December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Prevention of War
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tim May wrote: >At 1:43 PM -0700 11/23/97, Jim Choate wrote: >... >>Any particular methodology you might care to share on stopping WWII? >>Being an avid amateur historian concerning WWII I am very much >>interested in any insight you might have. It looks like some context was lost. My comments on preventing war were part of an ongoing discussion on the effect cypherpunkly tools may have on wars. So, the particular "methodology" I had in mind was that the development of extensive cross border relationships would make wars harder to prosecute. Imagine that in 1938 Germany that half the relationships people had happened to cross borders. This would mean that it would have been far easier for many people to simply flee Germany because they would have more couches to sleep on abroad, more people who would maybe lend money to make it possible, and more world wide sympathy for refugees. Also, imagine that assets were easily moved around the world and that the German government would have been unable to control this. This would have made it easier for refugees to simply move what assets they had out of the country. But, they would probably only commit a portion of their assets to German control, anyway, which would mean no movement would even be necessary. The net result of Nazi policies would have been large numbers of people fleeing and depriving Germany of their talents and relationships. I do not just mean Jewish people. Alex Le Heux mentioned that he felt sorry for the conscripts in the Germany army who were forced to invade other countries. The reason people are conscripted is because they would not otherwise volunteer. If it was a relatively simple matter to avoid military service, how many would fail to do so? (And remember that when half your friends do not have your nationality, appeals to patriotism are less powerful.) It is not clear that people in Germany who held substantial wealth were all that sympathetic to Hitler. Unfortunately, Hitler seemed to provide a way for them to protect their wealth from other worse people. Later, they had to cooperate with the German government in order to keep their wealth. (See, for instance, the extensive negotiations during the War to ensure that the oldest son of the Krupp family would, in fact, inherit the firm.) However, if the wealthy had their assets distributed through a number of countries, this problem would have been mitigated. The result of the policies of the German government would have been simply to alienate and expatriate the most useful elements of German society and deprive it of the ability to credibly wage war. However, leaving cypherpunk issues aside, it is possible that the necessity of World War II has been exaggerated. Tim May wrote: >Not entering the war. There's ample evidence that the U.S. provoked >the Japanese in various ways. The Japanese in 1941 were somewhat dependent on oil from the Phillipines. The last straw was when the U.S. embargoed this oil. That may have been good policy, but it provoked the War. Another little item which is usually given a strange spin is that Britain and France declared war on Germany, not the other way around. Perhaps that was good policy, but it is important to remember who attacked whom. There is a lot to be said for delaying the start of a war because unexpected developments may later make a peace possible. >Had the U.S. concentrated on its own affairs, on just trade, it is >unlikely that what the Japanese were doing in Malaysia, Manchuria, >Korea, Indochina, and the Phillipines would have had any major >interest for us. > >As for Europe, this was even less our war than the Pacific war. > >In a sense, so _what_ if some army from some nation was rolling over >other armies? > >(The "evilness" of Hitler is not the issue, either. Else Stalin and >Mao would have been cause enough to go to war.) It's worth noting that Hitler's most evil activities didn't occur until the war really got going in a big way. This made it much harder for people to question or even know the policies their government was carrying out. ("What are you, a traitor?") Also, it is clear that the Allied governments had not entered the War for altruistic reasons. Few Jewish refugees were accepted during the 1930s even though they were clearly being mistreated and had every reason to flee Germany. Allied knowledge of the Holocaust was *suppressed* expressly to avoid popular support for admitting refugees! After the War the U.S. even smuggled large numbers of Nazis, including many war criminals, out of Germany and into South America. Any American who wanted to do the right thing for the human race during World War II would have been wise to stay out of the Army and spend time and effort just finding out what was going on. A relatively small number of people dedicated to exposing the Holocaust would have done more good for the world than many thousands of soldiers. Ironically, these people would probably have had to outwit both the American and German governments in finding the facts and publicizing them. >And certainly the monarchic alliances which led to the First World >War--a war fought over the Hapsburg Dynasty and assorted >intrigues==were completely absurd. The links between the two World Wars are strong. Had World War I been avoided - and it could have been - many of the issues I have discussed regarding World War II would not even have occurred. > As for the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem...not my war. This was not a pretext for the war because it hadn't occurred yet! The War itself made the Holocaust feasible. Countries rarely invade other countries for altruistic reasons, but they have be dressed up this way for popular consumption. >If the U.S. had not become "policeman to the world" in the early part >of this century... And let us note that this was not an elected position. The other countries (and people!) in the world did not get together and ask the U.S. government to play this role. Probably it's most accurate to describe this as a propaganda technique to get American popular support for policies designed to promote American hegemony. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNHmrZpaWtjSmRH/5AQFi8Af+K3M4ldq4cfti/AZLliQVxPFdxfx9Oz4H vZwXUvMYPbUpux/O3hydfUaEjPgRcbHNpONNSDyYM6aot4pi17EkKFASbFRmj+5X A8ixUVHqWhaDMdA3Lv/3CZ5XGR+Seh/SDojd4ippXytClBNCYDkmXc9r4RHz+/Dh 5E7dU5BjFAiBESX6pxLFBWMeqULspsBdlp1RkzF8Cus5w3kd70xqP/xsIaW42cC4 1M31j4rOE3+T/fReoewGdJOMwxKGw57n9He7RXth60VSAy4U+EGFMd/Bixke1vv4 YOVToP9PE/UZp7KecGYcsk5w1miYBh1ypipPBvTeMx4SHeb2qtOYqQ== =gcJh -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Quoting Portions of a Signed Document
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- It would be neat if you could quote people and prove that they signed the particular paragraph quoted without supplying the entire text. Is there a way to do this? (It seems impossible, but so does mental poker.) A crude approach would be to sign every paragraph or line separately, but that's obviously inelegant. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNHscCpaWtjSmRH/5AQHlUAf+MgXC6uKGn+EMsOzw9wumJeYdjNWYTlnl IxaksIHa2o1HL88GZlrve7F3lATOM1IpDlZIIwe56rGZzqTQci+ImMIG3kqKWyTE 6NjtTqKY0Qr028MsudhVE+RwTvUIzbsi+6Qh4wJo+AzfEmnKlMkPHBxMmgem/+sQ Cm3PasUW91N6xakkoR/M9x6ZtJ8MlAAI1C460LIndzV2DqxnFnyNs9cCxVYaZ+FQ BMK8Mwf8EXhnSrfv6CQ3oKgi8cO1jd0FHyLr7uYQ8n0HWWMMcC06k3rYyo8EXInc WyJ/oeuSewhQjTumrPn5e3+aP55k3IzttBhE2TQy6tBX9r1nX7fVVg== =feAO -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Wired: Faceless Freedom on the Net
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/8762.html Faceless Freedom on the Net by Theta Pavis 7:30am 25.Nov.97.PST NEWPORT BEACH, California - When a whole weekend is dedicated to exploring the principles of electronic anonymity, some big concepts about basic human freedoms get thrown around. And though he has spent a lot of time in the past couple of years providing tools that allow people to maintain their privacy while communicating in the wide-open spaces of online communications, Lance Cottrell has seen the more mundane realities of the anonymity issue. A couple years back, Cottrell began distributing his Mixmaster anonymous remailer. The ability to tell the truth without announcing to the world, or reprisal-minded enemies, just who is speaking might be a cornerstone of digital freedom. But it also opens the door to those for whom anonymity is just a novel tool for pulling a nasty prank. Cottrell, who created Mixmaster while working on his physics doctorate at the University of California, San Diego, said the pure novelty of anonymous tools made them attractive at first. "People used them in abusive ways for the same reason people climb Mount Everest - because it's there," Cottrell said during a weekend-long conference here on the technical and philosophical underpinnings of electronic anonymity. The session, titled "Anonymous and Pseudonymous Communication on the Internet," was sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Cottrell, who describes himself as a "hard-line extremist in favor of anonymity," said the only real way to measure the problem is by looking at how many complaints there are about the use of software that protects a user's identity. The pattern Cottrell has seen suggests that as use of anonymous remailers and the like increases, complaints about faceless harassment and other abuses have declined. His simple thesis for the dip: Anonymity tools are quickly becoming familiar, and users are becoming more responsible in their use. Cottrell, who is also president of Infonex Internet Inc., owner of the popular Anonymizer email and Net access service, said that, given the deeper personal-freedom issues inherent in the anonymity issue, it's crucial that such services become profitable. "There's only 15 or 20 of them [anonymous remailers] in the world, and they're all run by volunteers. Those volunteers are under a lot of pressure and are taking significant risks," he said. Dealing with law enforcement requests for information comes with the territory, for instance. When confronted with such demands, Cottrell said, "We comply completely and give them everything we have - which is nothing. The FBI, so far, is content [to be given] log files with nothing useful in it." Overseas, police have tried to get information a "handful" of times, he said. Austrian and German agents have come to Infonex to find out who is hosting a Web site that includes Nazi propaganda - a site run by Austrians but illegal in their home country. But, Cottrell said, just as the people behind that site trust the company with their anonymity, so too can human rights organizations, which will increasingly be using anonymous remailers in the future. "Groups of people will be putting their lives in our hands, very literally," Cottrell said.

