December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: The Inducement of Rapid Oxidation of Certain Materials....
by jimbell＠pacifier.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 14:27 5/14/97 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote: >On Wed, May 14, 1997 at 03:07:43PM -0400, Tom Allard wrote: >> How pedantic. Webster's New World Dictionary (also reputable, I might add), >> has THIS to say about "Anarchy": >> >> anarchy n. [Gr. an- without + archos, leader] 1. the absence of government >> 2. political disorder and violence 3. disorder; confusion >> >> Note the etymology. Taken to its roots, the word simply means "no leader". > >Note the second definition. A definition which it included because of years of misuse. It is said that language is a living thing, which it is, which means that if an error is made frequently enough it becomes the truth. Most of us understand this concept. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 21:11:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary You get a sense of the inevitable when you're handed a stack of press releases congratulating a committee for passing a bill -- an hour before the vote happens. That's what happened this afternoon when the House Judiciary committee unanimously approved SAFE, a bill that generally loosens export controls on crypto. Now, today's vote doesn't mean that the bill will move to the floor unmolested, and it doesn't mean that all its problems have been fixed. The Judiciary Committee doesn't have jurisdiction over export relaxations, and the bill's opponents pledged to fight when the measure moves to the International Relations committee. Then there's that portion about using crypto in a crime: it's been modified, cleaned up, but not removed. High and low points of today's hearing. I'll keep these short since I've got to get to sleep: * In another blow to the White House, the New Democrat Coalition is demanding that the White House change its crypto-policy. A letter the group of centrist Dems sent to Clinton today said: "We are deeply concerned that current policy restricting exports of cryptography technology poses a real threat to U.S. dominance..." * The heinous section of the law that would create broad new Federal felonies for some uses of crypto was replaced. The amendment, offered by Rep. Delahunt and adopted unanimously includes eight hurdles: "Any person who, in the commission of a felony under a criminal statute of the United States, knowingly and willfully encrypts incriminating information relating to that felony with the intent to conceal such information for the purposes of avoiding detection by law enforcement agencies or prosecution..." It's a solid improvement, but this language still has no business becoming law. Problem is, nobody seems to have the balls to stand up and yank it. Delahunt, the amendment's sponsor, said the bill without the amendment "could have a chilling effect on the development and use of encryption." He added: "I recognize that some supporters of this amendment would like that this section be removed altogether." But it doesn't seem likely. * The word on the streets is compromise. Hyde, chair of House Judiciary, brokered a meeting in his offices yesterday bringing together spooks, law enforcement, Goodlatte, and staffers. He says they're "very close to resolving any difficulties." Rep. McCollum chimed in: "It's just a matter of time before we work something out." Rep. Buyer said, and I am not making this up: "We should be good listeners to the NSA." Rep. Berman: "I hope there would be some way to bridge the differences between the administration and Goodlatte." More on this later... * Rep. Hutchinson introduced an amendment that passed unanimously: (a) The Attorney General shall compile, and maintain in classified form, data on the instances in which encryption (as defined in section 2801 of title 18 USC) has interfered with, impeded, or obstructed the ability of the Department of Justice to enforce the criminal laws of the United States. (b) The information compiled under subsection (a), including an unclassified summary thereof, shall be made available, upon request, to any Member of Congress. Problem is, a similar provision is *ALREADY LAW*. (It passed last year as part of an omnibus spending bill.) Brock Meeks wrote about it in his last Muckraker column: http://www.muckraker.com/ And this is bad news: we already know that piss-poor crypto -- we're talking Brian Milburn-style, or WordPerfect strength -- has interfered with investigations. But with the NSA's help, cops were able to tunnel through it. That's why the Feds should be looking not at whether it *interferes* with an investigation, but whether it has *derailed* one. At least when the NRC report came out last year, not one investigation was derailed through the use of crypto. But even if it has derailed an investigation -- well, that may be the price of freedom... * Rep. McCollum (R-Fl), a real Big Brother type of guy, added an amendment to page 4, line 14 that passed unanimously. Addition is in caps: Subsection (a) shall not afect the authority of any investigative or law enforcement officer OR ANY MEMBER OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY acting under any law in effect on the effective date of this chapter, to gain access to encrypted information. Now what the hell does this mean? Says McCollum: ""it is truly a technical amendment." * Rep. Rothman was the only one who pointed out how government access to keys reduces freedom: "It raises civil libertarian and totalitarian issues for me." He recounted how at a recent hearing he asked the administration: "Let's cut to the chase: do you want to mandate this access?" The reply: "No, no, no." I've said it before and I'll say it again: Congress desperately wants to compromise. They're aching to split the difference, cut a deal, and screw the pooch in the process. Just watch for the backroom scheming over the next few months. And if the worst features of all the crypto-bills are combined into one package that's attached to a huge spending bill that "just has to go through" -- well, don't say I didn't warn you... -Declan

