December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

new release of Crowds
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Authentication-Warning: akalice.research.att.com: majordomo set sender to owner-crowds-talk(a)research.att.com using -f Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 10:28:06 -0400 (EDT) From: Mike Reiter <reiter(a)research.att.com> To: crowds-talk(a)research.att.com Subject: new release of Crowds Sender: owner-crowds-talk(a)research.att.com Precedence: bulk Crowds 1.0.3 is now available. If you already agreed to our license on our web page, there's no need to do it again; just send email to crowds-support(a)research.att.com from the previous email address that you gave us, and we'll send 1.0.3 to you. The main change in 1.0.3 is a configuration file that eliminates the need for command-line arguments to anon.pl, and that also enables us to ship distributions ready to join our crowd (i.e., the registration step is eliminated). Hopefully this will make Crowds easier to use. - Mike --- 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/

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CDA protects against liability
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Another case where the CDA protected against liability. Remailer ops should look into this. http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/7361.html: A San Francisco judge has ruled that a lawsuit that sought to force an Internet service provider to silence a Usenet participant is barred by the federal Communications Decency Act. At issue was a claim by San Francisco Satanists Michael and Lilith Aquino that San Diego-based ElectriCiti Inc. "breached its duty to the [plaintiffs] and to other Internet users" by failing to take action against an anonymous Usenet poster. The newsgroup participant allegedly harassed Michael Aquino, a former US Army lieutenant colonel and the leader of the Temple of Set, and his wife, Lilith. The claimed harassment took the form of messages referring to the Aquinos' involvement in a ritual child-abuse investigation in San Francisco in the 1980s. The couple was never charged with any wrongdoing. Superior Court judge David Garcia accepted ElectriCiti's contention that the lawsuit violated a little-discussed and still-in-force CDA provision that exempts ISPs from liability for content transmitted on their networks. The law states that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." The decision is one of three such cases nationwide that have been thrown out because they attempted to hold ISPs responsible for subscribers' speech, said ElectriCiti's attorney, Roger Myers.

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Possible Security Hole in Internet Explorer 4.0
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From a message in MacOSRumors <http://rumors.netexpress.net/> (I have not independently verified this) --- Begin quote --- Internet Explorer 4.0 ships with major security hole.... With the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 for Windows release only hours old, users have already discovered a major security hole that smacks painfully of Big Brother: Most folks will remember the Netscape java bug that allowed you to snoop on what people where visiting. Well IE4.0 goes a bit further than this - Logging of your actions, even when you would otherwise be shielded by proxies is BUILT-IN. The channel definition format (.CDF) http://www.microsoft.com/standards/cdf-f.htm includes a LOGTARGET feature that allows a web site provider to make your browser deliver logs of your usage via an http post or put. Even hits from cache are logged. This is all not so good and getting worse. Not only is the information posted material, you wouldn't want to give to a provider, (considering) "http post/put" is normally spoofable anyway. Unanswered question for next time - or for folks with more time than me to follow up Can you put other sites in your channel definition and get logs of when they read your competitor's site (with this system)? Definitely not confidence-inspiring. It appears the Mac version is affected by this same problem, as well...and neither platform has any means of disabling this "feature" at present. --- [Internet Explorer 4.0 has not yet been released for the Macintosh platform.] Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com

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Re: "Show me an example of terrorists using the Internet or crypto"
by alexlh＠xs4all.nl 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 1 Oct 1997, Matt Elliott wrote: [snip] > >You people just don't get it do you? A gun has one purpose: To kill. Just like > >any other tool, a gun, if it is available _will_ be used at some point. > > Yea, so what is your point. As long as it is lawfull killing that seems to > me to be the point to use a gun. For lawfull purposes. Criminals will > always be using guns anyway. If they take away guns people will just find > another just as forcefull method of defending them selves. I have a potato > gun that will put a 3 inch hole in just about any living creature. I'm > going to take it deer hunting this winter. It will be cool to say I shot a > dear with a potato and a can of hair spray (the propelant) I completely disagree. I bet you'd disagree too when the cops come to take you away for using illegal crypto. It would be totally lawful. But that's besides the point. Killing people is NOT a good thing. It never is. It might be unavoidable in a you-or-him situation, but that doesn't make it a good thing. Would you like to be shot? No? Not even if someone else claims he has a good reason to? I think this goes for most people. So the best that you can do it claim that _you_ think there's a good reason to kill someone. This is not a working theory for a community. Alex --- I dabble in techno-house and sometimes, I do that badass hip-hop thang... But the F U N K gets me every time!