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Re: "Good job NANAE. You really fucked up royally."
by lcs Mixmaster Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

eridani(a)netcom.com (Belinda Bryan) wrote: > Sorry, Steve. I can't let this one go. Uh, huh... [...] > I am speaking on behalf of myself and Gary L. Burnore. Cat got his tongue? > When something > is repeated often enough, some people will believe it to be true. You mean something "repeated often enough" like this claim in your own header?: > Organization: Boycott E-Scrub Technologies. > The owner is an admitted spambaiter. You've repeated that smear against Ron Guilmette over and over. Doesn't your petty little vendetta against him get tiresome after awhile? OTOH, you really flipped out and royally potty-mouthed a poster a few months back for nothing more than a URL in his/her .sig advocating a boycott of Gary Burnore's former employer, Wells Fargo Bank, by the AIDS Action League. Flaming someone for a URL in a .sig with which you disagree is rather petty and censorious, don't you think? > All we ask is that you not share our physical addresses and our ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > non-published telephone numbers with anyone but your attorney. As you ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > may realize, there are a lot of kooks out there and I have a small child > to protect. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > Unlike other people (namely the one posting this crap anonymously), we > have nothing to hide. ^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Really? Then why are you hiding your own post from being archived by a neutral third party? Trying to maintain "plausible deniability" if you post something you later regret saying and want to claim it was "forged"? > X-No-Archive: yes Maybe you ought to get it through your head that some of us use "non-published e-mail addresses" for the same reason you wish to hide your own physical address and telephone number. You're right. "There are a lot of kooks out there", and bad things have a tendency to happen to people who dare to challenge the opinions of your buddy Gary "Sadaam" Burnore. Of course, it could be just another coincidence... Or maybe it's those "databasix goons" that "Rev. Tweek" referred to in his post. At any rate, you lost any credibility as being a friend of the right to privacy when you pulled your Helena Kobrin act this summer. Posing as a "lawyer" for DataBasix, you demanded that Jeff Burchell turn over all of his user logs to you and Gary, just as the so-called "Church" of $cientology did with the anon.penet.fi remailer in Finland last year. The end result was the same in both cases, too. Both remailers shut down to avoid the continued harassment from people like you, Gary, and Helena. I hope you're proud of yourselves. > Belinda Bryan > eridani(a)netcom.com --

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Re: Further costs of war
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tim May wrote: >At 6:20 PM -0700 11/24/97, Anonymous [Monty Cantsin] wrote: >>Fabrice Planchon wrote: >>>Once again, if 1812 the [British] invasion [of the United States] >>>actually occured,... >> >>They burned the White House to the ground. Does that count? ;-) > >Wait...they burned the White House to the ground? > >Maybe we need to rethink this...maybe the British were ur-Cypherpunks. Hmmmm.... Isaac Newton, Tom Paine, and Alan Turing were all British. Looks like a pattern! (And the Great ur-Cypherpunk, Thomas Jefferson, was born British. ;-) Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNHpwSZaWtjSmRH/5AQH5zQf/UyxmXpfqXeGOCT+8ObtLF2seXvw4ifdb 26Uo2rNDcLCEPtVEj5gG8Vz1xncI2+kbjQBkn8jrRpYNQExanxQn4kXvo6c+a1u6 sbaKOP4zjFwjfkthqxerA4NA1Yr7VXOyGqxGKoBqV9e3/Yo/Zp19RYOtPoagheSc Dw4U4mI6XqPSJe8His3EiM24ZT3X0vYB6AoMXmrcdJ697lH6jxkcb4se47Wu0H0d ew9dHZAZe2jgDc+hf7XgNuau4DRFZOv8tWQh1ax2ywr2m2qyWCEMltV5l80Xc2Lg BcploCHrkp30Othxh9g95+r3rDeoOZzMlenmi6DBbUslLyjRMem6mw== =3rrM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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mailing list
by HpyMutant＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

uh...please put me on your mailing list.

