May 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Making Money in Digital Money
by zem 01 May '03

01 May '03

> Why would Bob be unable to strip off all signatures, process the sound > file to whiten off any watermarking and re-sell it without authentication > signatures under another nym with it's own reputation? > > What would stop Bob from turning the sound file into a plain .ogg or .mp3 > with no signatures and reselling millions of copies for 1/1000th the cost, > or even for free. Or have Bob be the front of a pool of purchasers who > couldn't pay Alice her fees on their own, so they each chip in 1/100th of > the cost? > > Why would Bob's "clients" care if the cost was low enough, or just > casually traded? Spam. The reason clients pay Alice or Bob to receive their approval ratings is to avoid downloading bogus files - incomplete, poorly encoded, misnamed, or deliberately spoofed files (cf Madonna's "what the fuck?" example). Bandwidth isn't free. Time and effort isn't free. If it's cheaper for someone to pay Alice the Editor to tell them which files meet a particular standard, rather than spend their own time and bandwidth downloading and listening to half a dozen potential copies, then Alice makes a profit. People aren't paying Alice for the content - they can get that anywhere. They're paying for Alice's opinions. The reason Alice's opinions are worth something is that they are backed by Alice's reputation. That's why Bob can't merely strip off Alice's signature, resign and redistribute: the thing he is redistributing is no longer backed by Alice's reputation, it's backed by Bob's reputation. It's no longer Alice's opinion, it's Bob's. Process is the same for other domains, not just mp3 sharing. Think anti-spam services, search engines. People aren't paying to receive more content - they're paying to receive _less_. There's a good reason why Google is able to resell its opinions to other search engines, even though those opinions are effectively freely available from other sources. -- mailto:zem@vigilant.tv F289 2BDB 1DA0 F4C4 DC87 EC36 B2E3 4E75 C853 FD93 http://vigilant.tv/ "..I'm invisible, I'm invisible, I'm invisible.."

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RE: Quarantines may be justified
by Vincent Penquerc'h 01 May '03

01 May '03

Odd. What you said is pretty close to what I was saying (or maybe thinking), apart from the fact that I see property as a tool to reach a goal (of a better life), and you seem to see it as an end in itself. All the examples you cited are "trying to live a better life", and there's nothing wrong with that as long as it doesn't make another person's life worse. My point is just that property rights aren't the only possible way to improve one's life. It's just an easy way to approximate it well enough, but it only approximates, as shown by the smoke example: how to solve this problem with property rights without it being too intrusive ? > It's after all, not just about trying to live a better life. > It's true that trying to live a better life is a huge goal. It is. Some people have different goals, but everyone of them will strive for a better life, which is a different measure for everyone, a mixture of everything, possessions (and by this, the knowledge that use (etc, you see what I mean) of it is secured for the present and (hopefully) future), but also entertainment, as you mentionned, contentment of senses (whether it is food, sex, or whatever), spiritual beliefs, or even the warm fuzzy feeling of having altruistically helped another person. In having property rights and defending them, you are trying to secure a better life for you, and possibly others. But there are other ways that can be used to make one's life better, be it in addition or (partial) replacement of property rights. But just because there could be other ways to make your life better doesn't mean you should think property rights are in danger :) Hey, I own stuff, and I'd be pretty pissed off if someone stole them :) -- Vincent Penquerc'h

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Re: Making Money in Digital Money
by Nomen Nescio 01 May '03

