April 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: "Stay Behind" strategies in Iraq
by Major Variola (ret) 14 Apr '03

14 Apr '03

(resent) At 10:51 PM 4/10/03 -0700, Tim May wrote: >On Thursday, April 10, 2003, at 08:04 PM, Major Variola (ret) wrote: >> >> Ok, the Iraqis will work in the 7-11s which serve the yankees. >> Some Iraqis will do better. They will inspire others. They will >> also be used by psyops to argue for "the american dream" for >> Iraqis. And although exploited by psyops, I think all humans >> want to improve their circumstance. > >You're arguing for what you would like to see, whereas what I'm talking >about is that there is unlikely to be any surge in employment in this >hand-out nation. Not what I'd like to see; what the US will encourage. The US (or its puppets) will use .iq's oil money to pay for .iq reconstruction jobs, and then steady-state jobs. To think otherwise is to ignore the motivations and means of the USG. >There simply is no prospect that significantly more than the small >fraction of Iraqis who now service the oil industry will be employed. >Doubling oil production, which is essentially impossible, would only >double a small number...or not quite double, as newer facilities will >be even more automated. So use oil money to create agricultural projects which use lots of labor. Iraq has water. (When we take Saudi Arabia we can build desalination plants..) I'm saying that if the problems you describe arise, the USG will try to reduce them, for the USG's benefit. I don't see how you can ignore the 800 lb gorilla with the A-10 backup. I don't see how observing this makes me socialist. Analyst, maybe, socialist, no. >Meanwhile, most of the nation's 20,000,000 will continue to rely on >handouts. >I said that no major ghetto/slum area, whether Calcutta or >South-Central LA or Baghdad has ever, in memory, gone to nearly full >employment. I'm a libertarian, not a do-gooder: So am I. But I recognize the existance of non-libertarian agents like the USG and their ability to use resources (oil) for social placation. Social placation which favors USG interests. Shit, a lot of Americans will admit (if pressed) that USG domestic welfare is to prevent the South Centrals from rioting. And Iraq is not even burdened with those US pathologies or the US constitution. >> Yes, the US could keep the Iraqis poor. But its not in the USG >> interest. The USG wants MTV in every Arab home. (Albeit this will >> piss off the Islamo Fundies, but they're >> already majorly pissed.) > >You're showing your statist/idealist roots. It's not a matter of "the >US could keep the Iraqis poor." No more so than the U.S. is keeping the >South-Central LA negroes poor, or the Calcutta natives poor. You grossly misunderstand. The US now owns Iraq. The US can physically keep Iraqis poor if it wishes ---put them all in internment camps, feed them a meal at a time. (How is this statism? Its a statement of brutal fact, a consequence of who has the biggest guns.) The US can also give them all satellite TVs & trust funds if it wishes, using either your taxes or Iraq's oil sales money. Now my claim is that 1. the USG interest is in Americizing Iraq, and that 2. (having the guns) they will do so, whether the Iraqis want it or not. My claim is also that the oil is easier to spend than US tax dollars in the long run. I have yet to see you refute any of these. I also fail to see how this makes me statist. *Recognizing* state actions doesn't mean I endorse them. I suppose I'm also making a claim that the entire population there isn't permenantly, chronically South Central LA, i.e., that the US manipulation will work to some extent. >I suppose the U.S. could order Iraqi National Oil to hire tens of >thousands of people to polish the pipes, wipe down the derricks, spoon >up the spilled oil, and other make-work jobs. Still a drop in the >bucket. > >Basically, Iraq went through a standard Turd World birth boom, doubling >its population and then doubling it again in just a couple of >generations. Look at the statistics on how many Iraqis are under 15. Yep. But you realize that the high-youth populations of various arab nations are succeptible to Americanization, and that the USG knows this, right? And will exploit this for the USG's ends. >They dispersed handouts to the breeders, who now number 20 million, >crowded into several