July 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

A tiny bit of karma for BA
by Major Variola (ret.) 22 Jul '03

22 Jul '03

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030722/ts_afp/britain_… LONDON (AFP) - British Airways was battling to clear a backlog of frustrated passengers stranded at London's Heathrow Airport, some of whom had been stuck there for four days after a wildcat strike by check-in staff.

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A 'Funky A.T.M.' Lets You Pay for Purchases Made Online
by R. A. Hettinga 22 Jul '03

22 Jul '03

<http://nytimes.com/2003/07/21/technology/21PATE.html?pagewanted=print&posit…> The New York Times July 21, 2003 A 'Funky A.T.M.' Lets You Pay for Purchases Made Online By TERESA RIORDAN the 1997 science-fiction movie "The Velocity Trap," the interstellar banking system is so decimated by electronic crime that the only way to exchange money is in cold hard cash. Armored federal banking ships have to shuttle currency from planet to planet. Carl Amos, an inventor in Atlanta, also anticipates a return to the cash economy but without the computer-generated visual effects. Mr. Amos recently patented a way to pay for online transactions with bills and coins rather than credit or banking cards. "In upwards of three-quarters of the world, most money transactions are cash only," said Mr. Amos, who envisions a big market for his invention. Basically, what Mr. Amos has patented is a new combination of existing technologies. His patent, No. 6,554,184, covers a modified A.T.M. that not only dispenses money but, like a vending machine, accepts cash, which can be used to transfer money from one person to another or to pay for online purchases. "It's a method patent, a new way of doing business," Mr. Amos said. "These are off-the-shelf components. All I had to do was build the machine and write the software." Mr. Amos is a rare breed: an independent inventor who actually makes a living off his inventions. A former electrical engineer at I.B.M. , he left corporate life to develop his idea for a holographic lens. Since he patented the lens in 1994, he estimates, he has received about $1 million in royalties. Mr. Amos, one of six children, grew up on a farm in Ohio, where he set up his own skunk works in a shed. Not all his inventions were successful. One was a parachute to be worn while leaping off the garage. "I survived, obviously," Mr. Amos said. "My siblings survived, too, thank goodness." Mr. Amos said his latest invention, should it become widely available, would obviate the need for services provided by Western Union and other money-transfer companies. Another big market in the United States, Mr. Amos said, might be teenagers. Though they do not usually have their own credit cards, they usually have cash and are more than willing to spend it to download music or games. Mr. Amos also said his system should appeal to those who were worried about identity theft on the Internet or who simply wanted the privacy it provided. Gamblers may be interested in the technology. Many credit-card companies, for example, will not authorize payments to gambling sites. Nor will PayPal, the biggest third-party payment option on the Internet. Tom Turano, a law partner specializing in banking patents at Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault in Boston, called the invention a "cute idea." "It's like a funky A.T.M.," Mr. Turano said. But the patent itself, he said, is "fairly narrow" and may be easy for others to come up with similar inventions that do not infringe the patent. Mr. Amos, who is represented by a licensing firm in Connecticut, said he was approaching banks about licensing his patent. "Western Union and Moneygram haven't called me yet," Mr. Amos said. "But I don't expect them to." -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 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'

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I remind everybody to drink a bottle of wisky a day ...
by Mark Saarelainen 22 Jul '03

22 Jul '03

You get a kind ofa good feeling then.... Need a new email address that people can remember Check out the new EudoraMail at http://www.eudoramail.com

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RE: Cypherpunks archive
by Trei, Peter 22 Jul '03

