December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: The killer app for encryption
by Major Variola (ret) 19 Dec '03

19 Dec '03

At 08:16 PM 12/18/03 +0000, Jim Dixon wrote: >What exactly do you mean by "peered IP telephony"? > >Voice telephony requires delays measured in tens of milliseconds. A bit >difficult if you also want encryption, anonymity, etc. The problem handling the delay comes with the network, not the encryption. The encryption can be symmetric, and must be used in a mode that tolerates drops, but its not a big cost when sending 8kbytes/sec.

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Wired: -- Debka: Conflict's Drudge Report?
by Steve Schear 19 Dec '03

19 Dec '03

Debka: Conflict's Drudge Report? By Noah Shachtman Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47325,00.html 02:00 AM Oct. 05, 2001 PT The Iraqis are training Osama bin Laden's troops in chemical and biological weapons; Russian commando units packing newly acquired American arms are poised to storm Afghanistan; Israel is about to be charged with damaging the mosques on Jerusalem's contested Temple Mount. Stories like these- are making the free-wheeling Israeli news site Debkafile an increasingly popular destination for Americans looking for the inside scoop on the conflict with terrorism. <snip> John Ghazivinian, an editor at news professionals' site Mediabistro, added, "There's a real strong sense that the mainstream media have scaled back their operations so much that they're basically incapable of covering this from the ground." Debkafile -- based in the Jerusalem neighborhood of French Hill, equidistant from both Palestinian villages and the walls of the Old City -- has shown an ability to get that kind of coverage. USA Today, CNN and NBC all reported last Friday that American and British forces were in Afghanistan scouting out terrorist hiding places; Debkafile had the same story days earlier, and included details about Russian intelligence officers and German commandos joining in the incursions. On the Saturday before, Debkafile ran a story that Saudi Arabia had refused to let the U.S. use its air bases to stage attacks on Afghanistan; it took The New York Times another two days to report this information. Like the Drudge Report, which it resembles, Debkafile clearly reports with a point of view; the site is unabashedly in the hawkish camp of Israeli politics and has partnered with the far-right news site WorldNetDaily for a weekly, $120 subscription product. <snip> "Not everything Debka says is going to be confirmed, but I guarantee you three days later you'll find at least one item in The New York Times," said Greg Clayman, a New York City Internet marketing executive. "When (White House press secretary) Ari Fleischer tells the mainstream media, 'Watch what you say,' you've got to look for other sources." A foolish Constitutional inconsistency is the hobgoblin of freedom, adored by judges and demagogue statesmen. - Steve Schear

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Re: [dgc.chat] Fwd: [NEC] #2.12: The RIAA Succeeds Where the CypherPunks Failed
by Steve Schear 19 Dec '03

19 Dec '03

At 12:39 PM 12/17/2003, Patrick Chkoreff wrote: >Well, Clay Shirky has done it again, writing a very insightful article >on the current digital scene, this time on the unintended but >beneficial consequences of RIAA's crackdown on file sharing. > >Here is one particularly telling excerpt: > >>Note that the broadening adoption of encryption is not because users >>have become libertarians, but because they have become criminals; to a >>first approximation, every PC owner under the age of 35 is now a > felon. http://www.shirky.com/writings/riaa_encryption.html I'm not sure if Clay ever hung out on the cypherpunks list. None of this comes as a surprise. Most knew early on that widespread adoption of crypto would require a killer app and that cypherpunks were not delivering these apps because one could not predict what they would be. They would surely not be PGP and other encrypted email nor digital cash unless and until there was a small but lucrative market that could be addressed by such technology or a large market with broad citizen support. That file sharing could be it was also recognized a long time ago on the cypherpunks list. The really interesting aspect of this is what it portends for the future. If, as Clay suggests, the current situation is like Prohibition from citizen perspective can we expect a similar repeal of government surveillance? If not, what will happen as large numbers of citizens adopt P2P systems that not only flaunt copyright law but communications more dear to those in power? steve "For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this." -- Albert Einstein, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921

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RE: U.S. in violation of Geneva convention?
by proclus＠gnu-darwin.org 19 Dec '03

19 Dec '03

On 18 Dec, Trei, Peter wrote: > proclus(a)gnu-darwin.org wrote: > >>I would like to throw in with the OTO gunners here. [...] > > OTO???? > Ordo Templi Orientalis? > > You don't mean *that*, do you? Why not? > I suspect I'm suffering from acronym overloading. I was simply agreeing with the post of Eric Cordian, and hopefully adding support to the argument, while alluding to his interesting sig. 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++++ UBULI++++$ 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: U.S. in violation of Geneva convention?
by Trei, Peter 19 Dec '03