major cities and a dozen smaller cities. You are also aware of how, after a population gets Americanized, they start using birth control? Chicks wanting college, more money per family member the fewer there are, no need for agricultural labor. [Alas world-Americanization is happening too slowly and the population bomb is slowly detonating] >Modern refineries cannot afford to have people running around with >wrenches and screwdrivers, tweaking and reading gauges. The plants >either run with few people or they are doomed. Ok. Perhaps I am wrong about the number of pipe-polishers and folks employed in satellite industries (incl. the Iraqis who repair Halliburton Mercedez). Then the USG will create labor-consuming 'reconstruction' projects then. Using your or Iraqi resources, it doesn't much matter if its not an election year. I'm stating future history, not what I personally want, Tim. I think I've stated clearly enough that this the USG acting (without serious opposition) in pure USG interest. >Finally, for now, a friend of mine for the past 28 years is the son of >a former Chevron head of research and development (at the Bay Area >refineries...also lightly staffed). This V.P., Dr. John Scott, told me >many years ago just how few people it takes to run the crackers and >distillation towers. Ok, then only a few Texans will be over there. Smaller exposure. Fewer targets. Still, the USG will create native jobs out of USG interests. >It's good for Iraq that they have oil. Having oil is always better than >not having oil. But any notion that any expansion of the oil business >is going to magically employ millions of Iraqis who are not now >employed is silly. Do the math. Every arabian kingdom with oil has little but oil money. That the monarchs of the region use it for welfare (and thus their own security) is no different from the USGs plan. Only folks it doesn't work on are the Fundies, as the Shah (et al) found out. >> the US imposed 'interim' govt will tax this to >> fund things (like jobs, or even sinecures) that win favor. Why? >> Because the govt worries more about Iraqi/Arab backlash more >> than Halliburton's profits. For a while, anyway. > >Silliness. Prices are set by markets. No one is claiming that >Halliburton will get the bulk of the oil profits. But Halliburton will >not do its thing (drilling services, extinguishing fires, etc.) except >at prices they find acceptable. Of course, a company is rational, xor extinct. What I mean is, the new USIRAQ will "own" the oil, much like the Saudi kings do. They may let others pump it, refine it, move it (all those parties making a profit), but USIRAQ will use its take for Americanization. >You seem to have some kind of fantasy going on about Iraq's oil economy >somehow giving jobs to millions of Iraqis who have no skills, no work >experience. Optimism has blinded you. Do the math. Not optimism, mere modelling of agents and their means and motivations. >> If you liquidate the towelhead kings >> of the region, you might find a lot of distributable wealth >> (I'm not a socialist, neither am I an admirer of monarchy.) >> which the US conquerers would distribute. A great way >> to curry favor with the populace. Libertarian ideals don't >> prescribe a way to distribute land-based wealth in the region, >> though I'd love to be corrected. >> > >"Redistributing the oil wealth" will not do anything except lead to a >further doubling and tripling of the population. The moral hazard of >handing out free stuff is itself enough to derail real markets. But it won't be *free*, the Iraqis will have to work for the dinars with George's face on them. A sinecure counts as work, geopolitically, as long as the oil is there to pay for it. (And the bricklayers and fibre-laying crews will be busy with real work at first.) For psyops-dignity control the jobs can't be *too* fake. Do not import street-sweeping machines if you need to employ lots of street-sweepers. A doubling takes more than a decade. You can do a lot of social manipulation in that time. Free birth control at the oil-paid-for clinics. TV time for agreeable clerics, jail for disagreeable ones. Odd to see you underestimate the capabililties of a blood & oil crazed US unencumbered by even shreds of a bill of rights. ... ...our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than to us." -- Winston Churchill, January 1914

