April 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

E-mail lists choke on spam
by R. A. Hettinga 17 Apr '04

17 Apr '04

<http://news.com.com/2102-1038_3-5190826.html?tag=st.util.print> CNET News http://www.news.com/ E-mail lists choke on spam By John Borland Staff Writer, CNET News.com http://news.com.com/2100-1038-5190826.html Story last modified April 13, 2004, 1:36 PM PDT For close to half a decade, entertainment executives and copyright-averse college students have debated the future of technology side by side on the "Pho" e-mail list. Now that forum is under siege. Membership is falling, even though subscription requests are rising. In large part that's because so many e-mail addresses are choked with spam, or have fallen incommunicado behind bulk mail filters, and have had to be eliminated. Recently, whole companies--including Time Warner and CNET Networks, publisher of News.com--have periodically started bouncing the list's messages. That's not only frustrated subscribers who miss out on their daily dose of digital music dish; network administrators say they sometimes have to clear their servers of thousands of returned messages a day. ----- What's new: E-mail lists, long one of the most popular and useful online tools, are increasingly in danger of becoming collateral damage in the Net's war on unsolicited bulk mail. Bottom line: Many e-mail groups are responding by changing their format to Web-based bulletin boards or augmenting their discussions with RSS feeds, a popular content-distribution format used by bloggers and news sites. --------- Pho isn't alone. E-mail lists in general, long one of the most popular and useful online tools, are increasingly in danger of becoming collateral damage in the Net's war on unsolicited bulk mail. "Our cures for some of these diseases are boomeranging and killing us," said Jim Griffin, chief executive officer of Cherry Lane Digital and co-founder of the Pho list. "What we're discussing is the passing of a medium. It is alarming to me that one of the most basic features of the Net has been threatened so badly." It's far too early to write an obituary for e-mail lists. The 30-year-old medium has confronted crises before and has been reborn with the help of clever programmers and new technology. E-mail advocates say this process is already under way, as companies and list administrators figure out both how to keep spam under control without so much of an effect on mail lists and other desired e-mail messages. "In the early days of the Net, we built a nervous system, but nobody built an immune system," said Marc Smith, a sociologist who studies communities such as Usenet and e-mail groups for Microsoft's research division. "What we're seeing now is the emergence of an immune system." Nevertheless, it is undeniable that Pho and other groups are facing serious hurdles that could change the way the medium operates forever. It's almost impossible to estimate how broad the e-mail list community runs. Experts say there are certainly millions, perhaps tens of million of lists. They cover every conceivable topic, from the most arcane scientific topics to the most basely sexual. Some have only a few subscribers, while others have as many as tens of thousands. The growing problems are familiar to anyone with an e-mail box. The primary culprits are the avalanches of spam cluttering mailboxes with Viagra advertisements and XXX photos. The energy required to clear through that digital underbrush alone has taxed many people's patience for e-mail discussions, experts say. But the response to the spam assault also has helped undermine mail lists. Many people move e-mail addresses routinely, creating dead boxes that bounce messages back to list administrators. Many people use Web-based mailboxes for e-mail list subscriptions, and these can quickly fill up with spam or even legitimate messages, again bouncing messages back to their original servers, filling administrator mailboxes and requiring substantial time to review and clear. On the flip side are spam filters such as the popular SpamAssassin, used by many corporations. These routinely catch messages sent simultaneously to a large number of people, mistaking list messages for bulk advertisements. Subscribers have little or no way to tell that their mail is not getting through, or that, in some cases, they have been unsubscribed completely from a list. Faced with these growing issues, many e-mail groups are changing their format to Web-based bulletin boards or augmenting their discussions with RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, a popular content-distribution format used by bloggers and news sites. Internet pundit Clay Shirky, who teaches a graduate course in networking at New York University, said he's close to pulling the plug on his mailing list altogether in favor of RSS. "The viability of mail lists is rapidly declining," Shirky said. "Fewer people are reading in e-mail directly. It's getting clear that the ordinary Web plus RSS feeds are better." Periodic crises This isn't the first time e-mail lists have flirted with collapse, however. The first e-mail was sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971, a simple test message to himself. His message evolved almost immediately into broader discussions, although only a few remained active for long. By the close of the 1970s, there were 17 public e-mail discussion lists on the ARPAnet, the precursor to today's Internet. By 1982, there were 44, according to at least one account. Others were springing up by the dozens on private academic networks such as PLATO and BITNET. But as vibrant as these were, their own inefficiencies led to a crisis almost as dire as today's. At that time, lists were mostly run by hand, which meant that an actual human being had to respond to subscription requests and other problems. When these lists proliferated, it often took weeks for requests to be fulfilled. Adding to problems were traffic jams caused by the era's still-scarce bandwidth. Single messages were sent out to hundreds of addresses at a time, clogging transatlantic lines so badly that e-mails between Europe and the United States sometimes took a week to be delivered. Some people on the lists started discussing whether e-mail discussion groups should be banned altogether. The crisis soon passed, however. In 1986, a BITNET programmer in Paris named Eric Thomas wrote a tool called Listserv that automated the administrator's task of managing subscriptions. It also made message distribution more efficient, virtually eliminating the crippling traffic jams. The tool was quickly adopted elsewhere, and the number of e-mail lists on academic networks exploded. A half-decade later, an American programmer named Brent Thomas started looking around for tools to help automate Internet-based mailing lists. He found Listserv, but decided he could write a new one as quickly as he could learn the old tool, and in a week created a program called Majordomo and a scant 3,000 lines of code. Both tools are still widely used today. Over the ensuing decade, the shape of mailing lists has remained largely the same. Web-based services such as E-Groups, which Yahoo later bought and turned into Yahoo Groups, attracted hundreds of thousands of discussions, but the fundamental idea hasn't changed much. An Internet immune system That's why many in the e-mail list community think they'll survive, despite today's headaches. There is simply nothing that substitutes for the immediacy and simplicity of e-mail, advocates say. "I don't really see too many people dropping off lists," said Chapman, whose Great Circle Associates consulting firm still manages the Majordomo software. "Mailing lists serve a very valuable purpose. They come to you. Certain Web sites I do check, but you have to go check." Administrators are finding ways around the problems. Spam filters on list servers, and tools that ensure only list members can send to the list, help keep unwanted e-mail to a minimum. Automatic unsubscribe tools are helping reduce the amount of unwanted bounced messages. E-mail software itself is getting better at filtering messages into folders, so that all list messages can be segregated away from spam. Web mail services such as Yahoo and Hotmail also support this feature. Future-looking projects hold out hope of better improvements. Some programmers are working on pulling RSS and e-mail into the same interfaces, eliminating what appears to be competition between the mediums today. Others are looking at ways to help people wade through the morass of online discussions more easily. Microsoft's Smith has written about new interfaces that would help highlight important or heated conversations among thousands of messages, for example. These and other innovations, such as better tools to deal with the problems of spam and spam filters, will help keep e-mail lists and communities alive, he said. "Machines have gotten us into this problem, and they're going to have to get us out," Smith said. -- ----------------- 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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Usenet Dead. Film at 11
by R. A. Hettinga 17 Apr '04