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Re: Secure phone
by John Deters 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:21 AM 10/2/97 -0700, you wrote: >At 11:13 PM 10/1/97 -0700, Lucky Green wrote: >> Bad idea. You don't want people to have to look up keys to use your device. >> Some people may not want to be listed in the phone book. Not to mention >> that a PKI adds an additional and unnecessary layer of complexity. Just use >> DH and have the parties each read half of a hash of the public >> exponentials. No keys to store, no keys to remember, no keys to compromise. > >Trouble is this exposes the system to the man-in-the-middle attack. Perhaps >you could take advantage of the real time nature of the system to prevent >man in the middle, by constructing a protocol such that man in the middle >will invariably time out during the connection setup, or produce an >audible lag problem in speech. The MITM attack is thwarted by Lucky's note: >> DH and have the parties each read half of a hash of the public ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >> exponentials. No keys to store, no keys to remember, no keys to compromise. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Each party reads off a series of digits displayed on their screen. Out loud. To each other. Over the secure phone. The MITM attacker can't duplicate the hash on both ends, because a hash of the public keys used to make the connection are different between the MITM's public key and the real public keys. Here's a secure conversation (assume for the moment that the addition below represents a strong hash): Alice <-------------------------------------> Bob PK=1234 PK=5678 1234+5678=6912 5678+1234=6912 Alice reads 69 over the phone, and Bob reads 12 back to her. Alice and Bob proceed to have a private conversation. Now, since Mallory has to create a PK, he cannot just duplicate Alice's 1234, because he'd also need the private key to decrypt the conversation. Likewise, he cannot duplicate Bob's 5678. He has to generate his own PKs in an attempt to fool Bob & Alice. Alice <-----> Mallory <-> Mallory <---------> Bob PK=1234 PK=1111 PK=2222 PK=5678 1234+1111=2345 5678+2222=7900 Alice reads "23" over the phone, and Bob reads "00" back. Since Alice's hash function said she should hear "45" back from Bob, and Bob's screen said he should have heard "79" from Alice, Alice and Bob decide to talk about the weather, and how pretty the trees are in certain cities. Mallory could try to thwart this by impersonating Bob's voice to Alice, saying "45", and Alice's voice to Bob, saying "79" (Mallory does, of course, know these numbers), but if Bob & Alice know each other, this probably won't work too well. Mallory would have to be able to cut into the conversation real-time, undetected. Now, of course, Mallory could hire Anna & Barry to pull the whole impersonation thing off, so that for the entire conversation Alice talks to Barry and Anna talks to Bob, each thinking that they're really talking to the other, but that's also fraught with risk. I'm sure they could pull it off on TV, though :-) So, it'd go full circle back to pass phrases again. "I hear the cherry trees are lovely in Washington D.C." "I wouldn't know, I've never visited Washington in the spring." "I agree, the weather is usually too wet." John -- J. Deters "Don't think of Windows programs as spaghetti code. Think of them as 'Long sticky pasta objects in OLE sauce'." +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | NET: mailto:jad@dsddhc.com (work) mailto:jad@pclink.com (home) | | PSTN: 1 612 375 3116 (work) 1 612 894 8507 (home) | | ICBM: 44^58'36"N by 93^16'27"W Elev. ~=290m (work) | | For my public key, send mail with the exact subject line of: | | Subject: get pgp key | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+

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Remailers and ecash
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- An anonymous brother wrote: >Given: We want more (reliable) remailers > But someone has to pay for them > >Conjecture: New remailers can be financed by charging the users a fee per > message to use the remailers. > > If a remailer charges a fee, the number of users will be reduced to > those who are willing to pay the fee. > > When the number of users is reduced, the potential for traffic analysis > is increased, which reduces the value of the remailer. > > If the value of the remailer is reduced, it will not be worth the cost > to many users, and those users will seek a less expensive, higher > traffic remailer. > > Thus, the commercial