22 Jul '03

I'd very much like to see the archives in a downloadable form. Peter > ---------- > From: Steve Furlong[SMTP:sfurlong@acmenet.net] > Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 8:12 PM > To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com > Subject: Re: Cypherpunks archive > > On Monday 21 July 2003 19:49, someone wrote: > > Can you make the raw mbox archive available, or do you have that? > > If it's less than about 200 meg, I can also receive it as an > > attachment, if you're sadistic with your mail server. > > Let me think about it, and maybe ask some of the list members. The HTML > that appears on the web page is sanitized a bit to prevent address > harvesting. Not that c-punks' addresses are that hard to obtain other > ways, but when I started the archive several people emphatically stated > that they wanted the sanitizing. > > Maybe I'll write a short script to sanitize the addresses in the mbox. > That'll take a while to develop, to make sure I don't miss anything and > because my spare time is limited for the next month and a half. > > If I do make the mboxes available, they'll be available as .gz's off my > top cypherpunks page. I'll post to the list if I do it. > > > List members: any preferences? > > > SRF > > -- > Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel > > "If someone is so fearful that, that they're going to start using > their weapons to protect their rights, makes me very nervous that > these people have these weapons at all!" -- Rep. Henry Waxman

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Re: Cypherpunks archive
by Steve Furlong 21 Jul '03

21 Jul '03

On Monday 21 July 2003 19:49, someone wrote: > Can you make the raw mbox archive available, or do you have that? > If it's less than about 200 meg, I can also receive it as an > attachment, if you're sadistic with your mail server. Let me think about it, and maybe ask some of the list members. The HTML that appears on the web page is sanitized a bit to prevent address harvesting. Not that c-punks' addresses are that hard to obtain other ways, but when I started the archive several people emphatically stated that they wanted the sanitizing. Maybe I'll write a short script to sanitize the addresses in the mbox. That'll take a while to develop, to make sure I don't miss anything and because my spare time is limited for the next month and a half. If I do make the mboxes available, they'll be available as .gz's off my top cypherpunks page. I'll post to the list if I do it. List members: any preferences? SRF -- Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel "If someone is so fearful that, that they're going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, makes me very nervous that these people have these weapons at all!" -- Rep. Henry Waxman

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Re: Defeating Optical Tempest will be easy...
by Major Variola (ret) 21 Jul '03

21 Jul '03

At 07:49 PM 7/21/03 +0100, Peter Fairbrother wrote: >a_b_sorbed. Absorb is a widely used word meaning 3to drink in, to soak up,2 >both literally and figuratively. Adsorb is a specialized technical term, >meaning only 3to collect a condensed gas or liquid on a surface.2 Thank you. Have a hard time keeping them straight. Probably a textual clue that will undermine my pseudo-anonymity some day :-) >The glass of CRT's absorbs so much of the X-rays that it might be hard to >detect a signal at all at any distance, but then the signal is not swamped >by noise from the not-immediately-illuminated areas, unlike the optical >emissions. Yes but anything that picks up the weak X-ray will be sensitive to other normal background ionizing. With a proportional counter like a scintillator/PMT combo, where you could discriminate different types of radiation on the basis of pulse height, but you'll be down in the photomultiplier tube's noise. And as a cosmic ray secondary slows down it can generate x-rays. Maybe if the Adversary is allowed cryogenic detectors in the next room over... he still has to deal with the attenuating coefficient for drywall, etc. And again, I think basically nothing gets through the glass. >"0.5 milliroentgens per hour at a distance of five (5) centimeters from any >point on the external surface of the receiver" is the US legal limit[*], and >low voltage (and thus very low x-ray emission) crt monitors are common now, >if not a de-facto standard. That's pretty hot, actually. A glass vial of 5 gms U Acetate is only twice that, a few mm from the alpha-window of a GM detector. And the broad face of a CRT means 1/R^2 doesn't apply until you get some distance away... more like 1/R for an infinite slab. >However, I expect shot noise to be a limiting factor here. Unfortunately, >the Roentgen is such a wierd unit it's not that easy to convert it to >photons and do the math! Since the signal is rastering at MHz, you can't very well integrate ionizing radiation over long times, as you could to say detect the betas coming out of a jar of salt substitute (potassium). Roentgens are defined as producing a certain amount of ionization in dry air. The photons doing the ionizing would range from the 10's of keV for X-rays to MeV for gammas. (Careful with that brightness control Eugene!) An ion pair takes about 37 eV to form. Compare with visible light's very small range, blue to red. >I use 180:210:210[**] (r:g:b) text on a 255:255:255 window background at >present, with very light wallpaper, though I speckle both slightly. It's a >little hard to read, but much better than some other suggested combinations. I hope you don't do this all the time... >[*]< Probably far too high for safety! Originally for TV's, where the >viewing distance is much higher. But most modern monitors will emit much >less than that. I hope! > As do TVs. Nowadays its the Radon daughters attracted to the charged glass that will be giving you your RDA (Radiation Daily Allowance.. RDA is a Yank FDA pun) Also some of the TV radiation was from HV tubes inside the box; that was solved by first using leaded glass (hack!) and then more elegantly by getting rid of tubes.