19 Dec '03

proclus(a)gnu-darwin.org wrote: >I would like to throw in with the OTO gunners here. [...] OTO???? Ordo Templi Orientalis? You don't mean *that*, do you? I suspect I'm suffering from acronym overloading. Peter

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Re: U.S. in violation of Geneva convention?
by proclus＠gnu-darwin.org 19 Dec '03

19 Dec '03

I would like to throw in with the OTO gunners here. If you are interested in an expanded and predictive analysis, check here. US aggression leads predictably to bad results: Take action to stop the war now http://proclus.tripod.com/radical/wartext4.html I wrote it in April, while US bombs were turning Baghdad into a second 9/11. Regards, proclus http://www.gnu-darwin.org/ On 17 Dec, Eric Cordian wrote: > > But when, however, people fly a plainload of passengers into > > two tall buildings and murder thousands, those dreadful > > Americans had it coming, were justly smacked like a naughty > > child, and have no right to get indignant. > > The two events are completely unrelated, except for the fact that 9/11 > gave the US the additional hubris it needed to launch an unprovoked war of > agression against another sovereign nation, in violation of international > law and the wishes of the world community. > > Saddam's capture is the poisoned fruit of an illegal occupation, which is > itself the poisoned fruit of an illegal invasion, whose clear purpose, > despite the lies about Saddam's ready to launch nuclear weapons, was to > control Iraq's oil, and eliminate support for the oppressed Palestinians. > > Bush knew that as long as he managed to attack Iraq, using any pretense, > he would never be forced to leave once the excuses were revealed as lies, > because if there's two things America is structurally incapable of doing, > it's accepting blame and apologizing. > > Every American soldier in Iraq right now is a war criminal. Every dead > Iraqi is a murder victim. > > As one writer so aptly put it... > > "For months we have wanted to get our hands on the warmonger who > terrorized the world with weapons of mass destruction. But, as we couldn't > get George Bush, we had to make do with Saddam Hussein." -- Visit proclus realm! http://proclus.tripod.com/ -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GMU/S d+@ s: a+ C++++ UBULI++++$ 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: U.S. in violation of Geneva convention?
by James A. Donald 19 Dec '03

19 Dec '03

-- On 17 Dec 2003 at 9:00, Nomen Nescio wrote: > No what I meant was what IF somehow Bush or Blaire or some > other high ranking coalition politician were captured by Iraq > during the war and was treated in the same way. I can only > presume you would support Saddam's soldiers checking Bush for > lice then. You are also utterly missing the point and you are > one pretty good example of how "the mob" are thinking. > EVERYONE, including Saddam, Pol Pot or whattever should be > treated in accordance with the laws by us who call ourselves > the free democratic part of the world. Firstly, the US army has not violated the Geneva convention: Saddam was eligible for being shot on sight. Secondly; It is being overly sensitive about the feelings of those poor fragile souls that hate us and seek to murder us, that got us into these trouble. Our enemies take it for weakness, reasonably enough. We should make it obvious that nothing will stop us from striking at our enemies, that we will cheerfully wade knee deep through blood and the body parts of innocents to destroy those that threaten us, as the crusaders waded to the holy sepulchre. As Bin laden said slaughtering the occupants of the twin towers made them look strong: : : "when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by : : nature, they will like the strong horse. This is : : only one goal; those who want people to worship the : : lord of the people, without following that doctrine, : : will be following the doctrine of Muhammad, peace be : : upon him" > You should read up on this subject. Saddam also has a history > of building up edicational institutions and so on. He recived > awards by U.N. earlier on for his wellfare programs and the > development Iraq was gaining. To the best of my knowledge, the UN only grants those awards to those who inflict quite extraordinary ruin and horrible destruction on their subjects -- such awards are as infamous and perverse as the UN human rights commission, headed by Libya las time I heard. The UN is a cartel of governments against their subjects. Just as a cartel of ordinary businesses requires its members to charge high prices and supply low quality, and grants honor and recognition to those members that charge remarkably high prices and unusually low quality, in the same way the UN grants honor and recognition to unusually destructive episodes of looting and pillaging against formerly prosperous law abiding peaceful subjects. The UN was established to protect against direct military conflict, but in ordinary day to day life, peaceful competition is a greater threat to the rulers, for example "harmful tax competition". One of the major goals of the EU is to restrain 'harmful tax competition". Similarly one of the major goals of the WTO is to prevent what cypherpunks call regulatory arbitrage. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG wcaHHfIUZy9Tibd6zjm4+q5AQUP7EkuCy6cpPeeX 4svV9LeL01zDRxluCthNIy5l3iiUpZS7LwmP467jH