remailer is forced to lower its prices until it is > unprofitable. > >Conclusion: Pay-per-message commecial remailers are not economically viable. You know how the remailer operators do all their work now for free because they believe in it? And how all this software has been written and given away because people believe in it? Maybe some other people will help pay for the maintenance of the remailers because they believe it is the right thing to do. Especially since it need not be forever. And, I have to believe that out of the millions of well heeled Internet users, there are enough privacy oriented people to pay for a small remailer network, at the very least. We just have to get the ball rolling, that's all. > - Pay a flat fee per month for remailer access This is isormorphic to using ecash if you want to keep the messages of each user disassociated from each other. > - Everyone a remailer. Remailers only accept messages from other > remailers. To use remailers you must run a remailer. I don't grow my own wheat, grind it up, and then make my own bread. I also prefer not to run a remailer. > - Pay for access to an anonymous message pool Interesting! > - Sell cpu cycles in exchange for remailer access If we use ecash, you can sell anything in exchange for remailer access. 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 iQEVAwUBNDP8VpaWtjSmRH/5AQEMNgf9FY0zq4+p1R6F4GPIvLCqQQsXJ9TeeNSX v8sH99yUpYm+FmJuxwoGzel0Q0VRaR6NakuTx/Q1tKzSA4H2cnslEixyft9c0CsE 5dWEXe7694x/el4xXJcoX3+XNrKjo8qAERe9jcttPUtEgwT+2+JnfcMOudX7UZd6 LL8OvpD9CJrwQuJIeaNgbftwuVukuLkCRWJ1wrsJAs37Y9w9GqA+RTlqNXbElyi6 ryC17sysWOaFVryjLEHYXL9r60Ct9ZHp1hQoP0O1yCyKa5BMrTsVfXWOXuU/qSDe w0cfkcZ6lI8EmZObcOLr3sRdblq7nojoBctypSkILwEtEqgbpW0HXg== =TgmT -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: "Show me an example of terrorists using the Internet or crypto"
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- My brother VerityMonger wrote: >Fascism hadn't died, it has just gone underground and crept into >every facet of life through the corporate and government power >mongers. The government and the mass media are working the citizens >like dumb fish on a hook, who are still trying to swallow the >worm. There is a New World Order on the way, and it isn't going to be >any prettier than the last time it was tried. No doubt VerityMonger knows this, but many others may not: "New World Order" was a phrase originally coined by Josef Goebbels. Interestingly, the term "European Community" arose out of German industrial discussion groups in ~1944 who were trying to find a way to salvage the German position at the time. One idea was to make peace and attempt to establish a "European Community". 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 iQEVAwUBNDP5BJaWtjSmRH/5AQFnGwf9HBs0DDAjhc0PPHjnKsGQ1JRaB797fIaO Cbz+QvUs/OzClpSrPQAighJ5DlE3yNWseBxCaYDQ/dOxhpB/vnFI509FRBqgDgOp qaYqaQVdWjeirrAlWFpeMV9yjKlk09fTe3ospvenDFkNvrJedTeP73t8bCceq/Iz +I2dWn3/eCmm0+Xlblm/ljETBXCh6i4WpfnRuA0htJQQJwctPjopuxOo3vpde4JH //clHjOckrkqo/H4+D1iX7BeAJOYUnToGO4r/w1vvGEWEZG4pGfB9MNZ74P71JFs 3lmCXJ2p+D55fmhjmHrNQFfi+oFmbnt0u/yuxlI2O0Qr/obwje7oIA== =6SBY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Crypto-continuation in Washington: FBI/DoJ keep up the pressure
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Crypto is hot in Washington. Don't think the battle's over; it's just beginning: * This afternoon when the Senate Intelligence committee met to consider a new CIA deputy director, Sen. Bob Kerrey said "there's a real urgency" to get an encryption bill passed. (Presumably, that would be his bill, the "Key Escrow Infrastructure" McCain-Kerrey/S.909.) Anyone still think that the Senate will do the right thing on crypto? Think again... * Last week Janet Reno talked at her weekly press conference about balancing law enforcement rights with privacy rights -- through mandatory domestic key escrow. * Yesterday Louis Freeh spoke at length before the House International Relations committee about the spread of nuclear weapons... and reminded committee members about the problems the FBI has with nonescrowed crypto... * Sen. Jon "Mandatory Domestic Key Escrow" Kyl said on Sunday that the Clinton administration's export controls on crypto were *not tight enough*... More info: http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1385,00.html http://www.jya.com/declan8.htm -Declan **************** HEARING OF THE SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE NOMINATION OF LT.