May 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

The Liberty Dollar
by Gary Jeffers 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

My fellow Cypherpunks, The Liberty Dollar My fellow Cypherpunks, I think I may have some really great news here, but you all can check it out to be sure. I found an alternative money on the Internet. It is called the Liberty Dollar. The Internet site is: http://www.norfed.org NORFED is The National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and the Internal Revenue Code. The money is backed by silver and gold and can be redeemed widely in America. As many of you know, the $US is a corrupt, proprietary, debt issued, fait, fractional reserved,illegal, unconstituional, U. S. State enforced monopoly currency. As corrupt as it is I don't know why it hasn't already collasped and dragged us down with it! If the Liberty Dollar is honest and robust, then it may be the vehical to beat the elite bankers tyranny and give us an honest wealth produced money. Yours Truly, Gary Jeffers BEAT STATE !!!!

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RE: Cypherpunks IQ Test
by Aimee Farr 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Mike: Are you often the victim of mercenary females? > -----Original Message----- > From: mmotyka(a)lsil.com [mailto:mmotyka@lsil.com] > Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 3:28 PM > To: aimee.farr(a)pobox.com > Subject: Cypherpunks IQ Test > > > It's an obvious setup. The woods are part of a defense installation, > apple is filled with coke, the girl is underage, the woods are full of > trigger happy fibbies. > > You hit the ground and roll into the brush, drawing on the way. You > attempt to locate opponents and identify the safest route away from the > situation. > > Mike > > > >CYPHERPUNKS IQ TEST > > > >QUESTION #1. > > > >You are walking through the woods alone. A beautiful unclothed woman > >magically appears in front of you. She holds out an apple. > > > >1. Please darken in the correct choice using a Number Two pencil: > > > >(a) you bite the apple. > >(b) you take the woman. > >(c) you run away. > >(d) a and b, but not c. > >(e) b and c only. > >(f) all of the above. > >(g) none of the above. > > > >2. Please justify your answer: > > > > > >___________________________________________________________________. > > > > > >Just curious.... > > > > -Aimee

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More on "new physics"
by Tim May 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Someone sent me a private note. I have deleted his name for this public reply. > Tim May wrote: > > >> The "new physics" stuff is quite different. It is scorned in a way >> that plate tectonics was not, and for good reason. Folks should visit >> Bearden's site. http://www.cheniere.org/correspondence/index.html > > I did. Oh, dear. > > Not sure what is supposed to be denoted by "Tesla physics", but Tesla's > work with power transmission via HF is fascinating, even if there was > apparently no practical or safe use for it. No one disputes the outstanding work Tesla did on a.c. transmission. And anyone who has seen or used a Tesla coil knows how real it is. "Tesla physics" is all the cruft that has developed around some of his more obscure (and late) writings, usually mixed together with stuff Tesla could not have known about at the time of his death. To wit, the stuff about zero point energy and perpetual motion machines. And, sometimes, mixed together with the usual nutcase stuff about the Hollow Earth theory (zeta reticulans colonizing the hollow earth, Greys, underground UFO bases, secret Nazi weapons, etc.). Tesla is a hero to these "new physics" nuts, even though nothing Tesla ever worked on or built contradicts in the slightest way the predictions of Maxwell's theories. They take Tesla's very real contributions and some of his weirder theories (though none of them so weird as the Hollow Earth/antigravity/time reversal theories of modern nutters) and say that this means "They laughed at Tesla, they laugh at me!" BTW, I was/am an early ("angel") investor in a company doing work on ultrawideband transmissions. Some of the works Bearden cites, like those of Barrett, are familiar to me and others with this company. Saying that there is a role for ultrawideband pulse technology, a la spread spectrum and beyond SS, is NOT the same as saying there are confirmed "problems" with electromagnetic theory. There may be, and there are a handful of folks doing "foundational" work in E&M, but, so far, there are no indications that their foundational work is changing any engineering calculations. Quite the contrary, in my view. Electromagnetic theory basically "works"--to many decimal places of accuracy. Circuits work as expected, antennas work as expected, and there are no "unexplained observations" (as usually exist before a new theory arrives). There may be some _semantic_ issues, e.g., does a square wave or impulse "really" have components that were sent out _before_ the square wave or impulse? (A Fourier decomposition of a square wave starting at time t = 0 has "sine wave components" spread out over time and adding up in such a way as to give the square wave, or the impulse, or any other signal. Some think this means deep and mysterious things are happening, something having to do with time travel and reversing the aging process, blah blah blah. Henning Harmuth may write fairly eloquently about the "dogma of the circle" and how the Fourier decomposition of a signal into (allegedly) a near-infinite series of sine waves is "not real," but for all intents and purposes it all works. And the "new physics" people like Bearden go way beyond what Harmuth and Barrett are talking about: they bring in "curved space-time" and gravitation and antigravity and the ultra-weird notion that aging can be reversed by "pumping the conjugate time-axis of the Minkowski manifold" (OK, I made this up...don't have time to lift one of Bearden's direct quotes...and this will help train me in the jargon if I ever become a "new physicist."). Nut cases like Bearden have the patter of physics down. Very few actual physicists waste their time dissecting and refuting Bearden for obvious reasons. I urge readers of this list not to waste time on this stuff. --Tim May, Citizen-unit of of the once free United States " The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. "--Thomas Jefferson, 1787