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Re: A day in the life...NY Times today
by Tyler Durden 21 Jul '03

21 Jul '03

"We have taken a real national resource, our youth, and trained them to act as mindless droids, devoid of even the minimum reasoning powers possessed by small insects, and I am, inexplicably, astounded." Hence the photo on the first page of today's NY Times. -TD >From: "J.A. Terranson" <measl(a)mfn.org> >To: cypherpunks(a)ssz.com >CC: antisocial(a)mfn.org >Subject: A day in the life >Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 16:07:58 -0500 (CDT) > >Well, summer is here, and I've just come off > two weeks without a day off, >so, I thought Itake this wonderful day, and use it like "normal" people >might. You know, a nice breakfast with my wife somewhere, maybe a little >casino time. The standard speil. But today turned out to be George Orwell >Day instead. > >Submitted for your inevitable nodding of heads, and grumbling of "well, of >course! What did you expect!" replies. > >Breakfast was kind of cool actually - thanks for asking. We trotted off to >the local Ameristar casino's Open Trough, er, "Buffet". The food was >universally overcooked, sometimes to the point of knife-resistance, but the >great dessert bar more than made up for it. And it's relatively >inexpensive. Recommended for when lots of food at a low price is all you >care about. Not recommended for impressing anyone with your gastronomic >knowledge ;-) > >After breakfast however, we decided to spend some time, and likely the >~300.00 we had on us, at their casino. Mind you, this may be the first >time >I've been to *this* casino, but it's nowhere *near* my first time in *any* >casino. This is far, far, FAR from the norms I'm used to. > >Like good little state-sponsored-units, we stood in line for a few minutes, >waiting to show our ID and begin our excersize in negative economics. When >our turn came, however, I presented my ID, and was met with a blank stare. > >She looked at the ID. She looked at me. Back to the ID. > >I'm getting ready for the SWAT team to make their entrance at this point. > >"Sir, Where's your Amerstar Winners Card"? >"Huh?" >"Don't you have a Winners Card?" >"I don't do loyalty cards. Thank you for thinking of me though." >"Sir, you can't get in without a Winners Card" > >So much for a day at the casino. Thank you Ameristar! You saved me about >$300.00 today. > >For those of you who are wondering, yes, you need detailed ID to get one of >their loyalty cards. And while I wasn't able to get in to verify what I >saw >standing in line, it looks like they track you table by table with these >cards. > >So, being $300.00 richer, and having worked for over two weeks without a >break, *and* being 250 miles over my oil-change limit, I figured, aw, you >know what I figured! > >Now, let me start off with some background here. I've gone to the same >mechanic for almost 6 years now - for tires, oil, you name it. The only >thing he doesn't get is the brakes, and then only cause my Subaru has some >kind of brakes-from-hell that even he says can't be serviced safely without >going to the dealer. > >This mechanic, who runs the shop for the local Dobb's chain, is great. >Never >had a problem. Never had to show ID either. Doesn't care if Telecheck >likes >me or not, he just takes the money, and gets my business. And he gets a >*lot* of it. His business is thriving, and he recently added 4 new bays to >his shop, and started taking Sundays off - hence, my problem. > >So, we took the scenic route home, figuring there would have to be a >oilchange shop somewhere along the way. And there were several. The first >two were closed, but finally, we found a JiffyLube open and waiting. With >two bays. And no line (baaaaddd sign on a wonderful day like this). But >I >*need* the damn oil change, so in we go. > >"Good Afternoon Sir. What can we help you with today?" >"Hi. Oil change please. Synthetic blend please. No extras, just an oil >change" >"Sure, leave the keys in the car, and step over to the counter, and John >will >be right with you". > >When I got out of the car, the kid who was going to do the actual work >wanted >to know if I had a loyalty card he could punch/swipe/whatever. Nope. > >"Well sir, just give me your name and address, and I'll get you a card". >"Thanks, but I don't want a card." >"They're absolutely free sir!" >"I know. Thanks, but I don't want a card" >"I can't change your oil without a card" >"You're kidding. Aren't you?" >"Sir, I need a card." >"John Smith. 