-GEN. JOHN A. GORDON TO BE DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY CHAIRMAN: SENATOR RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL) 106 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON, DC 2:00 P.M. EDT WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1997 SEN. KERREY: I hope no doubt that you've heard of and perhaps had the opportunity to read the recommendations made by Senators Helms and Moynihan, but I think they're excellent. It's an excellent examination of, first, the need in some instances to classify, as well as the need to examine that classification system. It's not really a question, General Gordon. I think it's imperative that, on the issue of encryption, that the president exert some authority and try to pull together the congressional leaders and say, "We need a secure public network." There's counter-intelligence concerns. There's national security issues here at stake, obviously, balanced against the concerns for civil liberties and the concern for commercial interests and the need to develop. But there's lots of action up here on the Hill, both in the House and the Senate, in half a dozen committees or eight or nine committees, or Lord knows how many altogether, more than I realized existed. And I think there's a real urgency to get something passed both for the private sector, so they can have some stability, but also on the public-sector side, so we can protect the nation's interests. MR. GORDON: Senator, I have not delved that deeply into the encryption issue. I certainly take your point on this point. But I do know that if the Senate does confirm me that that will be squarely on my plate. **************** ATTORNEY GENERAL JANET RENO'S WEEKLY MEDIA AVAILABILITY U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE WASHINGTON, DC THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1997 Q No, wait - ATTY GEN. RENO: You've got to be quicker than that. Q (Inaudible) - yes, ma'am. Director Freeh and Director Constantine both have complained that U.S.-made encryption devices are giving the drug cartels an advantage whereby interdiction becomes impaired. Would you favor, as Mr. Freeh does, some kind of giving of the keys to these devices to the FBI and DEA? ATTY GEN. RENO: I don't think that Director Freeh favors giving keys to the FBI and to the DEA. Q No? ATTY GEN. RENO: What Director Freeh has talked about is what we have today - if someone is going to tap a phone, they don't just go in and tap the phone, if they're going to do it legally. What law enforcement does is it develops probable cause to believe that the telephone is being used to commit a crime and that to overhear would provide evidence of a crime. That is submitted to a judge, both in federal court and in many states courts where wiretapping is authorized. The judge reviews the sufficiency of the affidavits in support of the petition and enters an order directing the telephone company to provide that opportunity. What Director Freeh is hoping to achieve is the same thing with respect to encrypted products; so that the court would direct that the key be provided to the telecommunications system, or the other system, in order to decrypt the encoded message. What we're trying - what the administration is trying to do is to recognize that there are two important interests at stake here. One is the law enforcement interest, which is so vital with respect to terrorists, with respect to being able to decrypt the drug dealer's computer when I - I can get a search warrant now and seize his black book and I can read his black book or decipher what he's talking about. But if he can encrypt the information on his computer, that will be a significant obstacle to law enforcement. At the same time, the whole purpose of encryption with modern telecommunication is to provide for the privacy interest, of commercial interest of the average citizen. And so I think it's important that we work together to ensure the law enforcement capacity and ensure that the present capacity to get court-ordered authorities for surveillance are continued and are made real, while at the same time ensuring privacy. Q So you're saying that the phone company would have the responsibility? Do they have the capability of encrypting? ATTY GEN. RENO: The phone company doesn't have it. There would be a system whereby a key would be provided through third parties or otherwise. But this is something that we need to work together on to ensure that law enforcement interests are protected and that privacy interests are protected as well. **************** HEARING OF THE HOUSE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE SUBJECT: ORGANIZED CRIME CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE BEN GILMAN (R-NY) LOUIS FREEH, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION 2172 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1997 10:00 A.M EDT REP. : Following up on what Mr. Hyde said on your need to fight international crime and terrorism, what do you need, as an agency director and for your agency, in terms of specifics to wage a fight that you can win? MR. FREEH: Yes, sir. As I mentioned in my statement, I think we need it on three levels. We need the permanent and minimal FBI presence overseas to develop the kinds of relationships that Dr. de Gennaro and I have had now for 18 years. We have asked for, and the Congress approved last year, in August of 1996, a plan to expand the FBI's Ligat (sp) program from approximately 23 to 43 Ligats. That would call for, by the end of 1999, 146 special agents in 42 different countries with 116 support employees. That's a total of 262 people. As I mentioned, the plan was submitted last year. It wasn't just an FBI plan. It was jointly submitted by the State Department and the attorney general. And we've asked for funding in the 1998 and 1999 budgets to reach that level. We've also asked for a continuation of the training. As I mentioned, we've been able to train thousands of police officers around the world. The benefit of that training is two-fold. First of all, we can give them what they need most of all, which are the basic tools to conduct their own investigations. Just as importantly, we develop through those relationships, as Dr. de Gennaro described it, the cop-to-cop contacts and relationships. So an FBI agent or a DEA agent can pick up the phone and speak to a police commander in Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan, if that's the place where we need to do our work. So the training is a very important part of the whole program. And again, and finally, we need the technological tools to do our work. We have to be able to communicate rapidly and securely. We have to deal with encryption. We have to deal with cyber-crime. And those are all part of a larger technological challenge which we're trying to meet. [...] REP. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Thank you, John. Director Freeh, appreciate your testimony. It's been quite riveting, actually. One of the briefing papers we have indicates that the American public, in a recent poll, whatever you want to take polls worth, say that 70 percent of the American people who were surveyed found it likely that the United States could be attacked by terrorist groups within the next decade using smuggled nuclear devices. If you were asked that, what category would you be in? MR. FREEH: I think it's a threat and a possibility that should occupy our highest priority. I think we've seen attacks certainly in Oklahoma, in New York City. We know that many of the state sponsors of terror, including Iran, are rapidly and very aggressively acquiring nuclear technology, both in terms of warheads and launching devices. We know that many of the state sponsors of terrorism, particularly Iran, sponsor and fund and control Hezbollah groups, including groups which have connections and operations in the United States. So the links, although I don't think I've seen them in a documented form, clearly suggest that if a terrorist is willing to use a truck bomb to blow up a building with thousands of people at risk, the accomplishment of the particular objective would not be changed or influenced by the opportunity to use a much more devastating (nuclear?) or biological or chemical agent. So I think we have to take the possibility extremely seriously and we have to take drastic steps to try to prevent and detect that. **************** [This thanks to John Young. --Declan] Remarks by Senator Jon Kyl at the First International Conservative Congress--September 28, 1997 [...] The Clinton Administration pursues a foreign policy without clear goals or the will to act decisively and is squandering the national security means left to it by a dozen years of Republican presidency. It emphasizes hope over reality and reliance on arms control agreements like the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) over a stronger defense. And political benefit over national security, as in its decisions to cave in to the concerns of some in industry in irresponsibly relaxing export controls on key items like encryption technology and supercomputers. **************** ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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Re: Forwarded mail...