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Re: Just Say "No" to Congress
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:25 AM 5/15/97 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Tim wrote: > >> We're basically under assault from all directions. The bozos in Congress >> and state governments are spinning out new laws and obscure regulations >> faster than we can react...and of course they're using our money to >> generate these laws and lobby for them. Further, a mostly-brainwashed >> Washington media population is surprising uncritical of these blizzard >> drifts of new laws. > >Hmmm... Do I get counted in the "mostly-brainwashed" category? I am sure that Tim knows by now that you don't fall into that category. Still, most members of the Washington media population seem brainwashed. At least judging by the stuff they publicize. >FYI, here are two bills that Feinstein introduced recently: Sigh. She is my Senator. [Don't blame me. I voted against her. But she hits the feelings of the Bay Area head on. "Big brother will bring you multi-cultural happiness." She is such a hypocrite. Even carried a gun after Moscone and Milk were shot and she thought herself in danger. Once she felt safe again, she went on TV and said that if she could get the votes in the Senate for total confiscation she would push for it. What's good for the goose...] -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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Response to "SAFE bill and cutting crypto-deals"
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 23:00:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Response to "SAFE bill and cutting crypto-deals" ******* Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 01:56:20 -0400 From: Jason Gull <jgull(a)UMICH.EDU> While I don't particularly like this segment of the proposed bill either, I think Declan is engaging in some minor hyperbole when he says "this language has no business becoming law." We already have federal laws which make the use of a telephone or the mails to commit a felony into an additional offense, so this provision -- quite similar to obstruction of evidence, from the look of it -- doesn't seem at odds with precedent. With so many "hurdles," as Declan puts it, the language seems tailored to the specific case where incriminating information is encrypted solely to evade law enforcement and (like the passing of incriminating information to one's attorney in an attempt to make it "privileged") it doesn't seem outlandish to think that such conduct ought to be criminalized. Granted, there's the danger of the "slippery slope" -- that allowing any restrictions on crypto will lead to a gradual encroachment of government into other uses of cryptography. However, whether or not it is a good idea or not, politics and previosu law seem to firmly support such a provision. -Jason Gull jgull(a)umich.edu

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Re: Just Say "No" to Congress
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:13 AM 5/14/97 -0800, Tim May wrote: >We're basically under assault from all directions. The bozos in Congress >and state governments are spinning out new laws and obscure regulations >faster than we can react...and of course they're using our money to >generate these laws and lobby for them. Further, a mostly-brainwashed >Washington media population is surprising uncritical of these blizzard >drifts of new laws. ... >The "there ought to be a law" crowd is in high gear. I seem to recall a proposal from the late 19th century suggesting that the Patent Office be closed because there was nothing left to invent. In a similar, but more serious vein, I think Congress should be shut down, because there are no new laws that we need. Excepting, of course, my earlier anonymous suggestion that children be kept from "soft targets". I'm not a TruthMonger, but I play one on T.V.

