January 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

test 1
by Riad S. Wahby 22 Jan '04

22 Jan '04

1 -- Riad Wahby rsw(a)jfet.org MIT VI-2 M.Eng

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test 2
by Riad S. Wahby 22 Jan '04

22 Jan '04

test 2 -- Riad Wahby rsw(a)jfet.org MIT VI-2 M.Eng

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LNE CDR shutting down now
by Eric Murray 15 Jan '04

15 Jan '04

The LNE node of the cypherpunks list will be shut down after this message. If you want to stay on cypherpunks you'll need to subscribe to another node. http://www.lne.com/cpunk/ has a list of CDRs. Eric

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RE: Quartering soldiers
by John Washburn 15 Jan '04

15 Jan '04

I was incorrect. No case has come before the US supreme court on Quartering. The case I was remembering was New Mexican case where the quartering issues were never addressed as part of the dismissal. So, the point was raised but the state court decline to consider the argument. The only federal case is district 2's Engblom v Carey. That case hinged on whether Engblom (as a resident of a dorm-like room within the prison) had sufficient control of the premise to be an "Owner". The ruling was maybe Engblom was an Owner maybe he was not. The case was remanded back to the district court so a trial court could decide the material fact of whether Engblom was or was not an Owner. The only state where quartering any agent of the state is expressly forbidden is Louisiana. The state constitution states: "No person shall be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner or lawful occupant." This would include all agents of the state (federal, state or local) as well as any other person quartered by government fiat. (such as any FEMA refuges quartered at the local private school gymnasium) It applies to fee simple owners and tenants. It covers both peace time and war. The only restriction would be the question: "Is a place of business a "House" for the purposes of the law?" Fourth amendment cases (secure in papers, person and house) would seem to provide the framework that a "House" is more than a residence for constitutional interpretation. So I think this means that a person desiring to provide a carnivore-free ISP should locate the server in Louisiana in a literal house you own or rent. But, even then you get to be the guy/gal who gets to litigate the first case. See the compressive article on quartering at: <http://www.tomwbell.com/writings/3rd.html> http://www.tomwbell.com/writings/3rd.html -----Original Message----- From: bgt [mailto:bgt@chrootlabs.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 1:45 PM To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com Subject: Quartering soldiers On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 12:48, Tim May wrote: > On Jan 13, 2004, at 8:41 AM, Steve Schear wrote: > > > At 11:23 PM 1/12/2004, Tim May wrote: > >> "But if I own a computer and I rent out accounts to others and the FBI > >> comes to me and says "We are putting a Carnivore computer in your > >> place," how else can this be interpreted _except_ as a violation of > >> the Third?" > >> > The pure form of the Third (in this abstract sense) is when government > knocks on one's door and says "Here is something you must put inside > your house." For this to make sense, we have to interpret Soldier to mean not just agents of the armed forces (military), it has to mean law-enforcement as well. I can accept the idea of abstracting the Third beyond humans to software/hardware agents, etc... but I'm not so sure about the military vs. law enforcement distinction. Can anyone point me to some founder's writings that may help support the interpretation of Soldier to mean any agent of the government? Even if we did extend the Third to mean law-enforcement... since Congress has repeatedly ceded their authority to determine when the country was "in a time of war" to the Executive, and as such we are now in a perpetual time of war, any quartering has to be prescribed by law, rather than prohibited outright. For these reasons, I have to agree with Tim's earlier referenced post, to the effect of "the only solutions now available are Technology and Terrorism." > By the way, there have been a bunch of cases where residents of a > neighborhood were ordered to leave so that SWAT teams could be in their > houses to monitor a nearby house where a hostage situation had > developed. (It is possible that in each house they occupied they > received uncoerced permission to occupy the houses, but I don't think > this was always the case; however, I can't cite a concrete case of > this. Maybe Lexis has one.) > > If this takeover of houses to launch a raid is not a "black letter law" > case of the government quartering troops in residences, nothing is. > Exigent circumstance, perhaps, but so was King George's need to quarter > his troops. I think someone in this case would have a much better argument for a Fourth amendment violation (unreasonable seizure of their home, albeit temporarily), though probably, today, still unsuccessful in a court. --bgt