01 May '03

All this talk about digital payments is a real blast from the past. Not just because it's all been said before; but because of how it demonstrates that cypherpunks are still stuck in the early 1990s as far as their world view. Every one of these discussions might have been made five or even ten years ago (with the possible exception of the details of Brands technology, which isn't fundamental). Yet the internet world has changed enormously since then. Most of these changes have passed the cypherpunks by. All the P2P work, file sharing, Freenet, IIRC, weblogs, WiFi, open source, open spectrum; for the most part it's as if none of this exists, in the world of the cypherpunks. The problem with these discussions of digital payments is so fundamental that it's amazing that no one mentions it: anonymous payments are useless. The world hasn't evolved the way cypherpunks thought it might, ten years ago. Yet the reality doesn't sink in. Anonymous payments for physical goods are pointless because you can't deliver them anonymously. Everyone has recognized that from the beginning. So they always envisioned them being used for information goods. Well, here's a clue, folks: information goods are free today. You can't build a digital money system on paying for information goods, in a world where people expect to get their information goods for free. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry when I read someone like James Donald claiming that MP3s are a micropayment market. Wake up, gramps! My God, nothing could make you sound more like a clueless refugee from the 90s than a statement like that. It's a perfect illustration of how irrelevant the cypherpunks have become. At one time, cypherpunks, with their libertarian and anarchocapitalist views, assumed that the online world was turning into Galt's Gulch, a world where people would constantly pay for exchanges of information. What they didn't foresee is that it turned instead into a communist utopia, where each supplies according to his abilities, and each takes according to his needs. And it works online, unlike in the physical world, because no matter how much each person takes, there's still plenty for everyone else. Information doesn't get used up. Unless cypherpunks open their eyes to the reality around them, instead of seeing what they want to see, they are going to continue to be part of the past rather than part of the future. Ironically, Tim May's racist prediction for "the colored race" has become the truth for the cypherpunks: they are "headed for the trash heap of history, courtesy of their own choices." And with views like those, cypherpunks are the ones truly deserving of his final comment: "Fuck 'em."

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publishing nastygrams, chilling effects, placenta as bhong
by Major Variola (ret) 01 May '03

01 May '03

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/zetapicts1.html has an amusing nastygram from lawyers who threaten for even posting their threatening letter. They also whine about copyright violation for good measure. Of course, in doing so, they make their actions newsworthy, as well as making newsworthy the contested photos of a woman giving her fetus nicotine. .... Bluffs will be published if comical but otherwise ignored. -JY

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Time for a New New Deal
by barabbus＠hushmail.com 01 May '03

01 May '03

Someone has now created a set of playing cards for a US regime change. These are people the cards' authors would like to remove from power. The set includes mostly people heading corporations, as well as government officials and the Supreme Court judges who made Bush president. See the deck here http://www.gatt.org/regime/ Regime change begins at home! Concerned about your privacy? Follow this link to get FREE encrypted email: https://www.hushmail.com/?l=2 Big $$$ to be made with the HushMail Affiliate Program: https://www.hushmail.com/about.php?subloc=affiliate&l=427

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patriotism considered evil
by Adam Back 01 May '03

01 May '03

Some observations on the nouns "Patriot", and "American" etc as they relate to current events. I'm not American. I'm dual-national British/Swiss, I've lived in Britain, Scotland, Canada and now the US. But I have not noticed anyone in Britain, or British press discussing "un-British" behavior, or putting down anyone attempting to ask questions as "un-patriotic". (Ditto for the other countries). Press coverage of Iraq is varyingly biased in those countries (ridiculously so in the US, somewhat in the UK due to their involvement). Opinion in the UK is split, but I don't see those on the pro-side of the fence arguing that those arguing against are unpatriotic or anything. They're just arguing too and fro about issues. Politicians were arguing on both sides and getting some air time. But in the US the issues are buried, it's difficult for detractors of the government line to be heard without getting shouted down as unpatriotic or unamerican. So I guess the American-way used to stand for something -- beliefs in freedoms etc., and that one symbol used historically to express support of those freedoms was the US flag. So I'm supposing this is the historic reason people fly flags, on their cars, houses, businesses etc. (A practice virtually non-existant in any other country I've lived in, or travelled to). But today it seems that the words Patriotic and American (in their negative forms un-American and un-patriotic as) have become sullied and perverted and essentially synonymous with: - unquestioning acceptance of the party line, of the military news-management - put down and outright aggression against anyone who dares to think for themselves, to ask critical questions, to express interest in the truth, or express any interest in hearing both sides of an argument In Britain the Union Jack flag to some extent got co-opted by racist political groups such as the National Front, British National Party. At least to the extent that wearing a t-shirt with a union jack on it might not convey the message you hoped -- particularly if you have a skin-head haircut. In a similar way to me at least the US flag is heading the same way with (different but negative) connotations of blind adherence to the party line. To me as a non-American all these flags fluttering as a symbol of the governmental and military groups who are currently eroding rights and freedoms in the US feels bizarre. The same rights and freedoms that apparently the same flag used to stand for. I guess there are some similarities with the negative cooption of the Union Jack symbol, but I'm wondering if in the US most of the flag flying population even noticed the switcheroo in connotation. Flag flying seems to be more popular than ever. Personally I'm somewhat on the fence about whether the US/British attack on Iraq will end up being a net positive or negative thing for world stability and safety. It was an illegal first strike action against a sovreign country, and it was a highly interventionist activity, but the outcome is less clearly bad though of course we don't know yet what the long term side-effects will be. Anyway I never liked patriotism. What's important in my book is thinking for yourself, thinking critically and forming your own opinions. The governments and prominent political parties in most western democracies are sleaze pits deserving only of contempt. And they are the entities most closely associated with and in control of the actions of a country on any large scale in the international arena. So to me patriotism was always synonymous with support for this system. A corrupt political system which needs to be replaced with anarcho-capitalism for things to get better. Adam

