August 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Someone at the Pentagon read Shockwave Rider over the weekend
by Tim May 10 Aug '03

10 Aug '03

On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 11:49 AM, Trei, Peter wrote: >> Tim May[SMTP:timcmay@got.net] >> >> >> On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 09:26 AM, Bill Stewart wrote: >> >>> Also, NYT Article was >>> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/29/politics/29TERR.html?th >>> >>> But it sounds like they've chickened out, because various people >>> freaked >>> about the implications. (And they only got as far as it being >>> "an incentive to commit terrorism", without getting to >>> "a funding method for terrorism" or to "Assassination Politics".) >>> >>> >> >> Not to mention the obvious problems with letting government agents bid >> on things like when various unwanted foreign leaders would be >> assassinated. >> > Over on Dave Farber's IP list, it's been pointed out that there > is a pre-existing, live, real-money market in futures on these > types of events. Go over to www.tradesports.com, and click on > 'Current Events' under 'Trading Catagories' on the left. Drill down > and you'll find things like 'WMDs will be found in Iraq on or before > Sept 31', the value of which has dropped from 80 to 25 over the > last few months. Yes, a bunch of "ideas futures" markets have existed for nearly a decade. An acquaintance of mine, Robin Hanson, was actively promoting such things in the late 80s and may have been involved in some of the Extropians-type markets which arose a few years later (I recollect several efforts with varying degrees of success). And several years ago some companies actually tried to built real markets around these kinds of predictions. Maybe one of them is the "contract company" (pun intended) on this latest DARPA fantasy. The problem is not with the idea of using markets and bets and Bayesian logic to help do "price discovery" on things like when the Athlon-64 will actually reach consumers, or when the new King of Jordan will be whacked, and so on. The problem is, rather, with _government_ establishing a monopoly on such things while putting suckers like Jim Bell in jail basically for espousing such ideas. And, as I noted, there are significant problems with government employees in a betting pool (gee, aren't even office baseball pools technically illegal? Haven't they prosecuted some people for this? Yep, they have) where they also have control over the outcome. Jim Bell used this as a payoff mechanism for assassinations ("Alice bets $1000 that Paul Wolfowitz will be murdered with his family on August 10, 2003")...the same logic applies to the government's dead pool. --Tim May "That government is best which governs not at all." --Henry David Thoreau

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Re: How can you tell if your alarm company's...
by Major Variola (ret) 10 Aug '03

10 Aug '03

Spooks & Physical IDS: If you are specifying a "roll your own security system", you probably want to make a distinction between building an "alarm company" and a "physical intrusion detection and logging" system. With the former you're hoping to keep your items; with the latter you're trying to keep your infosec pristine, and the State Burglars will not take anything. That would look bad for the Alarm Company they work for (that you pay to keep your items). Car Alarms: If you have neighbors who can see your house, your homebrew security system can use either strobes to annoy or fake-flame-lighting to alarm them. Anon CopCalls: You could make an anon 911 call using an old unused cellphone ---the base stations will take a 911 without subscribing. You could use a dish to hit a distant cell. Though these are jammable. Best solution is personal IDS that stays quiet. Of course if you do log an intrusion you have to sanitize or leave the space. Keep the housecat away from the battery-powered ultrasound that cuts power to the red computer. ------- Talk softly and carry a big lawyer. ---Hunter S Roosevelt

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Terminating Arnold's Presidency
by Major Variola (ret) 10 Aug '03

10 Aug '03

At 07:42 PM 8/8/03 -0700, Eric Cordian wrote: >In response to a question about whether she would favor a Constitutional >amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, Maybe they'll screw up the specs (by omitting quantity) and make polyamory protected.. >Watch for this President Arnold movement to gather steam. Clinton wants to interpret the "only 2 terms" amendment as "consecutive terms". Sometimes you just have to thank the less-exercised Amerndments..

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Re: How can you tell if your alarm company's...
by John Young 10 Aug '03

10 Aug '03

The alarm and security specialists we've talked to claim the greatest threat to systems are authorized users: the property owners, their children, employees, servants, nearly all of whom fail to arm and disarm the system properly not matter how carefully instructed. A false alarm is feared by these users more than an attacker, for they are more often traumatized by an errant signal, and the outpouring of security personnel and police, than by an actual attacker. (Like the US security and law enforcement systems.) The security responders are so pissed, or so condescending, that the users are in a state of panic about the systems going off falsely. Answer to that is to leave the system off. And claim they forgot to arm it. Thus, self-censorship to keep the cops from attacking. Then there are panic room backups which freak the users due to its capability of killing them with false threats like the gentleman, Safra, was killed on the Mediterranean coast when he believed he was under attack as responders tried to rescue him. Responders are a genuine threat when they think you are an AIDS carrier. It's worth keeping in mind, that protective and security systems can do you great harm, like friendly fire and security agencies of all kinds -- banks, doctors, accountants, in-house guards, most trusted associates. Gun owners, and nations, being killed by their own weapons is a kissing cousin threat. Technology is a gun most often in the hands of those will to fire first then question who's there. WMDs are the biggest threat to the US and ilk, those owned by the panic-room trapped users. North Korea, say, or the Joint Chiefs, aided and abetted by the low-credibility spooks. Back to failure of home security systems: its the back-up batteries that don't get replaced, rather the monthly bill for service is neglected by wayward servants while the owner is vacationing on a yacht being tracked by IRS.