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RE: Quantum Loop Gravity Be For Whitey
by Tyler Durden 14 Jan '04

14 Jan '04

Well I be darned if Mr May hasn't inspired a major burst of eloquence, between this response and Mr Young's. As for this comment: "Schools don't educate, but merely serve as a filter for employers to locate those individuals who aren't going to make trouble at the factory." At best. In the inner cities the function of schools is strongly hinted at by the following well-used phrase: "Stay In School!" In other words, schools keep the crime rates down, as is a well-known statistic. They are basically storage facilities. For real schools we white folks with $$$ can move out to the suburbs or send our kids to private school. As for, >Nonetheless, I think we do such people a disservice when we attribute >their dislike of the education business to some sort of culturally >ingrained sloth, and characterize them as looking to live on handouts of >other peoples tax money. I basically agree with this, though no doubt there are "Leaders" that play on this (and the latent laziness of all teeneagers) to a tune similar to what May is saying. But in most cases, even "good" schools are a joke, and black folks at least realize this. Did anyone notice that there's only 1 or 2 states in the nation that still require Regents endorsements? I'll tell you a story. Back in the late 1980s I taught at a notorious HS in Bedford Stuyvesant. 90% of my students were black. I regarded few of them as stupid, but almost none of them saw the point of studying math...they just didn't see how it could benefit them, and they said this to me on a regular basis. In one class I had some relatively young and non-troublemaking students. I told them from the beginning that I would not slip the standards so they could pass...they HAD to do homework in order to pass, as that would be the only way they could practice enough for the tests. For the first couple of tests all of the non-immigrant black kids failed. But I hammered them and told them it was going to continue like this unless they did the homework and studied. I made it absolutely clear what I expected from them. By the end of the semester most of the kids were doing their homework, and passing the quizzes and tests, which I did not make easier in any way. I remember Willie Horne coming in before a test and "complaining" "Mr Durden, I STUDIED last night!". I reached out to feel his forehead and said "Willie? Are you feelin' alright?" Of course, he pulled back and stifled a smile, but he got a 90. -TD >From: Eric Cordian <emc(a)artifact.psychedelic.net> >To: cypherpunks(a)minder.net >Subject: Quantum Loop Gravity Be For Whitey >Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 00:14:10 -0800 (PST) > >Tim May observes: > > > Meanwhile, the "black folk" kept listening to Rev. Jess Jackson and > > Rev. Al Sharpton tell them that they were owed reparations, that they > > were owed a series of "entitlements." No suprise that a large fraction > > of negro teens subscribe to the view that "reading be for whitey." In > > fact, negroes have invented a whole series of insult terms for those > > who study too much, for those who break out of the "field worker" > > status: Uncle Toms, Oreos, etc. > > > Imagine where the Asians would be if Asian kids who did well in science > > and math were taunted as race traitors? > > > "Math be for whitey. Reading be for whitey. We be owed repa-ations for > > diskiminashun!!" > >In the real world, a society can not consist 100% of chip designers. It >also requires cooks, toilet and floor scrubbers, and people who lug >concrete in wheelbarrows up stairs. > >This is no problem in a society with an explicit class system. You just >assign jobs to people based on their social class, with the untouchables >getting the shit-hauling and scrubbing jobs, and the more attractive jobs >going to their betters. Some countries, like the US and Japan, have as a >part of their political doctrine that everyone has the opportunity to be >wealthy and successful, so they can't openly have a class system. Of >course, they still need one to determine who gets the shit-hauling jobs, >and the usual method of doing this is to hide the class system in the >education system. Now you don't get the shit-hauling job because you are >an untouchable. You get it because you "didn't do well" in school, or >you "dropped out, and "you could have been successful if you had just >tried harder." > >Of course, it's a zero sum game. The bottom X% will always be >shit-haulers, and the school is just making the proles fight with each >other over who those shit-haulers will be. The fact is that the society >can't make everyone successful, and the success of the few is at the >expense of the failure of the many, determined by the uncompensated rat >race and endless toil on the wheel of public education. > >The US is an excellent example of this. The AFT and NEA together are the >biggest labor organization in the country. THe school system functions >not to educate, but as a tool of inculcation in collectivist thinking, and >a awarder of certificates which give one the right to work. > >Schools don't educate, but merely serve as a filter for employers to >locate those individuals who aren't going to make trouble at the factory. > >A well known experiment is to take some 10th graders, and divide them >randomly into two groups. Send one to college, and make the others finish >the remaining two years of high school. THere will be no statistically >significant difference in their college performance, thus demonstrating >that public schools do not teach, but merely act as filters through which >only the most talented and sociable can pass. > >Now, minorities in this country, including almost all Asians, and quite a >few blacks, have gotten with this program that "education is the way out >of poverty," and have successfully turned the vicious education-based >class system to their advantage, by trying to beat the dominant class at >their own game, with varying degrees of success. This has required them >to refrain from criticizing the system itself, because no one wins a >beauty contest by having a bad attitude. > >I think that mentality is changing, and when you hear comments like >"Reading be for whitey," what is being said is not that literacy and >calculus and physics and chemistry are bad, in and of themselves, but that >a system which rewards only "getting ahead by playing along" is not a >arena in which these people choose to compete. > >Learning by doing is always vastly superior to learning by listening to >someone else talk about doing. > >Now in a world where most jobs are not skilled people individually >producing something in demand, but are the very lowest form of >commoditized labor, the opportunity to screw such dissenters probably >exceeds their ability to avoid being sent made to the back of the line. > >Nonetheless, I think we do such people a disservice when we attribute >their dislike of the education business to some sort of culturally >ingrained sloth, and characterize them as looking to live on handouts of >other peoples tax money. > >-- >Eric Michael Cordian 0+ >O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division >"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law" _________________________________________________________________ Have fun customizing MSN Messenger learn how here! http://www.msnmessenger-download.com/tracking/reach_customize