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Whining
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Anonymous <nobody(a)REPLAY.COM> writes: >There is no such thing as an off topic post on the new cypherpunks >list, at least according to Tim May and Monty Cantsin. Whatever >interests them is automatically on-topic. My heart bleeds for you. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNHtox5aWtjSmRH/5AQESLQf/VavelxK1adXU/OvA/Xt3Fd982B2QBhpA J+fdqtuk7Cx4uURszlOEAvJtKgwpKkb0i46vjkGPgkTJFNNKp/fhaoOdLQpaOOb1 ss5L+nGzr+6WGYd2dpMl4AjlPjqdkGc0BX5EB/4LR767erfisoYnxuZtpi0HKIyq F38Jv+hZE1P9yCaRMDcKxY0E2HwGDQuhBqoZD7oYetddajThnecTFA222bBHqeXm GEnexM64uvjNzuy6aLBRfAnk/RBqQQ/GyVnYMzCtQ33/9xy+SuQe9YIGmqA9vemK zS2hibNUQlO5Sypy8Elb1xdJazVZQ9a3KGh5yIshcpOHB3KJeTq57g== =bEzL -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Book review from amazon.com: Internet Cryptography
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Internet Cryptography by Richard E. Smith Paperback, 356 pages List: $27.92 ~ Our Price: $27.92 Availability: This title usually ships within 24 hours. (You can always remove it later...) Internet Books Editor's Recommended Book, 11/01/97: For all the talk about the Internet's very real security weaknesses, information safety is not all that difficult to achieve. Yes, most Internet technology does a better job of making information accessible than it does of protecting privacy. Still, modern cryptographic products and techniques have made more than adequate security available to just about anyone who needs it. In Internet Cryptography, network security consultant Richard Smith explains the basics of online security. He avoids getting technical with too much cryptographic theory or the mathematics behind the magic. Instead he focuses on providing just enough information to enable information systems managers and administrators to make wise decisions. In fact, Smith pays close attention to matters of system configuration and operation, showing how even the best encryption methods can be ruined by careless operation. From there, Smith explains how today's techniques can protect information from being forged, altered, or stolen. Smith devotes most of his discussion of various cryptographic options to products that are presently on the market. Therefore, the techniques he describes are generally within the reach of most businesses and organizations. He progresses from the simplest to most complex approach, examining the strengths and weaknesses of each. As a result, readers wind up with a solid understanding of cryptographic security as well as a good feel for the level of security they require. Book Description : "This book provides an excellent overview of how encryption is used, its strengths and weaknesses, and what to look for when building or choosing real-world solutions. This is a must-have book for anyone considering the deployment of an important system relying on modern cryptography." - Marcus J. Ranum, Chief Scientist, V-ONE Corporation. Here, in one comprehensive, soup-to-nuts book, is the solution for Internet security: modern-day cryptography. Written by a security expert with a wealth of practical experience, this book covers network and Internet security in terms that are easy to understand, using proven technology, systems, and solutions. From the client workstation to the Web host to the e-mail server, every aspect of this important topic is examined and explained. The once-daunting subject of cryptography is demystified and applied to today's security challenges. Topics include: essentials of cryptography; networking and Internet fundamentals; encryption building blocks; virtual private networks; legal considerations; setting realistic security objectives; secured electronic mail; World Wide Web transaction security; and Internet Firewalls. This book is written for people who want to move data safely across the Internet and protect corporate resources from unauthorized access. Using real-life case studies, examples, and commercially available software products, cryptography is presented as a practical solution to specific, everyday security challenges.

