December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

"Discount Classified Newspaper ADS.....as low as $1 per paper"
by 99507504＠32517.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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The rumors ARE true
by bob17＠bigfoot.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi If you follow business journals you may have heard about a new phone company that has patent pending technology that will revolutionize the the way we communicate. They are using technology that allows us to use our existing phones in a manner similar to the the way we communicate on the internet now. This is causing the long distance rates to tumble to low prices that have been unheard of before this. What's more this new technology will eventually allow us to offer an unlimited usage low flat rate plan as well as being able to have up to 8 phones, computers or fax machines all working off of one phone line at the same time. All this without having to purchase any new phones or equipment. This technology is so advanced that the Richard Marriott family of Marriot Hotels has invested 74 Million Dollars in the company for just a 38% interest in the company. If you would like more information on the service or business opportunity with this new company just send an e-mail to" mailto:bob17@bigfoot.com" with the words"the rumors are true" and I will send you information right away. Sincerely, Bob phone (847) 462-1937 e-mail mailto:bob17@bigfoot.com

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New Zealand encryption rolled by Microsoft
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text From: "Blair Anderson" <blair(a)technologist.com> To: "dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu" <dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 06 Oct 97 10:07:45 +1300 Priority: Normal MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: New Zealand encryption rolled by Microsoft Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "Blair Anderson" <blair(a)technologist.com> New Zealand encryption rolled by Microsoft.. Despite adopting a succesfull crypto protocol ex Switzerland, Microsoft has been succesful in "converting" the local banks to its "built in" scheme.. details at.. http://www.aardvark.co.nz/n296.htm Cheers, Blair Anderson (Blair(a)technologist.com) International Consultant in Electronic Commerce, Encryption and Electronic Rights Management "Techno Junk and Grey Matter" (HTTP://WWW.ISDN.NOW.CO.NZ) 50 Wainoni Road, Christchurch, New Zealand phone 64 3 3894065 fax 64 3 3894065 Member Digital Commerce Society of Boston ---------------------------- Caught in the Net for 25 years ---------------------------- For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "dcsb-request(a)ai.mit.edu" with one line of text: "help". --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>

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Re: Unicorn an NSA agent? WAS: New PGP "Everything the FBI eve
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Via e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com > To: jf_avon(a)citenet.net, e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com, cypherpunks(a)algebra.com > From: Black Unicorn <unicorn(a)schloss.li> > Subject: Re: Unicorn an NSA agent? WAS: New PGP "Everything the FBI ever dre > Remember when the phone company used to lease you your phone? Surely that > doesn't make the data that goes over the phone their property? Duhhh! Typical Unicornish answer: completely out of context. The agreement with the phone company is to provide you with a service, while the agreement with the employer is for you to devote your time to his cause. Buy doing personnal activities outside of certain accepted ones, you defraud him. Did you indulge into calling your girlfriend in Tokyo while in your office? Did you get a pat in the back from your boss? > Actually, most large modern firms I'm familiar with approve of and expect > some degree of personal business to be transacted in the work place. Some > even state this explicitly in their corporate policies and define the level > of personal business that is appropriate. Never have I seen one which > insists that no personal business of any kind is to be tolerated. I doubt > such a firm would have a reasonable retention rate either. Duhhh ^2 But does that precludes the requirement by the company that all e-mail pertaining to company activities be decryptable by them? > I think I might take that as a compliment coming from someone who advocates > the kind of data ownership views that you seem to. I hope to be thought > of as dangerous by those kind of entities. Duhhh ^3 I did not said it, you did. If you want to have a vague idea of my idea of property, just refer to Ayn Rand philosophy for a close enough explanation. > >I've been watching you for almost > >three years over Cypherpunks and e$-etc and other forums. > >Virtually *all* of your posts have this > >blow-up-their-basic-premises-and-let-them-with-nothing-but-confusion > >style. > > Blame law school. You are almost absolved. :-) This anti-knowledge way of interacting is unfortunately widely thaught. But from the moment you realize it, it becomes a sin again... :-) > If my position on this issue makes me some kind of troublemaker, you better > point the same finger at Schneier, who (if quoted accurately) shares my view. > > >Your style shows intelligence and skill in the way you do > >it, which rules out idiocy on your part. So, clearly, you have > >an agenda > > I do. Unimparied privacy for individuals in all contexts. Now tell me how > PGP5.5 contributes to that cause, particularly in the current political > climate. I have no idea because I did not look at it. Only, from a business standpoint, it doesn't only makes sense to be able to decrypt employees data, it is a sine qua none condition for the implementation of encryption at corporate level. IMNSHO. > The timing looks extremely suspect to me. Challenging the > premise that corporates own the flesh and mind of every employee within the > walls of their facilities doesn't really strike me as something > pro-estlablishment Double talk. I never said it *owns* the employees, I said it owns the *means* of communication and, as per mutual agreement between employee and employer, the employee's time. The employee AND the employer are, most of the time, free to walk out anytime. > My view is, however, that > this is the wrong way for the world to progress. If beliving that > employees don't sell their souls to large corporations because they accept > their paychecks is evil, call me evil. Accepting a paycheck has nothing to do with selling your soul, it is a contractual agreement. You have to fullfill it. It is based on good faith. > At the same time I beleve that > companies don't tell their soul to a given government just because they do > business on a given "soil." There is a large part of happenstance in this. Doing business with the Nazis is an extreme and many condemned it. Doing business within the USA is another thing. > If correcting legal errors, I admit you do often. > highlighting the flaws in basic premises and pointing out general gaps in logic, > which is what I think I've been doing > for the many years I've been poking around on c'punks an elsewhere, is Oh, but I do not question that you act. Only, your pretended basic premises and the end result and general philosophy conveyed by most of your comments simply do not match you pretended agenda. >The > consistancy you see is probably because I don't waiver in my principles > when it comes to privacy. At least, we have something in common! :-) jfa Jean-Francois Avon, Montreal QC Canada "One of theses centuries, the brutes, private or public, who believe that they can rule their betters by force, will learn the lesson of what happens when brute force encounters mind and force." - Ragnar Danneskjold PGP key at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-toplev.html ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891