2 1

chipmakers flock to security
by Tyler Durden 14 Apr '03

14 Apr '03

So...anyone want to take a guess on the % of these chips the feds can walk right into? -TD Chipmakers Flock to Security -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More and more processor companies are embedding security into their components, and it appears Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM - message board) will be the next to do so. The company is using this week's RSA Conference to explain its security strategy, which emphasizes the integration of security into other Broadcom chips. "You'll see product announcements in the second quarter," probably around the end of May, says Joe Wallace, Broadcom senior product manager. Big deal, says Russell Dietz, CTO of Hifn Inc. (Nasdaq: HIFN - message board). His company's HIPP series of chips have used this concept for years, although from the opposite vantage point: Hifn's are security devices with microprocessor and memory added, whereas Broadcom and others are starting with a microprocessor and adding security. "They're looking at this picture from the other side of the glass, but it's the same problem," Dietz says. "All of our HIPP processors -- that's basically what they are, a set of embedded cryptoprocessors and microprocessors alongside DRAM. That's why I find it humorous that Broadcom and others are saying embedding security with microprocessors is going to happen someday." Broadcom wouldn't be the first processor vendor to announce embedded security. Integrated Device Technology Inc. (IDT) (Nasdaq: IDTI - message board) released just such a part this week, and Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC - message board) has begun adding hardware-based security to some of its network processors (see IDT Processor Embeds Security and Intel Moves on Security ). "That's a trend overall. As encryption becomes absolutely necessary, you see it being added to devices," says Eric Mantion, senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR. Companies and analysts seem to agree that in the long run, security will wind up embedded inside other chips. This first round of integration concentrates on merging microprocessors with encryption acceleration chips, devices specializing in the awkward large-integer math used in cryptography. But integration of authentication and other security-minded functions isn't far off. "Those things will start to become embedded in the next year or so," Dietz says. Chip vendors usually try to integrate functions to help simplify boards and to increase a particular chip's importance to customers. In the case of security, Broadcom sees one more reason: to prevent customers from ignoring it. Plenty of users and OEMs are opting to leave security out of routers, switches, and appliances, Broadcom's Wallace contends. That's partly a function of the speeds at which they're running. "The majority of these markets are at the sub-500-Mbit/s-level range, and at those data rates the benefit of offloading everything [to a specialized security processor] is not so high," he says. Broadcom can't do much about that, but it can tackle the issue of cost, which is another barrier to getting security into some systems. Integration of chips typically lowers costs, and Broadcom believes this can be brought to the point where security piggy-backs practically for free. "There are products coming out next month where the amount of security you're getting for the price you're paying for it is much more than a standalone would be," Wallace says. For evidence, one could point to the IXP2850, an Intel microprocessor that adds security. The extra price for the security features "wasn't chump change, but for what it brought to the solution it was well worth the money," says In-Stat's Mantion. Down the road, it's possible that integration could spread to the all-in-one chips touted by Cavium Networks Inc. or Corrent Corp. Such chips manage multiple IPSec or SSL sessions, freeing a CPU or network processor from that work. These could find a match with large ASICs, Mantion thinks. "There are going to be some situations where a company has an ASIC that's good at what it's designed to do, but they want to add security." The low uptake of security is keeping the security-chip market small, Broadcom contends. In-Stat estimates the 2001 security-chip market was $75 million, and that 2002 was a slight decline from that level. But Broadcom's own analysis, based on estimating the percentage of switches, routers, and appliances that include security chips, puts the 2002 security-chip market at $26.5 million. Broadcom's numbers don't include the devices with built-in security, while Mantion's do (his figures include only the security portion of such chips, rather than the full price). But those wouldn't add much to the $26.5 million, keeping Broadcom's estimate much lower than most analysts'. Mantion estimates the 2006 security-chip market at $575 million, and that includes integrated security devices. Craig Matsumoto, Senior Editor, Light Reading _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

1 0

MDs must use email encryption, by (HIPAA) law
by Major Variola (ret) 14 Apr '03

14 Apr '03

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-hipaa14apr14,1,4384076.story?c… "A tougher medical privacy law" Doctors no longer can send e-mails to patients. (Not true. E-mails between doctor and patient are acceptable as long as the messages are encrypted and sent on a secure computer network.)