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Re: Quoting Portions of a Signed Document
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >>It would be neat if you could quote people and prove that they signed the >>particular paragraph quoted without supplying the entire text. Is there >>a way to do this? (It seems impossible, but so does mental poker.) > >>A crude approach would be to sign every paragraph or line >>separately, but that's obviously inelegant. > >Well this could be done by creating a document signature and then a >collection of sub signatures but it can get ugly real quick. Ugly's the word for it, alright. ;-) >What level of granularity does one use for the sub signature? It would be nifty if there was a way to show that any continuous set of bits were signed given only one signature on a whole document. Intuitively, it seems to me that this might be provably inconsistent with a secure hash. Still, crypto results are full of surprises, so I could imagine there is a way to do this. >Then what does the sub signature really tell you? Yes you can verify >that the quote was written by someone but it may be taken completely >out of context. Good point. It is nice that people who quote out of context now in a misleading way are convicted when you demand proof. Still, my sense is that this would be a pretty useful thing to be able to do and it would be technically interesting. For example, you might want to reveal parts of a message signed by somebody else without revealing the entire message. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNHtvB5aWtjSmRH/5AQEFvgf8C2gv6G9XZjAjfYy6+wtNY0n/3k8TZXj7 Yr0x9jidiJvfRXOi6cjKskmQ8WL98EbVkjHZkPN2t7rlLtLfQVQyQhBtW0jeXlav dC9tSbNO9ThpIAlztO4Wfpx75xNHgEyvMAMB0CnGj1ZcmgParL6F/WM9nkhaI+ZT R8Uu53BZXsCz408/YI4yu4t6E3SXhOJQYFjQ/JxaI8G9mTBpXXbNV9PoN4i2PjHe 0VfOeU0IAJNvWazFqbwcnTuDpcFvQRY70FhgR1exb7MzPYqJMm7D5kdUtZqFWLAH RkwjusDo01rE6+1YxPtq8dP4/8I1wEUsNLOtLyG9gQ2CT+xBhXfrDw== =FT0Y -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Further costs of war
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Jim Choate wrote: > ARTICLE XVI. > > The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on >incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the >several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. >[25 February 1913.] > >Notice the date of implimentation, considerably before WWII, it is in fact >the year before the US became involved in WWI. Perhaps you meant WWI instead >of WWII? Citizens of the US have been paying taxes since 1914. True, but a lot less citizens were paying income taxes in 1914 than in 1941. Following are some figures that I extracted from the "Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970", published in 1975 by the US Dep't of Commerce's Bureau of the Census: [Note: in a previous post I had said that the initial income tax was 1% on any person earning more than $4,000 per year. This is incorrect. It was 1% on any person earning more than $20,000 per year, or roughly $400,000 in today's money. Hardly the makings for a public outcry to the new "constitutional amendment." Let's face it: the American public was just as complacent toward unconstitutional legislation then as it is now.] In 1916, this figure was increased to 2%. The total US gov't income tax revenue for that year was $68 million. By 1940, the first income tax bracket had reached 4.4% on any person earning more than $4,000 per year for total yearly income tax revenue of $982 million. The numbers increased dramatically during World War II: Year % Income Total Individual Income Tax Revenue - ---- -- ------ ----------------------------------- 1941 10 2,000 $1.4 billion 1942 19 2,000 $3.2 billion 1943 19 2,000 $6.6 billion 1944 23 2,000 $18.2 billion 1945 23 2,000 $19 billion That's an increase of roughly 2000% in a very short span of time (1940-45). Who says war is not a lucrative business for gov't? >Monty Cantsin wrote: >> I doubt very much that income tax withholding would have been accepted >> if the War were not used to justify it. ("You don't want to pay >> taxes? What are you, a traitor?") > >What war? The taxes came about because of issues other than fighting a war >which hadn't even happened yet. Withholding was not implemented until 1943, smack in the middle of WWII. In 1943, $686 million of the $6.6 billion was collected by withholding, or just over 10%. By 1945, $10 billion of the $19 billion was collected by withholding, more than 50%. In 1970, $103 billion was collected in individual income tax, $77 billion by witholding (75%). In summary, WWII was a convenient way for the US gov't to tighten the screws on its citizens, and it continues to do so to this day. But I've discussed this already in a previous post. "Check the archives." :-) Nerthus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNHtaqRa1d3zm4nqOEQIQKgCeN48fnrn5pDzUe/LZhvjJxzU3DKMAn2lT ZTERt+yWGwZTI6xV3qbQ/MsL =DpCh -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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