17 Apr '04

<http://www.wcnc.com/sharedcontent/nationworld/nationprint/041704ccdrnatporn…> WCNC.com | News for Charlotte, N.C. | Nation/World Saturday April 17, 2004 8:09 p.m. Seized Web servers raise freedom concerns By DAVID B. CARUSO / Associated Press PHILADELPHIA - For $9.95 a month, a small company offered access to a search tool that would scour electronic bulletin boards for millions of "uncensored" movies and photographs and serve up "an all-you-can-eat taste of 'the Internet gone wild!"' Voicenet Communications executives said they didn't know users also were using their system to access child pornography until January, when authorities seized the computer servers that ran their "QuikVue" search program, a lawyer for the company said. Despite a burgeoning amount of online child pornography, prosecutors have been cautious in their handling of Internet companies that don't manufacture or distribute illegal content themselves, but do make it easier for customers to see material posted by others. The seizure of Voicenet's servers in suburban Ivyland was the first time a Pennsylvania law enforcement agency has stopped an Internet firm from facilitating access to child porn, lawyers said. No criminal charges have been filed but investigators said in court filings that they want to examine lists of QuikVue subscribers. It also was a rarity nationwide. Some free speech advocates have accused prosecutors of ignoring a federal law that generally protects Internet service providers from criminal liability when their systems are used to disseminate child pornography without their knowledge. Voicenet claimed in a federal lawsuit filed last month that QuikVue merely allowed customers to easily access files posted in discussion groups on Usenet, an enormous system of electronic bulletin boards. The company's attorney, Mark Sheppard, said the company had no control over what people posted to the groups, and was no more criminally liable for their actions than other hosts of Usenet material. "This case has very important implications, from a First Amendment standpoint and from a privacy standpoint," Sheppard said. "If Internet service providers are going to have to worry about getting their servers seized, then you have to wonder whether they can continue to offer access to Usenet." The firm asked a federal judge last week to order the government to return its equipment. Lawyers for Pennsylvania Attorney General Gerald Pappert and two county district attorneys involved in the investigation argued that the court should not intervene in an active criminal probe. The judge did not indicate when she would rule. The case has few precedents. Investigators in New York pressed criminal charges against a pair of Internet service providers in 1998 for allegedly failing to block access to Usenet groups that contained child pornography. One firm, Buffalo-based BuffNet, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of criminal facilitation in 2001 and paid a $5,000 fine. "The case helped establish that when an Internet service provider becomes aware of child pornography being on its system, it has an obligation to do something about it," said Paul Larrabee, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. A federal judge imposed a tougher penalty on a Texas couple convicted in 2000 of operating a service that gave subscribers passwords to overseas Web sites containing child pornography. A judge sentenced Thomas Reedy to life in prison. His wife, who helped run the business, got 14 years. Prosecutors said that even though the couple didn't post child pornography themselves, they knowingly facilitated access to it and shared their profits with the Web sites responsible for the illegal material. John Morris, an attorney with the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil liberties group, said companies like Voicenet can block access to improper Usenet content, but don't always know what people are posting on their system. "It's one thing to seize a server that is being used for a single Web site that is illegally serving up child pornography," Morris said. "But to go into an ISP and seize servers that have millions of postings on them that are perfectly lawful, with no real evidence that the ISP was intentionally doing anything criminal, is a much more questionable situation." --- On the Net: Voicenet Communications: http://www.voicenet.com Center for Democracy and Technology: http://www.cdt.org -- ----------------- 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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Re: Fortress America mans the ramparts
by Major Variola (ret) 17 Apr '04