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Gestapo wants to police the Internet
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

US Calls for Internet Funds Police By Jane Martinson Financial Times: Friday, October 3, 1997 A US securities regulator called yesterday for international co-operation on policing the sale of cross-border mutual funds on the internet. Douglas Scheidt, assistant director in the investment management division at the Securities and Exchange Commission, said: "Securities regulators around the world should work together to find an approach, and to find it relatively soon to satisfy the needs of everyone concerned." Fund managers, particularly in the US, are increasingly using the internet to market their products to investors around the world. This causes policing problems when potential customers in other countries are not covered by regulatory agreements. Regulations surrounding the cross-border sale of products are still vague. Mr Scheidt outlined his preferred approach to the issue at a meeting of the Federation Europeenne des Fonds et Societes d'Investissement, a body of leading European fund managers, in London yesterday. This approach would insist on the fund management group clearly stating the citizens it is allowed to sell to on its home page. Mr Scheidt suggested simple wording to the effect that only US investors were able to purchase US mutual funds, for example. This "disclaimer" would be combined with a demand on managers to screen out possible purchases from unauthorised countries. Mr Scheidt advocated a "flexible approach" which recognised that fund managers could be misled on the country of potential investors but insisted on proof that they had done everything possible to cut down on sales to citizens in unauthorised countries. A solution could be the use of gateways or passwords making it harder for potential investors to find information about a mutual fund. Mr Scheidt said the main drawback was the cost. He also discounted what he described as the "regulator's dream approach" of insisting on the "facts and circumstances" of every transaction. He felt that one of the most important virtues of these approaches was that they did not require any legal changes to enable the internet to be used as a marketing tool. He said his department was also keen to look at how fund managers marketed their products generally to potential clients on the internet. Changes to products must be sent separately via e-mail or the post. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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What's really in PGP 5.5?
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Jon Callas wrote: >I have a number of comments about the New York Times article on PGP >5.5 for Business of which Martin Minow sent a synopsis. >If we had built what they said we had, then we'd deserve of all the >derision people have directed at us. But we didn't. The New York >Times got it flat wrong. In your long message I was unable to locate an area in which the New York Times "got it flat wrong". If anything, your post was more alarming than the newspaper article. >This downside is particularly insidious for a number of >reasons. First, without fixing that problem, strong cryptography will >be in some sort of limbo. You want to use it to protect your valuable >information, but you won't want to use it for any information that's >*too* valuable, because it's easily lost. Crypto-protected >information is fragile, and this fragility could hurt its widespread >deployment. What you call "fragility" is properly called "security". Would you describe 128-bit keys as more "fragile" than 40-bit keys? Why is PGP, Inc. inventing propaganda terms for the authorities? >Data recovery is useful for a number of things. Perhaps you lost your >passphrase. Or data might have been encrypted by an employee or co >worker who was in an accident. (As an aside, fifteen years ago, the >architect of a product I worked on was in a severe car wreck. He was >not killed, but suffered brain damage and has never returned to >work.) Your spouse might need access to financial records. Everyone, >be they an individual, business, or coporation has a right to having >their data protected, and protection not only means being able to put >it into a safe, but getting it out of that safe later. It is fascinating to me that every example you use does not involve decrypting transmitted messages. Yet, that is the feature which is under discussion. The demand for the ability to decrypt encrypted messages in the corporate environment can easily be measured with this test: how many companies have a policy that requires employees to record all outgoing mail? >(6) It must also provide a response to those who would regulate >crypto in the name of public safety. This is a red herring. Nobody has been talking about regulating cryptography as a matter of public safety in a serious way. Why is PGP, Inc. posing non-threats to justify its actions? Probably because its actual, all too obvious, motivations are unpalatable to the cypherpunks and probably to most of its customers and supporters. They are not unpalatable to Big Brother, however. I suggest that in the future we do not meet at the PGP, Inc. headquarters and that we do not treat this company as a trustworthy ally. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNDsgSpaWtjSmRH/5AQG/pwf+LBO0ynwGeLLJipuWTIfoE9n7xvBJeXD4 od4Q7NYMZl/UfbudynBHMKGI0/xrhVhC1lmJlXXu+/mbBK2K1H0X9EMILQqpxhM4 RJd5ndR1BI0dpoRZX4+6PRq2mRi3lspvvXp3UkL4bKR8MpCqVJNcpluunMtBgIzh WoxXjw2GzVnbPiWoHhS/TIdQNSvubBCYBsje5rOKc71yQj86ymUzKLovX6O7j/dD eIjlJZTuP+AemEyG6FD5dyXQV7qdcxKwDG9G4ka813NHl88LU0Nc1JcM4aPATgfh 4cZhgppUvZqSGwd0QpxYb/OduE/adCuqmyrubMumc3SqTKRjPdLyBA== =f9J+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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We Will Loan You $59,000 And You NEVER Have To Repay Us
by ffn＠omni.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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govt goes gun nuts
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