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Re: Quartering soldiers
by BillyGOTO 14 Jan '04

14 Jan '04

On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 03:59:35PM -0600, John Washburn wrote: > I seem to recall a case where a land owner used the third amendment to > refuse and block rent-free occupation of his land by the Border Patrol. > His land was bounded on the south by the Mexican/US border. > > This case (mid-70's)already makes the generalization from military to > agents of the state. > > I will try to find the citation. If found it will be posted. Reminds me of my favorite billboard ever! "Support Our Troops... At Home and Abroad" http://www.nycpba.org/tadam/03/tadam-030428-billboard.html | While the U.S. military is being asked to act more like police officers, | collaring bank robbers and otherwise keeping the peace in Baghdad and | other Iraqi locales, we police officers have to think and act more like | the military as we continue to fight the war against terrorism. The bond | between wearers of the uniform both military and police has never been | stronger. This is why we launched this outdoor display advertising | campaign. And remember, you can't spell Troops without OOPS!

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RE: Quartering soldiers
by John Washburn 14 Jan '04

14 Jan '04

I seem to recall a case where a land owner used the third amendment to refuse and block rent-free occupation of his land by the Border Patrol. His land was bounded on the south by the Mexican/US border. This case (mid-70's)already makes the generalization from military to agents of the state. I will try to find the citation. If found it will be posted. -----Original Message----- From: bgt [mailto:bgt@chrootlabs.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 1:45 PM To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com Subject: Quartering soldiers On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 12:48, Tim May wrote: > On Jan 13, 2004, at 8:41 AM, Steve Schear wrote: > > > At 11:23 PM 1/12/2004, Tim May wrote: > >> "But if I own a computer and I rent out accounts to others and the FBI > >> comes to me and says "We are putting a Carnivore computer in your > >> place," how else can this be interpreted _except_ as a violation of > >> the Third?" > >> > The pure form of the Third (in this abstract sense) is when government > knocks on one's door and says "Here is something you must put inside > your house." For this to make sense, we have to interpret Soldier to mean not just agents of the armed forces (military), it has to mean law-enforcement as well. I can accept the idea of abstracting the Third beyond humans to software/hardware agents, etc... but I'm not so sure about the military vs. law enforcement distinction. Can anyone point me to some founder's writings that may help support the interpretation of Soldier to mean any agent of the government? Even if we did extend the Third to mean law-enforcement... since Congress has repeatedly ceded their authority to determine when the country was "in a time of war" to the Executive, and as such we are now in a perpetual time of war, any quartering has to be prescribed by law, rather than prohibited outright. For these reasons, I have to agree with Tim's earlier referenced post, to the effect of "the only solutions now available are Technology and Terrorism." > By the way, there have been a bunch of cases where residents of a > neighborhood were ordered to leave so that SWAT teams could be in their > houses to monitor a nearby house where a hostage situation had > developed. (It is possible that in each house they occupied they > received uncoerced permission to occupy the houses, but I don't think > this was always the case; however, I can't cite a concrete case of > this. Maybe Lexis has one.) > > If this takeover of houses to launch a raid is not a "black letter law" > case of the government quartering troops in residences, nothing is. > Exigent circumstance, perhaps, but so was King George's need to quarter > his troops. I think someone in this case would have a much better argument for a Fourth amendment violation (unreasonable seizure of their home, albeit temporarily), though probably, today, still unsuccessful in a court. --bgt