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Re: A 'Funky A.T.M.' Lets You Pay for Purchases Made Online
by Sampo Syreeni 10 Aug '03

10 Aug '03

On 2003-07-23, Sunder uttered: >If you want to do electronic payments that are non-anonymous you can >simply use a credit card or debit card (or something like paypal, egold), >or for larger quanitities you can do wire transfers - so why would we >need yet another a non-anonymous "cash" that isn't cash? I only objected to the notion that all digicash needs to be anonymous in order to be desirable. I didn't say this particular system amounts to desirable weak digicash. To that end it would likely make far more sense in the short term e.g. to marry Visa Electronic to PayPal. In the long term multiple cooperating PayPal-like entities could then be used to build mixnets, making the digicash strongly anonymous. As for Morlock Elloi's objection, what you have on your bank account *is* money, and debit cards simply a technological quirk which allows us to access it. Furthermore, any medium of indirect exchange is by definition money and at least Merriam-Webster defines cash as "ready money". So we might define cash as the most liquid form a money available. After that we can claim that in the presence of ubiquitous debit capability and a steadily growing aversion towards those using paper money, the latter is not in fact cash at all, but a less liquid cash (bits on a mainframe) substitute used when we're willing to pay a premium (in convenience and depreciation) for anonymity. -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:decoy@iki.fi, tel:+358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2

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On our oncoming future dystopia (fwd)
by Jim Choate 10 Aug '03

10 Aug '03

I'd say it pretty much hits the nail on the head, one of my favorite poems to boot. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10953 -- ____________________________________________________________________ We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, "Plan 9 from Outer Space" ravage(a)ssz.com jchoate(a)open-forge.org www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: President Terminator
by R. A. Hettinga 10 Aug '03

10 Aug '03

At 12:13 PM -0400 8/9/03, Sunder wrote: >As Reagan prooved, Or George Washington... Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- 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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President Terminator
by Eric Cordian 09 Aug '03

09 Aug '03

In response to a question about whether she would favor a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, a Fox Fake News Channel bimbo responded, "I want a Constitutional amendment so Arnold can be President." Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center has characterized Arnold as having "done more to further the cause of Holocaust awareness than almost any other Hollywood star." Rabbi Hier also points out that Arnold makes regular substantial constributions to the Wiesenthal Center, and has raised millions for the Holocaust Memorial Trust in Los Angeles. So how exactly, one might ask, does Arnold's view of America's Manifest Destiny to rule the world and his unconditional love of the Jewish people and Israel differ from Bush's view of America's Manifest Destiny to rule the world and his unconditional love of the Jewish people and Israel. Or the view of any other major Neocon? Watch for this President Arnold movement to gather steam. Who knows, once the naturally born restriction on Presidents is removed, Ariel Sharon could be the US President after Arnold, bringing the Neoconservative nonsense full circle. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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In the matter of Mr. Fuq
by Roy M. Silvernail 09 Aug '03

09 Aug '03

When I suggested a few weeks ago that someone would eventually argue for a constitutionally guaranteed right to be heard, members of the list both reminded me (quite correctly) that no such right does or can exist, and opined that because of the obvious fallacy of the claim, no one would make that argument. It would seem that Mencken [1] was correct, as well as Costello [2]. [1] http://www.bartleby.com/59/3/nooneeverwen.html [2] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/q108965.html

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Distributed Denial of Existence, the makings of an AP opportunity?
by Steve Schear 09 Aug '03

09 Aug '03

One of the most frequent sights on kuro5hin is that of one user or group of users complaining, often loudly and viciously, about another. One need not look very hard in order to find scores upon scores of users who absolutely loathe each other. Thanks to this pre-existing community of people who hate each other passionately, I believe that we stand on a potentially lucrative and far-reaching social experiment: the Distributed Denial of Existence. http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/7/31/16429/1028 A foolish Constitutional inconsistency is the hobgoblin of freedom, adored by judges and demagogue statesmen. - Steve Schear

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