1 0

Single Point of Weakness is in the Works.Thank you Major Tom.
by Anonymous 14 Apr '03

14 Apr '03

On April 13, 2003, professor rat wrote: > Sparks over US power grid cybersecurity > By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus Strike. > Posted: 11/04/2003 at 23:01 GMT Strike. Learn to use STANDARD TIME FORMATS, you pathetic ex-con sellout journalist. DD/MM/YYYY is an antiquated european format. > The draft guideline offer a much more detailed prescription for curing the > power grid's security ills: "Set dial-out modems to not auto-answer," reads > one pointer. "Automatically lock accounts or access paths after a preset > number of consecutive invalid password attempts," suggests another. Assuming Mr. Poulsen is fixating on the aspects of the draft he's most familiar with, it becomes readily apparent that he is still living in 1995. > But Norton also describes the power grid's fractal network of > interdependent systems. "There's incredibly variety of equipment, > generationally, vendor-wise, because it's kind of been cobbled together as > neighborhoods get bigger," he says. "You've got increasingly sophisticated > control centers and increasingly sophisticated microprocessor-controlled > equipment, and linking them are unencrypted 1200-baud lines." Someone teach this child about fractals.

2 2

Re: Single Point of Weakness is in the Works.Thank you Major Tom.
by Anonymous 14 Apr '03

14 Apr '03

On April 13, 2003, professor rat wrote: > > Posted: 11/04/2003 at 23:01 GMT Strike. Learn to use STANDARD TIME > FORMATS, you pathetic ex-con sellout journalist. DD/MM/YYYY is an > antiquated european format. << > > Standard where? There is more net outside of the steenkin fascist US than See, even though you couldn't, a fellow list reader could figure it out. > in it.Also I am not an ex-con (yet) and I am an ENTERTAINMENT journalist.I > like D/M/Y so FUCK YOU ASSHOLE I apologize. I seem to have misattributed your deficiency to Mr. Poulsen or his mickey-mouse "security" organization. It seems you are such a turd that you replaced a perfectly good datestamp with your bastardized DDMMYYYY shit, then cleverly proceeded to rat yourself out. > >>>> Blah Blah...number of consecutive invalid password attempts," > suggests another. > > Assuming Mr. Poulsen is fixating on the aspects of the draft he's most > familiar with, it becomes readily apparent that he is still living in 1995. > <<< > > Assuming anyone gives two shits about what you think,who or whatever 'you' > are...So? > I am living in 1981.This is real futuristic for me and isn't that what's > important here? Me. Does this come naturally for you? I have to make an effort to be so ignorant.

1 0

Re: Looting of museums, banks, shops, factories--South Central LA writ large
by Anonymous 13 Apr '03

13 Apr '03

> The looting will solve itself soon. All regime targets have > been looted, which means that everyone now has guns. Naturally > the looters start hitting non regime targets. Those targeted > proceed to execute looters. Looting rapidly declines. The looting was done by the government of Iraq when they commandeered the economic resources of the country in a socialist state, enriching the ruling class in government. The actions of the people are not looting, they are repossession and liberation, no different from a property owner taking his lawnmower back from a thief.

2 1

Re: Looting of museums, Fishing with defibrillators
by Major Variola (ret) 13 Apr '03

13 Apr '03

At 02:26 PM 4/12/03 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: > >In their position, I'd be looting the hospitals too: ultrawide >spectrum antibiotics, atropine, a small stash of potent >narcotics (a mix of a long acting prep, such as methadone for >use over days or weeks, and some short actings like straight >morphine for the early moments), a couple of bottles of saline, and some >basic kit items (suture, sponges, etc.)... To hell with recreation: these >are people worried about *survival*. Ok, I wasn't thinking about meds that folks could figure out how to use on their own, I was thinking about med equiptment that they wouldn't fathom, nor find readily fungible. I can believe my neighbors could guess approximately how to use saline or antibios, but not equiptment. Were they going to make rice in the autoclave? Use defibrillators to go fishing? Turn an anesthetic machine into a bhong? Looting a pharmacy make sense. Looting non-consumables from places where they might be needed (for yourself) is *irrational* rampaging. Because the potential future benefit to yourself of leaving an x-ray machine intact exceeds the value in scrap metal and parts, IMHO. "It takes a child to raze a village." -Michael Fry