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P2P + Instant Messaging = WASTE
by Tyler Durden 14 Jan '04

14 Jan '04

Here's an article off the Lightreading website. Probably nothing new for this list, but it does bring together a number of interesting ideas. Are we seeing the birth of blacknet here? And now imagining adding telephony to Blacknet... -TD Two of the hottest applications in networking -- peer-to-peer networks and instant messaging -- are being combined in the form of private P2P networks that are taking shape in the more secretive corners of the Internet, industry insiders say. The most popular software for creating these private networks is WASTE, which enables anyone with a computer and a Net connection to set up a private peer-to-peer network over the Internet. Between the FBI and the Justice Department and the Record Industry of America Association cracking down on file sharing, it was only a matter of time before users found a more secure, private way to swap software and music, says Brian Bruns, security administrator at SOSDG (Summit Open Source Development Group). The SOSDG hosts one of about 30 different sites where the WASTE software can be downloaded for free. WASTE differs from P2P networks like Kazaa and Limewire as it creates a closed network for instant messaging and file-sharing with trusted users. The person running the network has to swap a key with potential users before they are allowed on the network. An encryption layer is then set up between two computers using private keys to authenticate the parties. Up to 50 people can be on one network. There are thousands of copies out there, but theres no way to tell exactly how many people are using it, as its designed to be secure, says Bruns. WASTE was developed a year ago by developer Justin Frankel, founder of Nullsoft. AOL (NYSE: TWX - message board) acquired Nullsoft for its Winamp MP3 software, and while Frankel was with the company he wrote WASTE. However it was deemed to be an unauthorized project, according to Bruns, and AOL yanked it. Michael Gartenberg, analyst with Jupiter Research Ltd., says anything believed to encourage illegal file sharing would have a major black mark against it, which is probably why AOL scrapped the project after posting it on a site for one day. He says the crackdown by the RIAA on illegal file sharing has fueled the distribution of this software. The more consequences there are for actions, the more the activity is driven underground Criminals dont hold public meetings, Gartenberg says. Its a way to chat without having someone watching you, says Bruns. His open source group took a copy of the entire WASTE site as it was posted on AOL, and stored it away for future use. It has since been distributed widely, including to SourceForge, which has worked on improving the original code. Gartenberg notes that WASTE is unlikely to reach the lofty heights of fame achieved by Kazaa, which has been downloaded over 200 million times. With WASTE you have to know someone in the network, it closes down the number of people available, he says. Still, the concept of private or personal P2P networks might still find its way into the mainstream, courtesy of Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - message board). The software giant is trialing a program called www.threedegrees.com (nothing to do with the 70s pop divas, it seems), which allows users to create small private networks of up to 10 people to exchange instant messages, animations, pictures and music. Right now the software is part of Microsofts NetGen division, which aims to develop products aimed at 13- to 24-year-olds, but there are broader implications for this product within the corporate world. Think of workgroups collaborating on documents or powerpoint presentations. Microsoft had not returned calls for comment by press time. Jo Maitland, Senior Editor, Boardwatch _________________________________________________________________ High-speed usersbe more efficient online with the new MSN Premium Internet Software. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=byoa/prem&ST=1