123 Anywhere Street. Anycity, Arkasas. 12345". >"Phone?" > >I almost died laughing when he asked. I mean, where's Monty Python? >Behind >the storage shed? > >"314-555-1234" > >"Thank you sir. If you care to have a seat in the waiting room, we'll call >you when it's ready. > >Into the waiting room we go. With the little 8 inch TV mounted 12 feet in >the air, where nobody can actually see it, even though we have to listen to >it [at warp-volume]. There's some super overacted action-drama going on, >lot's of shooting, a car chase, and a guy jumping into an airplane which is >taking off - he jumped from a moving car to the plane - allin the ten >minutes >we were waiting. Thank god I threw out the television in '90. > >Finally, a guy comes out from the shop. > >"Sir, if you'll follow me, we can go over your car for a minute." > >This is the upsell - I can just see it coming. Wipers? Air filter? > >We walk over to a monitor sitting in this big red box made up to look like >a >diagnostic center. It's really just a sales terminal in a big red box, >sporting some pretty pictures of the products this guy is trying to talk >you >into buying. > >"Sir, would you like some engine cleaner? You should have it once a year." >"No, I just want the oil change. no wipers. No engine cleaners. Nothing >but an oil change" >"Sir. I'm just doing my job - I have to ask you all these questions, since >I >can't check you out and close out your ticket without asking." > >Yes, he is an automaton. He just can't take a blanket "no" and punch that >into each request, so we went down the whole list of radiator flushes, >transmission fluid checks and replacements, hoses, filters, etc. Finally, >*thankfully*, we're done: he tells me I can go to the register to pay. > >"Sir. The total comes to $46.00". As he says this, he notices that the >screen hasn't filled in my name, address, etc., from the swipe of the >loyalty >card. >"Sir, I need your last name." >"Terranson." >"Your first name?" >"Whatever makes you happy. Pick one." > >He looks lost. So lost. > >"John?" >"That's a nice name. Use it." >"Address?" >"123 Anywhere St." >He dutifully types it in... >"City?" >"Pick one." > >We wait. He looks at me waiting, looking even more lost and >confused. Finally, I can take it no more, and I blurt out an answer, >hoping >beyond hope that he'll "get it". > >"New Caledonia." >"State?" >"Mexico." >"Phone?" >"123-555-1234" > >"Sir, would you like a Jiffy Card for next time, so you won't have to wait >while we get this information? > >Oh god... > > >So I have seen two separate businesses today who are just shooting >themselves >in the head over the acquisition of data in the face of obvious >refusal. While the Jiffy Lube is the more obscene example from a >bang-for-the-buck perspective, the casino was (for me) the real >shocker: casinos have, from day one, been very careful to protect >privacy. You ever try to bring in a camera? Forget it! To have a casino >turn me away for lack of a loyalty card strikes me as, wel, preposterous! >I >cannot [literally] give you hundreds of dollars, asking nothing in return >but >a chance to gaze longingly at the asses of the floor wait staff, without >divulging my entire pedigree? Have we, as a society, completely lost all >touch with reality??? > >Those poor kids at the Jiffy Lube - obviously they *have* to get this data >for the corporate office, but they too exhibit an amazing amount of >programming here. Not *one* of them had enough of a clear head to simply >fill in "refused", or "John Smith" on his own. We have taken a real >national >resource, our youth, and trained them to act as mindless droids, devoid of >even the minimum reasoning powers possessed by small insects, and I am, >inexplicably, astounded. > >I am what anyone with an IQ of 12 or higher would call a hard core >cynic. But even I am surprised. Appalled even. And oddly embarrassed to >find that things are not as bad as I constantly claim, but they are *worse* >- >MUCH worse than that. They are... I don't *know* what they are - but >whatever it is, it is truly fucking evil... > > >-- >Yours, >J.A. Terranson >sysadmin(a)mfn.org > > "Every living thing dies alone." > Donnie Darko _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail