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Re: Spam IS Free Speech
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On or About 14 May 97 at 3:46, lucifer Anonymous Remailer wrote: > Ross Wright wrote: > > > > You can not retaliate against free > > speech, Rick. That's a bad thing, plain and simple, black and > > white. > > Crock of shit, Ross. No shit, you just can't send 10,000 megs of info in retaliation for a few bits. Really, there's no call for that. It's wrong. > It costs me money to download unwanted spam. What's this "free" > bullshit? What? Like 80 cents per gig? Please a bit here and a byte there isn't going to break anyone. Could someone do the math? > > Free speech is a right. You have the right to make some snotty > > reply, but no right to intentionally harm. > > Spammers neither know nor care if they are causing harm to the > finances or mental well-being of others. One message in your in box is no excuse for terror tactics. Mail bombs, arp atacks, calls for regulations: aren't you over reacting? Just a little? I think your mental well being is in question anyway. > If a spammer declares their right to cause me financial loss and > denial of service for the time it takes me to rid myself of their > unwanted intrusion What, like 5 seconds a week? Less? Please. It just isn't as bad as you make it seem. Shit I love this, the spammers love this. There is no such thing as *bad* publicity. The more you screem the better it is for the "bad spammers". > then they can have no expectation that I, in > turn, will not declare what level of financial loss and denial of > service I will cause them. You have no right to deny them more than the few seconds of service that you lost. Any more than that is terror tactics, and a waste of time. You should be working on better projects than "Let's fuck over the spammers". Wow, that's productive. Shit, man write some useful code. > > You, nor anyone else, has a right to lash out at > > someone for something they say or some ad they send you. > > So spammers have no right to lash out at my sending them a > gigabyte of email regarding the evils of spamming. A gig for a few bytes. Why? That's so lame. Such a watse of talented code writing. And why are you escalating this? > > > It makes > > > *me* feel better. > > > > Ahhh, at last the point. Are you a self centred ass, who's > > personal feelings are more important that the Constitution? > > Ross has failed to explain just how the Constitution promotes the > spammer's right to intrude upon the spammer's life and cause them > financial loss while denying that right to the spammee. Well I've tried to describe that you lose about a dime per year. > Ross' personal feelings seem to be important enough to him to cast > slurs on those who disagree with his black-and-white opinions > regarding his right to spam others without them having a > corresponding right to reply in kind. You can feel free to send me twice as many bytes as I send to you, OK? Feel beter? No! You must fuck me over because I sent you my latest MLM scam. Yeah that's so mature! Come out from behind your remailer and state your opinions, wrong as they are. > Gander. Goose. Right. If I send you a gig, you send me a gig. If I send you a meg you send me a meg. A few bytes for a few bytes. Are you following what has upset me about this issue, yet? Like for Like, Goose, Gander. You said it, but you don't mean it. Right? You are saying if I send you one message, you have the right to mail bomb me? There's no parity there. It's very distressing how much of a hot button this issue is. >TruthMonger Lier. Ross =-=-=-=-=-=- Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: (408) 259-2795

