion :-). so my guess is that as far as newbies are concerned all the discussions are taken private. Moreover,there is no loss in interest in cryptography, we pursue it with our heart and soul. Sarath. At 03:26 PM 12/7/03 -0800, Tim May wrote: >But even if crypto got trendy again, I just don't see the young >students of today flocking to our particular mailing list. Too many >other choices. Probably they'll read someone's daily blog.... A few observations. Nowadays, colleges offer courses in crypto. This was not the case when I started reading this list. And 'net social issues were not widely discussed; now there are many fora and public organizations that one can look at. Probably college courses on that, too. So *perhaps* neophytes interested in these things have many more places to learn. Just an optimistic possibility. I did much like your "the nose rings of the followers" comment though. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/

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Re: Decline of the Cypherpunks list...Part 19
by Anonymous 09 Dec '03

09 Dec '03

Let's look at some real-world metric of cpunkish issues: 1. Surveillance and data harvesting. The main reason many "joined" cpunks (including me) was the issue of wide-spread surveillance and sophistication of data harvesting that computer networks enabled. I could protect my traffic no problemo. And I couldn't care less if some moronic consumer/sheeple type could not. That was not the issue. The issue was that government(s) (there used to be more than one in old times) had too good take on the pulse of the population, and would make less mistakes due to this feedback. Well, they succeeded and cpunks miserably failed. There was no way to jam the crypto down the throats of the unwashed. Today most of them keep their e-mails and http pages on disks that belong to LEA-friendly corps - there is no need to intercept - all TLA needs to do is search. There is more data harvesting today than ever before. It's not even mentioned any more. It's not a news item or a sexy maillist topic. 2. Crypto tools Widely available. This is a big success. One can readily download PGP or ssh. Seldom used. I don't count "protect-your CC # with SSL" kind of use. Only NSA knows, but I'd guess that the number of PGP users is pretty stable in the last decade. The biggest win of the government was removing surveillance from the focus. My guess is that all the early fuzz about crypto tools was fear that they will be widely used. When it became obvious that it will not happen the fuzz stooped. ECHELON? ITAR? No one even bothers to mention these any more. But you can safely assume that *all* mail traffic through MAE nodes is archived, along with google queries and that most net users have "files" with histories of search strings and similar. I would be disappointed with the waste of my tax dollars/euros/pounds if this is not the case. The only way out is new communication technology. Internet is too old and has been completely coopted. We need the Next Thing, now. I don't know what it is but these things seem to come up quite regularly. So forget about Internet doing anything for the cpunk agenda. Tune in the Next.

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Re: Decline of the Cypherpunks list...Part 19
by proclus＠gnu-darwin.org 09 Dec '03