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US Finally Kills The 2nd Ammendment
by Nostradumbass＠SAFe-mail.net 14 Jan '04

14 Jan '04

The great American experiment finally fizzled on December 1, 2003, when the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a 9th Federal Circuit decision which gutted the Second Amendment. It was a nice run - over two hundred years. As of December 1, 2003, the US Supreme Court issued its ruling, refusing to hear an appeal in the case of Silveira vs. Lockyer. That made Silveira the law of the land, you see. You might think that the Silveria case was about the definition of an b assault weaponb but youbd be mistaken. In Silveira, the 9th Circuit Court made the following pronouncement: there is no individual right to bear arms contained within the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. That means that no American citizen, since December 1, 2003, has a fundamental right to possess a firearm. http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/columns/arms.htm http://www.keepandbeararms.com/Mancus/silveira.asp Gun enthusiasts (especially those who are members of the National Rifle Association http://www.nra.org and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership http://www.jpfo.org) may have now reached a crossroads. They have spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying politicians and the public to support their view that in the US the right to own firearms is granted to individuals and not state militias (a view I completely support). But now, with the Supreme Court refusing to hear their appeal of the 9th Circuit decision in Silveira v. Lockyer, they are faced with the likelihood that Congress and state leglislatures will feel free to further restrict gun ownership, perhaps even eliminate it over time, as has happened in other countries. Further appeals to Congress and the states are no longer a sure bet. The soap box and the ballot box have been throughly tried, is it now time to get out the ammo box?

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Hand-Held Device for DVD Movies Raises Legal Issues
by Steve Schear 14 Jan '04

14 Jan '04

Hand-Held Device for DVD Movies Raises Legal Issues PARIS -- Hollywood's bid to control how its movies are copied, stored and played is being tested by an unlikely source: a former French oil engineer in an out-of-the-way Paris suburb, Wednesday's Wall Street Journal reported. Henri Crohas's company, Archos SA, makes a small hand-held device, like a bulky Palm Pilot, that can record and then play back scores of movies, TV shows and digital photos on its color screen or a TV set. The gadget -- which in effect does to movies what Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod does to music -- already has sold 100,000 units world-wide during the past six months, beating the big consumer electronics makers to the U.S. market. Archos's device, which costs about $500 to $900 depending on the model, ignores an anticopying code found on a majority of prerecorded DVDs. That means consumers can plug the Archos device into a DVD player and transfer a movie to it. Users also can transfer recorded TV programs and digital music files to the Archos device. The Archos uses a video compression standard called MPEG-4 to cram as many as 320 hours of video at near-DVD quality onto its hard drive, the company says -- the equivalent of 160 two-hour movies. A second kind of anticopying protection thwarts users from recording a playable copy of a DVD movie onto the hard-drive of a personal computer and then onto the Archos. But videos can be transferred from the Archos to a PC, where they could be burned onto a DVD or sent over the Internet, though that would likely violate copyright laws. The gadgets alone aren't likely to spawn a Napster-style boom in online film piracy. Already, scofflaws with a PC equipped with a DVD player and special software can rip off films and share them over the Internet. And the process is slow: It takes as long to copy a DVD movie to the Archos device as it does to watch the movie. Still, Mr. Crohas and his 150-employee team at Archos ( pronounced AR kos) present a fresh headache for Hollywood because they show how the industry's campaign to keep control of its films could be challenged by small players. Wall Street Journal Staff Reporters Kevin J. Delaney and Bruce Orwall contributed to this article.

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