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Civil Disobediance
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"All that matters is how we die: shall we offer our bodies helplessly, like cattle, to the knife, or, refusing passively to await the end shall we turn the strength of our anger to one last battle, til, daring and doing, we fall, drenched with their blood, amongst the heaped bodies and weapons of our dying enemies?" -- Livy Book XXV We've seen many sentiments like this one on the list lately. Such sentiments are understandable and have a certain visceral appeal. And it is good that people who are thinking along these lines are also telling their friends on the list instead of censoring themselves. But, these strategies are not the best we can choose to achieve our true goals. Few of us wish to be martyrs. The years long discussion of "crypto policy" has had the unfortunate and intended effect that it has caused us to become accustomed to restrictions on sharing ideas. That doesn't mean we like it, but it does mean that we consider the control of mathematical ideas to be expected and somewhat inevitable. (The same mechanisms we use to train animals are at work here.) Many of us have, perhaps, lost our youthful rage at the complete absurdity of a law which makes it highly illegal to invent some math, express it in code, and distribute it for free to the world. Perhaps there is a way to turn the training on the trainers? Civil disobediance is the best way to do this. Were a relatively small number of people, a thousand for instance, to post the "RSA in 3 lines" code to the world, it would be highly unlikely that anybody at all would be prosecuted, particularly if a sizeable number of these people were professors, graduate students, professionals at well known companies, journalists, politicians?, or otherwise prominent people. The whole situation would be so absurd they would never dare take it to court. If no response results from the first release of code, more people will feel comfortable jumping in when it becomes clear that they have a chance to change the world. The longer somebody waits, the less opportunity they have to tell their grandkids "I was the 500th person to publically export RSA back in the late 20th century. The government was actually trying to make math illegal!" Best of all, anybody "fortunate" enough to be a U.S. citizen can participate, even if they don't write code themselves. Having established beyond any doubt that the export of RSA was possible without repercussions, the lesson will be driven home by group releases of successively longer mathematical works expressed in source code. The first release will be the most challenging. In no time at all everybody - including everybody in the government - will find themselves accustomed to the idea that laws against mathematics are absurd. (Even Senators will be able to grasp this unchallenging concept.) It is not hard for the government and the newspapers to discredit militia type activities involving large weapons collections and chemistry experiments. But, no matter how much spin is put on it, it is extremely hard to persuade the public that sending a few lines of source code is terrorism, especially when they can download it off the web and see for themselves that it is just, well, source code, and maybe export it themselves. The way to get started is for people to pledge to post "RSA in 3 lines" if certain conditions are met. For instance, "I will post 'RSA in 3 lines' if 500 people promise to do it as well, among them being Michel Foucault, Jacob Bernoulli, and Blaise Pascal." No risk need be taken without allies! Dr. Roberts

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Sweeps Week in Portland
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

News from the Beirut of the West: The FBI, in cooperation with the Portland police and the TV show "Cops" is ending a six month survelence project of downtown Portland. Tonight, armed with large books containing pictures of suspects, they have congregated in the center of town arresting all of those caught in their video web. Over the last 6-8 hours they have been arresting hundreds of suspects in the downtown area. The arrests are a "show of force" in the downtown area. The police used to watch over the people. Now they are watching the people. Expect to see similar activity in the town where you live. "Be seeing you!" DonutMonger #666

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Sweeps Week in Portland
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

News from the Beirut of the West: The FBI, in cooperation with the Portland police and the TV show "Cops" is ending a six month survelence project of downtown Portland. Tonight, armed with large books containing pictures of suspects, they have congregated in the center of town arresting all of those caught in their video web. Over the last 6-8 hours they have been arresting hundreds of suspects in the downtown area. The arrests are a "show of force" in the downtown area. The police used to watch over the people. Now they are watching the people. Expect to see similar activity in the town where you live. "Be seeing you!" DonutMonger #666

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NIST Crypto Notices
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Two May 13 Federal Register notices by NIST: NIST is planning to develop a FIPS for Public-Key Based Cryptographic Key Agreement and Exchange. This notice solicits comments regarding techniques for consideration specifically including RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and Elliptic Curve techniques. This standard will be for use in designing and implementing public-key based key agreement and exchange systems which Federal departments and agencies operate or which are operated for them under contract. More than one algorithm may be specified, consistent with sound security practices, to enable Federal departments and agencies enhanced flexibility in the design, implementation, and use of cryptographic systems. http://jya.com/nist051397.txt (6K) NIST is planning to develop a proposed revision to Federal Information Processing Standard 186, Digital Signature Standard. This revision would specify additional public-key based digital signature algorithms (in addition to the Digital Signature Algorithm [DSA]) for use in designing and implementing public-key based signature systems which Federal departments and agencies operate or which are operated for them under contract. The purpose of the revision will be to enable Federal departments and agencies greater flexibility, consistent with sound security practices, in the design, implementation, and use of public-key based digital signature systems. http://jya.com/dss-rev.txt (6K)

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