1 0

Re: Metaswitch cleared by FBI for spying
by Tyler Durden 13 Apr '03

13 Apr '03

Well, a secure H.323 is certainly better than nothing, but as of right now the world looks like its going to remain circuit switched for a long time. That means most standard telephone calls will potentially be under scrutiny, unless encryption is used at the end points. And I guess that's where one would ultimately want to do that anyway... -TD >From: Thomas Shaddack <shaddack(a)ns.arachne.cz> >To: Tyler Durden <camera_lumina(a)hotmail.com> >CC: <cypherpunks(a)minder.net> >Subject: Re: Metaswitch cleared by FBI for spying >Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 23:07:30 +0200 (CEST) > > > > ALAMEDA, Calif. -- MetaSwitch, supplier of the VP3500, the industry's >first > > true Next Generation Class 5 Switch, announced today that it has >completed > > an extensive review with the FBI, which demonstrates that the MetaSwitch > > CALEA specification meets the J-STD-025A standard for circuit switching > > equipment. > >What's the chance to amend the H.323 specs with end-to-end encryption, >and/or make publicly available design of phone switching system built on >fully open designs, something that the user can audit and amend, something >over which nobody but the user has the control? > >There are already general steps in the right direction out there, see eg. >http://www.openh323.org/ and http://www.opencores.org/ - could even be a >good small-to-medium size business for the manufacturers of the hardware, >generic boards for the PABXes - boards with interface circuits, and empty, >user-programmable FPGAs? An open-source FPGA core firmware could come free >with the package, or developed in-house to suit needs (or, most likely, >combination of both approaches - build the function from blocks). > >Then we'd get cheaper private switchboards with guaranteed NO CALEA >"extensions", full knowledge of what's inside (and the associated chance >to do our own in-house service without need of expensive vendor service >contracts and dependency on their servicemen). > >Fully open, fully documented designs are the only doable way of getting >infrastructure building blocks that aren't vulnerable to incorporating >(either by the vendor being forced by law, or by "voluntary cooperation") >of little agents of Big Brother. > >Or did I smoked one puff too much? > > _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail

4 4

Irag Piss Poor Compared to 911
by John Young 13 Apr '03

13 Apr '03

There was more fighting and carnage in Gulf War 1 than this piddling latest. This was not a war but a training exercise, a rattling of sabers, gunboat diplomacy. The military provided more information in Gulf War 1 than all the embedded and free-lancers in the latest. Almost no gunship videos and bombs hitting targets compared to GW1, while the US was smothered with talking heads doing not much different than they did in the studio. The videos in Baghdad showed kiddie versions of Iraqi defenses lighting up the sky, just boring shots of a few vehicles moving as if there was nothing much going on. No cowering journalists, breaking glass, running for the basement. If you wanted to kill reporting you could hardly have done better than putting the mouthpieces in the field far from the bombing, and mostly away from the diddly shit combat. The purpose of the war seems to be to scare the bejesus out of likely targets, a display of power a notch or two above a war game, but nothing as thrilling as a movie -- which are showing more warporn and gore than was shown in GW2. The attack on WTC and the Pentagon was much superior politics, theater, diplomacy, art, entertainment, grief, shock and awe. War porn lovers will just have to replay those tapes until a great blockbuster comes again. A liquified gas tanker in San Diego Bay and another off Staten Island. Tens of the highest hazard dams (thousands of them still listed and ranked on the Internet). Several stadia of sports fans. 5 or 6 suspension bridges. None of these need a MOAB to cause more casualties than GWB's GW2. Welfare mutants are not the targets, dream on racist greedy motherfuckers, your fat GWB predatory life style is. The military can't protect you from terrorists, nor can the police from mutants outfucking you every day. Blue-eyed supremacists are chasing the dodo, guns and bombs ineffectual.

2 2

Speaking of book banning!
by Anonymous 13 Apr '03

13 Apr '03

A guy just told me that he got stopped for a minor traffic offense and the cop spotted a "how to grow pot" book on his car seat. Suddenly there were six cop cars there, they searched him and the car, found nothing, but busted him anyway for "possession of paraphernalia", and he was convicted, given a $200 fine.

1 0