for the libertarians & govt haters ------- Forwarded Message Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 19:36:29 -0500 From: "Chris W. Stark - GOA Texas Rep." <gunowner(a)OnRamp.NET> To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Subject: IP: 60,000 Pistol Packing Feds - Up 2,436 in 1 year! ==== BEGIN FORWARD================================ 60,000 pistol-packing federal bureaucrats show why people fear the government WASHINGTON, DC -- A new report revealing that almost 60,000 federal employees now carry weapons has prompted the Libertarian Party to come out in favor of gun control -- for the federal government. According to a study by the General Accounting Office (GAO), an astounding 60,000 government employees in 45 different agencies now carry guns as a routine part of their job. And it's not just law enforcement agents: Poultry inspectors, park rangers, and disaster aid workers are all allowed to carry weapons -- in addition to special agents from the Small Business Administration, NASA, the Department of Education, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and even the Department of Veterans Affairs, noted Steve Dasbach, national chairman of the Libertarian Party. "Federal employees have gone nuts -- gun nuts," he said. "It's time to impose a waiting period on the federal government, while the American people conduct a background check on these armed and potentially dangerous bureaucrats." According to the GAO investigation, the number of federal employees with guns is growing rapidly -- up by 20% in the last 10 years. In fact, 2,436 armed personnel were added to the federal government's payroll last year alone. Even worse, federal employees are getting more powerful weapons. According to the GAO, the Energy Department now has access to machine guns, and other agencies can summon tanks and military helicopters. In addition, the Western Journalism Center discovered that the National Park Service and the Department of Health & Human Services now have their own SWAT teams. Machines guns? Tanks? SWAT teams? What's going on? Dasbach said he has a theory: "Congress has passed over 3,000 criminal laws, and federal agencies have churned out hundreds of thousands of regulations that carry criminal penalties. The result is that ordinary Americans run a constant risk of violating laws they've never even heard of as federal agents scramble to enforce those laws at the point of a gun." And Libertarians aren't the only ones who have noticed this disturbing trend, he said. For example, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) last month blasted the "massive buildup of a virtual army of armed regulators." Larry Pratt, head of Gun Owners of America, described the 60,000 armed federal employees as "a standing army -- it's outrageous." And Greg Lojein, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the acquisition of "heavy equipment" like tanks and helicopters by federal agencies is "more characteristic of war than law enforcement." "No wonder Americans don't trust their government; their government doesn't trust them," said Dasbach. "But trust doesn't grow out of the barrel of a gun -- or from the sight of a pistol-packing poultry inspector. "If we want to live in an America where ordinary citizens don't have to fear their own government -- and where the government doesn't have 60,000 guns pointed at ordinary citizens -- the solution is to demand a government that obeys the Constitution and protects the liberties of its citizens," he said. "And the first step: Gun control for the federal government. Let's end this federal arms race, and turn the federal bureaucracy into a demilitarized zone." The Libertarian Party ======= END FORWARD ============================================= **************************************************************** Chris W. Stark Gun Owners of America - Texas Representative e-mail: gunowner(a)onramp.net Visit our Web Page at: http://rampages.onramp.net/~gunowner Support "The only no compromise gun lobby in Washington & Texas." ***************************** ***Become a member of GOA TODAY!*** ***************************** **************************************************************** "No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. ....the 63% of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, HOWEVER TEMPORARY, to stamp it out." -William L. Shirer, author of "The rise and fall of the Third Reich" p.259 .....they who do not learn from History are DOOMED to repeat it!! ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: subscribe ignition-point email@address or unsubscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** http://www.telepath.com/believer ********************************************** ------- End of Forwarded Message