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<nettime> Help Wanted: Internet Spy
by R. A. Hettinga 21 Jul '03

21 Jul '03

--- begin forwarded text

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Re: Defeating Optical Tempest will be easy...
by Major Variola (ret) 21 Jul '03

21 Jul '03

At 02:17 AM 7/21/03 +0200, Thomas Shaddack wrote: >On Sat, 19 Jul 2003, Tyler Durden wrote: >There is some minuscule proportion of X-rays produced by CRT displays. Produced by the ebeam decelerating on the shadow mask, but adsorbed by the glass.

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A day in the life
by J.A. Terranson 21 Jul '03

21 Jul '03

Well, summer is here, and I've just come off > two weeks without a day off, so, I thought Itake this wonderful day, and use it like "normal" people might. You know, a nice breakfast with my wife somewhere, maybe a little casino time. The standard speil. But today turned out to be George Orwell Day instead. Submitted for your inevitable nodding of heads, and grumbling of "well, of course! What did you expect!" replies. Breakfast was kind of cool actually - thanks for asking. We trotted off to the local Ameristar casino's Open Trough, er, "Buffet". The food was universally overcooked, sometimes to the point of knife-resistance, but the great dessert bar more than made up for it. And it's relatively inexpensive. Recommended for when lots of food at a low price is all you care about. Not recommended for impressing anyone with your gastronomic knowledge ;-) After breakfast however, we decided to spend some time, and likely the ~300.00 we had on us, at their casino. Mind you, this may be the first time I've been to *this* casino, but it's nowhere *near* my first time in *any* casino. This is far, far, FAR from the norms I'm used to. Like good little state-sponsored-units, we stood in line for a few minutes, waiting to show our ID and begin our excersize in negative economics. When our turn came, however, I presented my ID, and was met with a blank stare. She looked at the ID. She looked at me. Back to the ID. I'm getting ready for the SWAT team to make their entrance at this point. "Sir, Where's your Amerstar Winners Card"? "Huh?" "Don't you have a Winners Card?" "I don't do loyalty cards. Thank you for thinking of me though." "Sir, you can't get in without a Winners Card" So much for a day at the casino. Thank you Ameristar! You saved me about $300.00 today. For those of you who are wondering, yes, you need detailed ID to get one of their loyalty cards. And while I wasn't able to get in to verify what I saw standing in line, it looks like they track you table by table with these cards. So, being $300.00 richer, and having worked for over two weeks without a break, *and* being 250 miles over my oil-change limit, I figured, aw, you know what I figured! Now, let me start off with some background here. I've gone to the same mechanic for almost 6 years now - for tires, oil, you name it. The only thing he doesn't get is the brakes, and then only cause my Subaru has some kind of brakes-from-hell that even he says can't be serviced safely without going to the dealer. This mechanic, who runs the shop for the local Dobb's chain, is great. Never had a problem. Never had to show ID either. Doesn't care if Telecheck likes me or not, he just takes the money, and gets my business. And he gets a *lot* of it. His business is thriving, and he recently added 4 new bays to his shop, and started taking Sundays off - hence, my problem. So, we took the scenic route home, figuring there would have to be a oilchange shop somewhere along the way. And there were several. The first two were closed, but finally, we found a JiffyLube open and waiting. With two bays. And no line (baaaaddd sign on a wonderful day like this). But I *need* the damn oil change, so in we go. "Good Afternoon Sir. What can we help you with today?" "Hi. Oil change please. Synthetic blend please. No extras, just an oil change" "Sure, leave the keys in the car, and step over to the counter, and John will be right with you". When I got out of the car, the kid who was going to do the actual work wanted to know if I had a loyalty card he could punch/swipe/whatever. Nope. "Well sir, just give me your name and address, and I'll get you a card". "Thanks, but I don't want a card." "They're absolutely free sir!" "I know. Thanks, but I don't want a card" "I can't change your oil without a card" "You're kidding. Aren't you?" "Sir, I need a card." "John Smith. 