17 Apr '04

At 08:54 AM 4/10/04 -0700, Steve Schear wrote: >> Wolfe is also scathing of steps taken post September 11 to protect >>airports. "It's not real security. This is eyewash security. This is for >>public consumption so that people think that they are doing something." > >Several years ago, on this list I belive, I coined a word to describe such >foolery - securisimilitude. "Security theatre" is perhaps as good, and fewer syllables besides. "Fortress America" might be "Maginot-Asylum America" more precisely. PS: what happens if your passport's chip doesn't work? Do you get sent back and the airline fined $10K? Do you wait extra time while the still-readable passport number indexes your record online? How much extra time? (Anyone have experience with domestic eg traffic pigs discovering that your magstrip is corrupted?) Are all chip biometrics encrypted with the same key? How much does that cost on BlackNet these days? How much extra should our Seals Flaps and Documents dept charge? ---- Do you need an air quality management district permit to burn hostages?

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Idea: Offshore gambling as gateway between real and electronic money
by Thomas Shaddack 17 Apr '04

17 Apr '04

Adoption of anonymous e-money is to great degree hindered by the lack of infrastructure to convert this currency to/from "meatspace" money. However, there is possible a method, using offshore gambling companies. There may be a special kind of "gamble", that looks from the "outside" like regular betting, but where the participants to certain degree know the betting results, allowing use of their "e-money" to gain insight into the "game" - using "meatspace" money as a bet and "e-money" to buy the knowledge of cards/numbers/whatever in the value of the e-money that allows a sure win of that amount. In other words: Without use of the e-money, the game is a "normal" game, with appropriate probability of win. With the e-money, the player can buy the 100%-certain win of a given value. Conversely, a "rigged game" with 0%-probability of win could be used for depositing the "real" money and converting them to "e-money". Is this approach possible? Is this approach feasible? Where are the hidden problems there?

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Sniper rifle implants tracking chip
by Poindexter＠SAFe-mail.net 17 Apr '04

17 Apr '04

I wonder if this site was put up for April 1st. http://www.backfire.dk/EMPIRENORTH/newsite/products_en001.htm also see their homeland security alert product http://www.backfire.dk/EMPIRENORTH/newsite/products_en002.htm

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Anonymity vs reputation question
by Thomas Shaddack 17 Apr '04

17 Apr '04

Thinking about something, I found an interesting problem. It is possible to set up a reputation-based system with nyms, where every nym is an identity with attached reputation. The problem is, a nym that exists for a long time can get its anonymity partially or fully compromised. Abandonment of the nym and using a blank one leads to loss of the reputation and related credibility. Is it possible to have a system where nyms can share reputation without divulging the links between them? That would allow the possibility of eg. publishing as a "new" identity while still having the "weight" of an already established seasoned professional. I suppose this problem is already known and maybe even solved. Am I correct?

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Vote Market
by Tim Benham 16 Apr '04