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"Fear and loathing of cyberspace not uncommon"
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[I just got back from Fox News, where I was on with someone from the Chicago Bar and Donna Rice-Hughes (yes, that Donna Rice). Rice-Hughes, now an anti-porn activist at Enough is Enough, did her part to promote fear and loathing of cyberspace. "Chatrooms are a pedophile's playground. Kids are falling through the cracks." She called for more obscenity prosecutions online, but told me afterwards she didn't endorse labelling schemes like RSACi. --Declan] *************** By DONALD M. ROTHBERG Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The world runs on computers and, in a sense, computers run the world. But all this technological progress comes at a price, a new problem psychologists call computer phobia. It is everywhere - in private industry, in government and in the home. For many people computers are wondrous machines offering access to a vast world of knowledge. But to others they are impersonal monsters that react to an errant key stroke with this brusque message: "You have performed an illegal operation. This computer will shut down." When the car or the dishwasher breaks down, people curse the machine. Often when the computer malfunctions, the first reaction is, "What have I done wrong?" Nowhere is the problem of computer phobia likely to show up the most than in the federal government. The government has millions of computers. Literally. Larry Irving, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said there are people "who resist and people who are intimidated" by the increasingly technological focus of their jobs. "It's a problem, but it's not insurmountable," he said. "You just have to find a reason for people to get over it." Irving cited the man at the top of the government. "My sense is the president did not spend a lot of time doing personal e-mail until his daughter went to college," he said. "A lot of people are embarrassed about saying they're afraid of computers," said Carol Goldberg, a clinical psychologist who conducts workshops to help corporations deal with technological stress. Michelle Weil, a clinical psychologist in Orange, Calif., and co-author of the book, "TechnoStress: Coping with Stress at Work, at Home, at Play," said about 15 percent of people love technology and up to 25 percent of the rest are what she called "resisters." "The resisters will have higher stress, lower productivity, less efficiency and higher workers comp claims," she said. As the biggest user of computers, has the government seen greater absenteeism as technology grows? "I suspect that may be true," said Don Heffernan, assistant chief information officer at the General Services Administration, the government property agency. A year ago, every GSA employee was given Internet access, Heffernan said. "Going into that we knew there were going to be people, even people who used computers a bit, who were going to be intimidated by the Internet," he said. To help employees adjust to the new technology, GSA Administrator David Barram urged those who were experienced in using the Internet to "become five-minute tutors" for those intimidated by the technology. Weil is less confident than the government officials that getting over computer phobia is just a matter of incentive. "This problem has not gone away," she said. "In fact, it's getting worse. We wondered that as technology got more commonplace in society wouldn't people just get used to it. "The answer is no. In fact, some of the technology now makes less sense than the technology did 15 years ago." Irving, the Commerce Department official, said the biggest indication that people are overcoming computer phobia is in one huge number. "This year 2.7 trillion e-mail are going to be sent around the world," he said. "That means a lot of people have overcome their paranoia and their phobia." Donald M. Rothberg has covered the federal government for The Associated Press in Washington since 1966. ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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The Important Question / Re: russia_1.html
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Paul Pomes wrote: > > Even a fizzle with a yield in the hundreds of tons equivalent is respectable. > Plutonium decay products have a high neutron cross-section and steal the > fast neutrons necessary for the chain reaction to build. Sufficient amounts > can kill off the last three or more re-doublings which is where most of the > explosive power comes from. On the other hand finely dispersed Pu and > other fission products plus the irradiated material that becomes radioactive > will make a few square miles dangerous to inhabit for several years. Bill Frantz wrote: > Plutonium has a half life on the order > of 250,000 years, so very little decay products would build up in 6 years. > The tritium used in thermonuclear weapons has a much shorter half life, and > would need to be replaced about that often. But the _important_ question is: "Where do connect the 'yellow' wire?"

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