by Brian B. Riley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 10/2/97 11:36 AM, Mark Rogaski (wendigo(a)ne-wendigo.jabberwock.org) passed this wisdom: >An entity claiming to be Brian B. Riley wrote: > >:: ... nothing personal, but why is it people keep deluding >themselves : with the idea that they can shoot to wound. You cannot >know what a > >Because that's what all the cops on TV do. Most people see >non-lethal leg shots on TV all the time, so they assume that it's >probable. Even worse was "The A-Team" where hundreds of rounds were >fired, but no one ever got hurt. It was intended to reduce the >amount of violence on TV, but (in my opinion) only made gunplay >seem like a safe recreational activity. ... oh, I well know the answer to the question ... just waxing a little bit rhetorical ... I would seriously like to be there to look into they eyes of the yahoos who so bithely espouse dropping the hammer on a person right after they have watched the life drain from someones eyes the for very first time and see just how well they feel and how cocky and cavalier they still are. I wouldn't wish that burden on anyone. You just can have no idea unless you have been there. We send men off to war and then get all upset when so many come back with there brains on crooked ... the sheeple have no idea what they have done to these men (and now women) !!! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNDQS3sdZgC62U/gIEQLMfACdEDkNNtzbeccxGJGcuvuUkp810IoAoJZV 0HbGxZ0ogu2gzzGNIYhilxM+ =8vrU -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Brian B. Riley --> http://www.macconnect.com/~brianbr For my PGP Keys <mailto:brianbr@together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key> "...error reading WinOS. (A)bort, (R)etry, (M)acintosh?"

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Re: "Show me an example of terrorists using the Internet or crypto"
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Alex Le Heux wrote: >On 2 Oct 1997 00:24:27 +0200, Anonymous (sic) <anon(a)anon.efga.org> wrote: >>Alex Le Heux wrote: >>>Maybe you haven't noticed, but seen on 2000 year scales, the entire >>>world is constantly in a state of war. Europe isn't special in that >>>regard. >> >>I guess the conclusion, then, is that gun control is bad for the >>whole world, not just Europe. > >Eh, no. The conclusion would be that gun control or no gun control >does not affect the amount of war in the world at all. It certainly affect civilians! Most of the people who die in wars are not in armies. They are in villages, towns, and cities. Roughly 50 million people died in World War II. Perhaps 15 million (numbers approximate) were soldiers. Being unarmed is often unlucky. >>>And even if I had my AR15 then, it wouldn't help me a lot against >>>guided missiles and mortar fire. >> >>It's harder to police a hostile population which is well armed. > >True, but imho this will only result in more people getting killed. It can result in that, certainly. But somehow the next time your country is overrun, I doubt you would take your weapons (assuming you had any) and give them to the invader in the hope that this will increase the likelihood of your survival. >Any invader would not beat about the bush in the US, they'll make >very clear that they'll have nothing to do with citicens defending >their own homes. They'll just blow up the home from a distance. Ah, if they know which home to blow up they will. But they won't. (Unless they get their hands on the government gun registration records. Then they'll know which homes to go to.) >>>And anyway, "to defend yourself in a war" is not one of the usual >>>arguments against gun control. >> >>The popularity of an argument can be independent of its worth. >> >>"To defend yourself in general" is commonly used. War, oppressive >>government, and political turbulence are the most likely situations >>in which people need their weapons, even in the United States. > >Bullshit. People in the US rarely use their weapons against oppressive >governments or political turbulence. Sometimes we do. Study the Black Panthers. You raise a good point, though. I believe that widespread gun ownership acts as a dampener on conflict. People discover that they really can respect Group X enough to cut some kind of deal rather than herding them into concentration camps. The dynamic here is probably complicated. It isn't as simple as "Oh, we don't want to go after them, they have guns!" That underlies the process, but usually it translates into respect. (Look at how people feel about a "Mafia Don" versus "some greaseball working in a restaurant". Most people despise the man in the restaurant, even though when presented in neutral terms they claim to respect his behavior. What's the difference between these two people? It isn't that one is the nicer guy.) Should things progress to the point where armed troops are attempting to haul people out of their homes, the availability of firearms acts to drawn attention to what is happening. The people committing the acts are