16 Apr '04

> Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:43:57 -0700 > From: Ed Gerck <egerck(a)nma.com> > Subject: Re: voting > > David Jablon wrote: > > I think Ed's criticism is off-target. Where is the "privacy problem" > > with Chaum receipts when Ed and others still have the freedom to refuse > > theirs or throw them away? > > The privacy, coercion, intimidation, vote selling and election integrity > problems begin with giving away a receipt that is linkable to a ballot. > > It is not relevant to the security problem whether a voter may destroy > his receipt, so that some receipts may disappear. What is relevant is > that voters may HAVE to keep their receipt or... suffer retaliation... > not get paid... lose their jobs... not get a promotion... etc. Also > relevant is that voters may WANT to keep their receipts, for the same > reasons. I think all this concern about voter coercion is rather overblown. Maybe we should ban bank statements because people might be coerced into showing them to someone and punished for hiding their money. Receipts might open up opportunities for voter coercion but there are mechanisms for combatting coercion other than coercive anonymity. What is missing in this discussion is mention of the benefits which would flow from making voter anonymity optional. Non-anonymous voting is a necessary precondition for a vote market. As I'm sure everyone on this list appreciates, markets work better than elections, and indeed, under a vote market system the negative externalities imposed on other markets by the electoral process would be mitigated. This is because unlike under the current system, under the vote market system the outcome would often be certain well in advance, greatly reducing the impact of political risk on markets. The vote market system would also offer a means for mitigating political risk via transparent market processes rather than the through the current rather slezy practises. There would be social dividends too. The people most likely to sell their vote would be poor people who would benefit from a new and regular source of income. The existence of a vote market would encourage these people, who often feel disenfranchised, to participate in the electoral system, albeit in a venal way. It would also help increase the average intelligence of the vote, because rich people and corporations are generally smarter than poor people. I commend the vote market to the list. cheers, Tim

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Re: Hierarchy, Force Monopoly, and Geodesic Societies
by Major Variola (ret) 16 Apr '04

16 Apr '04

At 01:56 PM 4/8/04 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >[Nanotechology at least holds out the possibility of making Von >Neumann machines, that is, switches which make copies of themselves, You mean Johnny's *replicators*, a vN machine is just one with a changable program store. But you mentioned Jared Diamond (and used the phrase "proto-cat") so you are forgiven. When a bunch of >these networks are hooked together, you get a ubiquitous geodesic >internetwork, the internet, Geodesic means shortest path, and you'll note if you play with tracert that the shortest path (as seen on Earth's surface) is rarely taken. What you really mean is "highly & cheaply connected", although your investment in the word "geodesic" is probably too far gone for you to change.

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RE: voting
by Trei, Peter 16 Apr '04

16 Apr '04

> Ed Gerck[SMTP:egerck@nma.com] > > John Kelsey wrote: > > > > At 11:05 AM 4/9/04 -0400, Trei, Peter wrote: > > .... > > >1. The use of receipts which a voter takes from the voting place to > 'verify' > > >that their vote was correctly included in the total opens the way for > voter > > >coercion. > > > > I think the VoteHere scheme and David Chaum's scheme both claim to solve > > this problem. The voting machine gives you a receipt that convinces you > > (based on other information you get) that your vote was counted as cast, > > but which doesn't leak any information at all about who you voted for to > > anyone else. Anyone can take that receipt, and prove to themselves that > > your vote was counted (if it was) or was not counted (if it wasn't). > > The flaw in *both* cases is that it reduces the level of privacy > protection > currently provided by paper ballots. > > Currently, voter privacy is absolute in the US and does not depend > even on the will of the courts. For example, there is no way for a > judge to assure that a voter under oath is telling the truth about how > they voted, or not. This effectively protects the secrecy of the ballot > and prevents coercion and intimidation in all cases. > > I'd pretty much dropped this topic after it became clear that Mr. Leichter's only response to the problems that people pointed out in VoteHere's scheme (in particular, its vulnerability to vote coercion, and lack of recountability) was to attempt to redefine them as non-problems. However, since the topic has arisen again..... Ed's got a very good point. I always prefer security which relies for its integrity on the laws of nature, rather than on people behaving with integrity. Peter Trei

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RE: US Brings Freedom of Expression to Iraq
by Major Variola (ret) 16 Apr '04

16 Apr '04

At 03:33 PM 4/15/04 -0400, Tyler Durden wrote: >Ah shit I hate hearing this. Is it possible to retroactively re-cast a >"terrorist" attack (eg, World Trade Center) into regular old, 'valid' >warfare? Bush policies seem to be doing this. We are freedom fighters. They are terrorists. Any questions? >Meanwhile, it seems Al Qaeda has offered some kind of bizarre 'treaty" to >the Europeans while hardening their stance on the US. SOunds like there >getting smarter... What is bizarre about offering a contract? "Get your filthy hands off my desert xor suffer for not doing same" The US said the same (with a more temperate piece of real estate) to the UK, once. Apparently some need to be reminded that gentlemen don't occupy other countries. There are comments in the oral contract which remind the populace that they suffer for the behavior of their "leaders". Its all very obvious. Osama, bless his naif little heart, even credits the populace with being rational, and with controlling the leaders. Obviously he's not paid close enough attention, but reception is poor in the hills. Maybe he thinks Spain's sensitivity is typical. Maybe the weeks leading up to the next US Election will be extra fun. Good luck getting any reasonable discussion about the truce in this country. There's also a PR value to other Moslems in offering a truce. And the morality of warning before acting. Maybe some stego value too, but that would be paranoid.

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