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The killer app for encryption
by James A. Donald 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

-- Encryption is a defense against threats. For people to adopt encryption, they need to be threatened. All businessmen are guilty of insider trading and destruction of evidence. In consequence all businessmen use encrypted vpn internally within companies, but not, however, in external communications, rendering a public key infrastructure quite useless. For widespread tax evasion to take off, we would like widespread use of public keys. Now the entire population is guilty of file trading. Pretty soon, therefore, the entire population will be using encryption, but it is far from clear that this encryption will enable all the potential uses of encryption that cypherpunks foresaw. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 5fFQJC040+P9QrkF8BhWR4nUBWhNmexs1EH0ej6o 4a8EuzGFht8mQloFG16q2B76njPoWM/jVAzYAxKoQ

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Nextel chills radio station into disciplining disgruntled customer (and show host)
by Tim Meehan 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Pubdate: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 Source: City Paper (PA) Copyright: 2003 CP Communications, Inc. Contact: editorial(a)citypaper.net Website: http://www.citypaper.net/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/88 Author: Morris Bracy Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Forchion THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY The first time self-described marijuana-legalization spokesperson Patrick Duff smoked weed, he was an 11-year-old kid in Delran, N.J. "I was a very adventurous young man," says Duff, who, when he didn't get high that first time, wondered what all the hype was about. He couldn't have known that he and Mary Jane would have such an enduring, committed relationship. Sixteen years later, Duff found himself hosting Open Minds, an hourlong weekly program on New World Radio 1540 AM. For an eight-week, buy-your-own-airtime stint that began in October, Duff -- along with a ganja-themed local hip-hop act, Herbillest -- provided a local forum for legalization activists to state their case to Philadelphians. Unlike other shows with similar themes, Duff says that he "wasn't going to go on there and be irate and get real crazy about the situation, [but] actually find people who could solve the problem." Past guests include Cannabis Hall of Fame inductee and author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes Jack Herer, Vancouver's "Prince of Pot," Marc Emery, and our very own "NJ Weedman," Ed Forchion. Duff just couldn't keep the topic on weed the whole time, though, and took on cell phone giant Nextel Communications when his i90 cell gave out. He says he trusted that his $4.95-a-month manufacturer's insurance policy, along with a $35 deductible, would guarantee a new replacement. But as he went through three replacements in six months, he read the fine print and found that Nextel reserved the right to replace broken phones with "refurbished" ones. Duff, who felt like he was getting hustled, demanded the company tell consumers new phones weren't an option and that all phones were used. He then challenged a Nextel rep to defend the company's policies on the air. Nextel responded by calling his station and apparently convincing the general manager to do some in-house censorship. In a letter from the station, Duff was threatened with being "immediately canceled" should he "even breathe the name Nextel." Chris Doherty, Nextel's senior director of public affairs, admits they called but says they didn't threaten the station with a libel suit. According to Doherty, the company's main concern was preventing an irate Duff from publicly making slanderous comments. Doherty claims that during a phone exchange, Duff drew a parallel between Nextel's actions and the Columbine massacre. He feared similar comments might be expressed on the airwaves. New World GM Sam Speiser had no comment. Though his show's off the air, Duff is considering buying more New World time slots. Duff's next move will be his most ambitious yet -- assuming it works. To celebrate the end of the NJ Weedman's drug-possession parole, he's helping the local counterculture celebrity organize a smokeout at the Liberty Bell. Originally scheduled for Dec. 6 -- it was canceled due to snow -- the smokeout is slated to be held this Saturday. Unlike past smokeouts, where everyone quits smoking cigarettes, this will be more of a "smoke-in," where everyone present will celebrate "with the sacrament of marijuana," Duff says. The rally is slated to begin at 3 p.m. and last until 5 p.m., with the "sacrament" to be lit at precisely 4:20 p.m. (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.) According to Duff, invitations went out to Woody Harrelson, Ashton Kutcher, Al Gore and Bill Clinton. "People aren't going to be able to stop us. There's going to be hundreds and hundreds of us," says Duff, who's confident that the event will be an unprecedented success despite ramped-up security around national monuments since the 9/11 attacks. Holding the event on federal property is by design, since participants -- arrested participants, hypothetically -- could seek protection from prosecution under religious-freedom claims. (Forchion, who got pinched with 40 pounds, is a Rastafarian who says court rulings have defended his right to smoke weed during religious rituals.) The location also keeps the Philadelphia Police Department out of the mix, as Independence Mall lies under the National Park Service's purview. As of earlier this week, Park Service spokesperson Phil Sheridan said he hadn't heard about the planned protest, so no responses were available. "There are areas designated for exercising your First Amendment rights," says Sheridan, "but you cannot break the law [to do so]."