123 Anywhere Street. Anycity, Arkasas. 12345". "Phone?" I almost died laughing when he asked. I mean, where's Monty Python? Behind the storage shed? "314-555-1234" "Thank you sir. If you care to have a seat in the waiting room, we'll call you when it's ready. Into the waiting room we go. With the little 8 inch TV mounted 12 feet in the air, where nobody can actually see it, even though we have to listen to it [at warp-volume]. There's some super overacted action-drama going on, lot's of shooting, a car chase, and a guy jumping into an airplane which is taking off - he jumped from a moving car to the plane - allin the ten minutes we were waiting. Thank god I threw out the television in '90. Finally, a guy comes out from the shop. "Sir, if you'll follow me, we can go over your car for a minute." This is the upsell - I can just see it coming. Wipers? Air filter? We walk over to a monitor sitting in this big red box made up to look like a diagnostic center. It's really just a sales terminal in a big red box, sporting some pretty pictures of the products this guy is trying to talk you into buying. "Sir, would you like some engine cleaner? You should have it once a year." "No, I just want the oil change. no wipers. No engine cleaners. Nothing but an oil change" "Sir. I'm just doing my job - I have to ask you all these questions, since I can't check you out and close out your ticket without asking." Yes, he is an automaton. He just can't take a blanket "no" and punch that into each request, so we went down the whole list of radiator flushes, transmission fluid checks and replacements, hoses, filters, etc. Finally, *thankfully*, we're done: he tells me I can go to the register to pay. "Sir. The total comes to $46.00". As he says this, he notices that the screen hasn't filled in my name, address, etc., from the swipe of the loyalty card. "Sir, I need your last name." "Terranson." "Your first name?" "Whatever makes you happy. Pick one." He looks lost. So lost. "John?" "That's a nice name. Use it." "Address?" "123 Anywhere St." He dutifully types it in... "City?" "Pick one." We wait. He looks at me waiting, looking even more lost and confused. Finally, I can take it no more, and I blurt out an answer, hoping beyond hope that he'll "get it". "New Caledonia." "State?" "Mexico." "Phone?" "123-555-1234" "Sir, would you like a Jiffy Card for next time, so you won't have to wait while we get this information? Oh god... So I have seen two separate businesses today who are just shooting themselves in the head over the acquisition of data in the face of obvious refusal. While the Jiffy Lube is the more obscene example from a bang-for-the-buck perspective, the casino was (for me) the real shocker: casinos have, from day one, been very careful to protect privacy. You ever try to bring in a camera? Forget it! To have a casino turn me away for lack of a loyalty card strikes me as, wel, preposterous! I cannot [literally] give you hundreds of dollars, asking nothing in return but a chance to gaze longingly at the asses of the floor wait staff, without divulging my entire pedigree? Have we, as a society, completely lost all touch with reality??? Those poor kids at the Jiffy Lube - obviously they *have* to get this data for the corporate office, but they too exhibit an amazing amount of programming here. Not *one* of them had enough of a clear head to simply fill in "refused", or "John Smith" on his own. We have taken a real national resource, our youth, and trained them to act as mindless droids, devoid of even the minimum reasoning powers possessed by small insects, and I am, inexplicably, astounded. I am what anyone with an IQ of 12 or higher would call a hard core cynic. But even I am surprised. Appalled even. And oddly embarrassed to find that things are not as bad as I constantly claim, but they are *worse* - MUCH worse than that. They are... I don't *know* what they are - but whatever it is, it is truly fucking evil... -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin(a)mfn.org "Every living thing dies alone." Donnie Darko

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