getting very strong signals that Something Is Wrong. The cost of collecting people increases dramatically when they are armed. In Berlin the assembly area for Jewish people was originally somewhere in the center of the city where other civilians could see what was going on. This caused discomfort and a certain amount of unrest amongst the population, so they moved the assembly area to the outskirts. But, there would be no denying the implications of automatic weapons fire all over the city. Would this guarantee survival? No, it would not. But, in my opinion, it would increase the odds. You can imagine it going wrong: "We won't be safe until we get rid of all those Jews and they damned assault rifles!" But, probably it would go the right way. >Most guns that are used against another person there are used to >commit crime or to defend against those armed criminals. - From day to day this may be true. But we are talking about those exceptional circumstances that arise every few decades, especially in countries where the peasants are not allowed to own weapons. And, you might want to take a look at the numbers. How many people have been murdered outright by their own governments in the 20th century? (This number excludes wars, which probably isn't reasonable.) It clocks in at well over 100 million. (Anybody have the actual number?) It takes a lot of bar shootings to get up to those kinds of numbers. >>I have to confess that I am surprised at the level of resentment >>among the members of various Europeans countries feel towards other >>European countries. For example, the Germans don't like the Dutch >>because when they visit they are treated badly by, among others, the >>police. The Dutch don't like the Germans because, well, they got to >>know them a little too well in the 1940s and they are nursing the >>grudge. >> >>With that sort of situation, anything can happen and it can happen >>quickly, even if things seem mellow right now. And these little >>resentments and jealousies are felt between far more groups in >>Europe than just between the Dutchies and the Germans. > >Excuse me? Have you ever even been in Europe? In the last 50 years I >mean? You are so full of shit here, it's incredible. I hereby invite >you to come over, and stay a while. I have a comfy couch. Thank you for your kind offer. If things go to hell here in the U.S. in the next couple of years I may take you up on it. Yes, I have been in Europe. I drew my conclusions from talking to and observing many Europeans. It wasn't what I expected, but it caused me to understand European history a little better. In the U.S., even when we are ragging on another ethnic group or another country, there is always this feeling in the air that is sort of naughty and low class to be doing it. In Europe, I did not sense this at all. (That's not all bad. It's not hypocritical.) People had all sorts of interesting views about people in other countries. I was particularly shocked by European anti-semitism. You can find people in the U.S. who will talk about "those New York Jew bankers" and the like, but I hadn't really seen hardcore anti-semitism before. By hardcore, I mean people who see all Jewish people as belonging to the same nationality, regardless of their passport. And, they don't think of this as a particularly remarkable thing. They see it as just one of those obvious facts that it would be foolish to deny. Jewish friends who travel in Europe have had repeated experiences where people want to treat them as Jews, rather than as Americans of the Jewish religion, which is what they are. >Anyone in Europe can go anywhere else, and be treated reasonably to >very well. We in Europe have put the crap of WWII behind us a long >time ago. Something that you haven't managed to do apparently. > >The Dutch are absolutely not 'nursing a grudge'. Come and visit. >You'll see. I did see. It was most interesting. I had a long conversation with a Dutch man once. He was very pleasant, civilized, and intelligent. Then he started telling me about the Germans and how pushy they were, how they always butt in line, etc. etc. I've heard similar things from other Dutch people. I personally witnessed a (very minor) incident. I have some German friends who were foully treated by the police in the Netherlands, too. These people are decent, polite, professional people. I have no doubt they did nothing whatsoever to provoke this treatment. (By "no doubt" I mean that we are talking about the most civilized people I have ever known.) But, they will never return to the Netherlands and I don't blame them. You might want to try a little experiment. Are you capable of appearing to be German? If you can get the style and the body language down, try coming into the Netherlands as a German visitor and see what kinds of response you get. If you can really fool people into thinking you are German you will probably learn something interesting about your country. (It might be hard to pull this off, though.) >>Let's also take a look at the Dutch performance