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Re: Sunny Guantanamo (Re: Speaking of the Geneva convention)
by Freematt357＠aol.com 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

December 15, 2003 Uncle Sambs Guantanamo Prison: Outside the Rule of Law By Brigid ObNeil* http://www.independent.org/tii/news/031215ONeil.html The latest news from Guantanamo Bay is beginning to sound like a modern-day Simpsons episode. After two years of imprisoning more than 600 alleged enemy combatants without charge or counsel in a Cuban prison camp, the Administration announced earlier this month that two detainees -- one a U.S. citizen -- would be permitted limited access to an attorney. As any Simpsons buff will tell you, itbs a classic Mr. Burns move: put on a show of improving work conditions at the nuclear power plant by dressing Homer in thermal underwear. While it might be an amusing tag line typical of the most noxious character in the Simpsons repertoire, itbs a sad metaphor for the U.S. governmentbs abysmal treatment of designated enemy combatants. News of the American prisonerbs counsel came one day before the Justice Department filed a brief at the Supreme Court, adding to suspicions about the Administrationbs motives. Their brief asks the court to affirm the governmentbs indefinite detention of Americans declared b enemy combatants,b without counsel or the ability to dispute the allegations. The Constitutional liberties at risk in this case, including the right to a fair trial and due process, constitute a grave danger for Americans and foreign nationals alike. And nowhere is the startling consequence of Constitutional b concessionsb more apparent than the state of Guantanamo Bay. >From the beginning, Guantanamo Bay was wrought with strife. The Geneva Convention, with its guarantee of certain fundamental rights for all prisoners of war, was quickly sidelined by the Administration in favor of its own rules for the treatment and investigation of detainees. In the absence of any rule of law, it didnbt take long for the media to pick up reports of inhumane treatment -- or what one former intelligence officer brazenly called, b torture-lite.b These reports include: firing rubber bullets at those in restraints, beatings for anyone who b made a call to prayer,b sleep deprivation, and forced confessions. The situation became so dire that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the only non-government organization to visit the camp, broke a long-standing policy of silence and called the prisoner circumstances an b intolerable situation.b After reading the latest official statements on the health of the detainees, it becomes shockingly clear why the ICRC took such an unprecedented move. According to national news reports, 35 detainees have attempted suicide, 110 have been placed on a suicide watch list, and 1 out of every 5 detainees now receive medication for what one military official can only describe as b clinical depression.b In response to such damning reports, the Administration contends that the detainees are dangerous terrorists and thus do not deserve any legal protections, much less liberal sympathies. But after two years of investigations at the camp, the Administration has yet to charge any detainee with a crime or bring a case before a military tribunal. Thus, the public has no way to determine what alleged crimes these men are charged with committing, much less whether or not they are guilty. In the absence of any formidable opposition to the Executive Branchbs actions, the Supreme Court has finally stepped into the ring. In a matter of months the Justices will decide two cases that will rule on a host of alleged constitutional abuses. In the first case, Padilla v. Rumsfeld, the Court will determine whether a U.S. citizen has the right to an attorney before disappearing into a military stockade without charges or contact with the outside world. The second case, involving the two appeals of Rasul v. Bush and Odah v. U.S., will decide if Guantanamo detainees can have access to civilian courts to challenge their detention. The most pressing issue in both cases calls into question the newly claimed Executive Branch power to detain any person indefinitely and without any recourse to judicial review. Given the blatant lack of any legal protections for these alleged combatants, it is no wonder that former prisoner-of-war Senator John McCain expressed concern this week about what he saw after a recent visit to Guantanamo. Even prisoners suspected of serious crimes deserve fair and open legal proceedings -- after all, our very Constitution was founded on the right to due process and a presumption of innocence. By holding suspected enemies to our highest rule of law and honoring established international treaties, we set a precedent for the treatment we expect of U.S. troops in enemy hands. To undermine this rule of law risks the very livelihood of our Constitution and threatens the way our citizens are treated both at home and abroad. No minor concessions by the U.S. government can change the impression that the secrecy and lack of due process for detainees at Guantanamo Bay resembles that of the Soviet gulags of old. And it doesnbt take the antics of a Mr. Burns or the gullibility of Homer Simpson to figure it out. *Brigid ObNeil is a researcher at the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute in Oakland, California. For further articles and studies, see the War on Terrorism and OnPower.org.

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