09 Dec '03

I'm still quite new to this list, so if you find this interesting, please take it as from a newbie ;-}. On Sun, 7 Dec 2003, Tim May wrote: > > Read the archives and note the drop-off in certain kinds of > > political discussion. Even some of the former nodes have vanished; my > > hunch is that many of those subscribed to the vanished nodes never > > bothered to find another node. (I have no idea how many subscribers the > > list has. The nodes I know of don't allow listing the subscribers. I'd volunteer GNU-Darwin.org as a new node, but we are having issues with SMTP, dynablocker, spews list, etc. (BTW, if anyone can recommend a reliable and inexpensive closed relay service, that would be a big help.) Anyway, is there a FAQ, HOWTO, volunteer person, where I can learn how to set up a new Cpunks node? I'd love to do this, if it would help, and I'm sure that most of our users would also love the idea of GNU-Darwin assisting the Cypherpunks list, which seems quiet apt. I frequently post to other forums crypto-related items, which could include a link to the Cypherpunks list. > > bothered to find another node. (I have no idea how many subscribers the > > list has. The nodes I know of don't allow listing the subscribers. > On 7 Dec, J.A. Terranson wrote: > None of mine will allow it either, with the reason being the protection of > the list contributors. A partial solution would be to list the number of subscribers in the list info, which reveals the info that is important to the community without revealing the identities of the subscribers. > CP has always been so much more than crypto. The history here is political, > with crypto not always playing a part. Even the non-crypto discussion is > almost completely lost. Here is an old post of mine. I was worried about being off-topic, so I did not continue with it. http://www.mail-archive.com/cypherpunks@lne.com/msg00722.html I'm a person who could post a ton of political stuff, which some might find interesting, but some of it may not be related to crypto at all. I support crypto against a government which would like to be called libertarian, which prats vacantly about democracy, free trade, and globalism while undermining freedom and constitutional liberties. This is the situation which necessitates private crypto. Conversely, many here likely would not be happy if I called myself libertarian, because I feel that corporations are titanic forces unfriendly to the vast majority of human beings and unworthy of human liberty. In short, I think that the libertarian position has been entirely undermined, coopted , and lost conceptual utility. The whole libertarian debate has become distasteful, trollish, and counter-productive, and it is driving people out of forums like this one, not attracting them. I would probably get labeled as a political spammer or a troll myself. I'm not sure this is what you want here. Regards, proclus http://www.gnu-darwin.org/ -- Visit proclus realm! http://proclus.tripod.com/ -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GMU/S d+@ s: a+ C++++ UBOULI++++$ P+ L+++(++++) E--- W++ N- !o K- w--- !O M++@ V-- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP-- t+++(+) 5+++ X+ R tv-(--)@ b !DI D- G e++++ h--- r+++ y++++ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type APPLICATION/pgp-signature]

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Re: Decline of the Cypherpunks list...Part 19
by Freematt357＠aol.com 09 Dec '03

09 Dec '03

In a message dated 12/8/2003 8:27:05 PM Eastern Standard Time, declan(a)well.com writes: > >As for writing for "Reason," they haven't asked, and their editorial > >focus is increasingly statist. Cf. Cathy Young's quote at the bottom of > >this post. > > I disagree. I went to a Reason gathering in Washington last Thursday > and found the staffers there definitely not statist. > Reason has improved mightily after Nick Gillespie took over from Postrel as editor. After the Cathy Young statement I raised holy hell with Reason and to their credit both David Nott (President, Reason Foundation) and Mike Alissi (Publisher) both wrote me and promised, which they delivered, pro encryption articles. Around ten years ago I had a heated argument with one of the deep pocketed Trustees of the Reason Foundation about what I considered the magazine's divergence from libertarian thought. He basically said that if the magazine went into a more overtly libertarian direction, they'd lose subscribers- I thought then that was bs, and even let my subscription lapse. I resubscribed a couple of years ago and have found the magazine much improved. Regards, Matt Gaylor-

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Marijuana once again legal in Ontario, Canada
by Tim Meehan 09 Dec '03

09 Dec '03

An unforeseen consequence of government incompetence. http://ontario.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=25324 TORONTO - Ontario Consumers for Safe Access to Recreational Cannabis is happy to inform consumers that, because of Health Canada's failure to implement constitutional Medical Marijuana Access Regulations, wide-open marijuana legalization is back in Ontario! "The police will likely still have their 'business as usual' public relations line, but since Health Canada has defied the order of the Ontario Court of Appeal by not allowing a grower to supply multiple patients, as ordered, the MMAR is unconstitutional," said Tim Meehan, communications director of OCSARC. "Because it's unconstitutional, that means that according to the Parker decision by the same court in 2000, the possession of marijuana law is dead once again." OCSARC reminds people that while they might still be arrested and prosecuted by police and prosecutors who refuse to acknowledge the status of the law, they may seek substantial financial compensation later. "This is a notice to police that while they do have the power to arrest harmless marijuana smokers, they will be doing so at their own peril. Cannabis consumers will not allow themselves to be treated as second class citizens, and many will be armed with legal information and representation in case the harassment continues," said Meehan. OCSARC (Ontario Consumers for Safe Access to Recreational Cannabis) is a Toronto-based organization working to end prohibition and promote reasonable and responsible regulation and quality assurance in the cannabis market.

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