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RE: Quarantines may be justified
by Vincent Penquerc'h 01 May '03

01 May '03

> While we're at it, there should be a law against noisy kids playing Why is it that many people here get red faced whenever someone hints at their private property and can't even imagine that some people might have a slightly different view of the world they're in ? Why do you want private property ? You want it because it helps you live a better life, basically. So I'll pass the ownership of land (as it's a dumb concept but unfortunately unavoidable to enable the ownership of immobile goods (like what's built upon it)), so property rights are just a visible barrier people put between them and others. It makes perfect sense to imagine this barrier having a different geometry for other people. I, for one, am very annoyed at people who take a bath in perfume and seem to have destroyed their nose doing it for their lifetime. Anyway, the whole thing is trying to live a better life through a mix of interaction with others and separation from others. And property rights is just a way to attain this. Someone needn't start tinkering with your owned stuff to interact with you, be it in a way you like or not. Property rights are only a part of the notional barrier, which is really the barrier of where others' freedom stops and yours begin. And it's a fuzzy barrier at best. Property rights are just an attempt at codifying it, and not perfect, though sufficient in a variety of ways. <rant> And to get back to this moronic argument that says "if you don't like smoke, don't go downwind", have you fucking considered that maybe I *didn't* go downwind, but the fucking smoker went upwind of where I was ? </rant> -- Vincent Penquerc'h

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Re: Mike Hawash
by Declan McCullagh 01 May '03

01 May '03

On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 09:58:01AM -0400, Sunder wrote: > As for the hotel not having a record of him, it could be they misplaced > it, or more likely misspelled his name, etc, or he didn't want to be > tracked so he used Mike Smith... Also keep in mind that the evidence against Hawash re: his China trip largely came from Chinese government functionaries, who as we know from SARS are reliable exemplars of truthtelling at all times. -Declan

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Re: Mike Hawash
by Declan McCullagh 01 May '03

01 May '03

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 12:24:30PM -0400, Sunder wrote: > What trail? You think "Mike" will ever see the light of day? If there's > going to be a trial it will be in secret - by a kangaroo shadow court, and > it will be classified. If he's found innocent, then he'll probably be Actually, the judge seems better than many other members of the federal judiciary. Unlike other "material witness" cases in which judges permitted prisoners to be held for over a year without a trial, the judge gave the DOJ a deadline (this week) to decide what to do with Hawash. Well, now we know. -Declan

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NTSB can't explain Wellstone wetwork
by Major Variola (ret) 01 May '03

01 May '03

NTSB: Wellstone Crash Cause Still Unknown MINNEAPOLIS - A faulty landing beacon at the Eveleth airport cannot fully explain why the plane carrying Sen. Paul Wellstone crashed last year, killing him and seven others, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (news <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/searc…> - web sites <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search…>). http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030430/ap_on_go_co/brf_… .... Privacy's been dead for 30 years because we can't risk it. The only privacy left is the inside of your head. You think we're the end of democracy? I think we're democracy's last hope. Jon Voight as Thomas Brian Reynolds, NSA ENEMY OF THE STATE

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