during their >>occupation. While there certainly were many courageous Dutch people >>who helped refugees (at great personal risk, to say the least), and >>there were many courageous Dutch people who were in the resistance, >>there were also many Dutch people who did not perform so well. Not >>only were a large number of Jewish people turned in by Dutch >>informers, but there were even Dutch SS units. > >You have a nerve. You, coming from a country where people are still >regularly killed in the name of racism, tell me this?! Now, now, now. Don't get all excited. I said it was nice country, didn't I? I said some bad things about my own country, didn't I? The fact is, I think if you randomly selected people from the Netherlands, in general you would do pretty well. However, let's not deny what happened historically. Even nice appearing people do bad things. And they aren't always Nazis, either. As for racism, Europe is not without racism. It's hard to quantify it and hard to compare, but I suspect to a very great extent, America is seen as being racist because we discuss it, feel guilty about it, and try (sort of) to do something about it. (Never mind all of the ethnic groups in the U.S. that find they are able to live together harmoniously, even though their ancestors in Europe were continuously at each other's throats.) I've had two American friends who were beaten in Europe in racial incidents. One was white, one was black. One of them spent time in the hospital. Both crossed the racial line all the time in the U.S. without incident. >>I basically think well of the Netherlands and its people, but it is >>important to recognize that certain unpleasant characteristics exist >>in a large portion of the population of even a nice country. It is >>unlucky to pretend that these characteristics can never be expressed. > >We absolutely not pretending that this can never be expressed. In >fact, it's being expressed every day. We have our neo-nazi political >parties too. It's just that we here have learned our lesson, and very >few people actually listen to them. This may be true, but it's hard to tell. The climate is not conducive right now, either. What would happen if it suddenly became clear that anti-semitism would promote one's career? I think you would find them coming out of the woodwork again. >>What would have happened if the citizens of El Salvador were >>adequately armed? One thing you wouldn't see is a death squad going >>into a neighborhood to kick down some innocent's door and murder him >>or his family. At least, you wouldn't see it twice. > >Sure you would. It just would be that more bloody. The fact that >someone is armed has never stopped anyone from attacking. You just >make sure that your shot is the first and hits. What are people in death squads like? Believe it or not, they are not so different from ourselves. They also have fears. People do, in fact, act on their fear from time to time. If you think that while you are busy "shooting first" at some guy that maybe his neighbors won't mind blowing your head off for it, you are going to behave more cautiously. At the very least, it will cut down your nightly "take" by at least 70%. That's a big deal if you are part of the surviving group. >>People who are well armed are less likely to become pawns, victims, >>or slaves. That is desirable. > >They are just more likely to become dead. If you were faced with somebody you believed would enslave you, would you throw away your weapon in the hopes your life would be spared? I doubt this very much. >>Incidentally, the consistent support the U.S. government has shown >>for murderous or even genocidal governments is of great concern to >>those of us who live in the U.S. It is unlikely that these tactics >>won't be used here were there a serious political struggle and a >>disarmed population. > >- From over here it appears that the majority of Americans doesn't >really give a shit. Correct me if I'm wrong. It was hypothetical. I don't know if such a serious political struggle will arise in the near future. If most Americans don't give a damn, it will be very unlucky for troublemakers like the cypherpunks. In fact, though, most Americans do give a damn. Look at the great effort the government has to go through to get Americans into wars. It is a source of endless frustration to the elite that the population won't just hop into wars. Wilson and Roosevelt were both elected on peace platforms before getting us into the World Wars. 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 iQEVAwUBNDPwxpaWtjSmRH/5AQHswAf/WD4jWejWmUX4GAaEkWcJW5uhnEXjiLap G2lhu5E4/htFDe791IK6iZ1Pn9i7y8FnyzQMKwoA4sFlgFl4ZAZWCGktnLPBryOY Mqk2ckQGdYEa87vsFVSPZsVCJ51vJadqeAE/dZgWSbB+Vhck+2AcNypw5gCFHT3F N92K+KGvw/bKMS4oucomNaD1kpEsGcCBL95zcv/ZbgMKCz9LkdgHoS/GyzdssNCj BCZWhnUci5gFM1Pa1AAM7HNwkohFMfEsX1dpKr56NbziT1QwUXLHUzW8Qxf+OB2h 6p+xLwcWzFNzpyN6CzJHbxaB0S9PVIuy9zMDz3xMynaAy3S+2zmVaw== =tIFo -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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