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Re: A Trial Balloon to Ban Email?
by Declan McCullagh 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

At 09:57 AM 5/14/2003 -0400, Sunder wrote: >Yes, but how will you stop the spammer from double spending the same $0.25 >micropayment on all of his 170,000 email addresses? Depending on whether >you check that there is a payment attached or not, and also check it with >the bank before delivering it, you'd have already wasted your bandwith and >possibly have accepted a spam into your mail spool. It is true that the notions of micropayments as applied to spam (that I'm familiar with, at least) would require that the email recipient check with the bank to detect doublespending. This would introduce an additional delay before delivery from unknown senders, yes, but I fail to see how it would impose an unacceptable cost in bandwidth or CPU usage. Spammers could still try the same-micropayment-a-million-times route, just as they could try to spam without micropayments, but if their email is rejected in sufficient quantities, the cost to the spammer would outweigh the benefits. The key is achieving sufficient quantities. -Declan

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Re: AP Al Qaeda
by mattd 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

>>No, no. AP is funny because it's impracticeable. One does not find an assassin exclusively by tracing who paid him to kill. One can (and often does) find him because he makes a mistake in the act of commiting the crime. Which, if I'm >>reading my history right, is what's hampered the noisy proponents of AP up to this point already. Crime? Wot crime,guvnor? Jim and CJ were not 'noisy'.imo. Im a bit noisy cos Im pushing the 'let it all hang out' version. >The point is that Bell's theory does a really good job of sorting out the business end of assassination,...< Oh THATS funny.I get it. HAHAHA! >>Killing one person, especially a public official, pisses a whole bunch of people off. Those people have a tendency to come find their buddy's killer. Mmm,where do we start,lets get some firebrands and go up to the proffrs? Look at sites with no logs for quad anon 'predictors' who may be overseas briefly visiting cybercafes,Good luck china.(you just contradicted yrself btw.) Oh,unless you mean the torture/french village reprisal thang.Win friends and influence people. The one person killed will have had to have done a lot of evil shit to get enough pooled (presumably) to tempt a seasoned pro.Unless some professional killer turns all altruistic,stranger things have happened.The killer could be suicidal.another possibility.Lots of scenarios possible here,movie scripts,even.Pop songs,video games.DoCoMo assasinphones. Someone like a torturer,murderer,terrorist,pedophile is a logical candidate.(stephen roach?)Sometimes these happen to be public officials.Theres one here where I live named dennis Tanner.(vic.au) Those killers by remote control like arbusto might be be made more accountable. What better way than...Bell's theory, "a really good job of sorting out the business end of assassination"according to you. KILL THE PRESIDENT! "Id buy that for a dollar!" >>No kind of real or threatened assassination can weaken a government in which a majority of the governed people >believe. It can only make it seem more righteous and be more strong. Thats true,roll over and go back to sleep,if you live under that govt you have nothing to worry about. More righteous and more smug.

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[Lucrative-L] double spends, identity agnosticism, and Lucrative
by R. A. Hettinga 20 May '05

20 May '05

--- begin forwarded text

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The life of a Kiwi contractor in Iraq
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 22 May '04

22 May '04

There's an interesting look at the situation in Iraq from the point of view of a third-party contractor, in an article in the Sunday Star Times, http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/sundaystartimes/0,2106,2908644a6442,00.html. Most quotable quote: The thing that pisses us off is the Yanks had no idea what to do after they'd taken out the Iraqi army. They rocked on in, took them out and then thought: OOh shit, what do we do now? Peter.

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Financial Cryptography: FC05 - Dominica - March 2005
by R. A. Hettinga 21 May '04

21 May '04

<http://www.financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000142.html#more> Financial Cryptography mixing Finance, Cryptography and a whole bunch of other things + Mutual Funds - Timestamping | Main May 21, 2004 FC05 - Dominica - March 2005 FC'05 is announced with a new title "Financial Cryptography and Data Security." Vital statistics are 28th Feb to 3rd March, 2005, in Roseau, Dominica, East Caribbean, and submissions in the Call for Papers are due by 10th September, 2004. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [fc-announce] CFP: FC'05 - Financial Cryptography and Data Security Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 16:59:41 -0400 From: Stuart Schechter <stuart(a)eecs.harvard.edu> Organization: Harvard University To: <fc-announce(a)ifca.ai> FC'05 Financial Cryptography and Data Security http://www.ifca.ai/fc05/ CALL FOR PAPERS Ninth International Conference February 28-March 3, 2005 Roseau, The Commonwealth Of Dominica Submissions Due Date: September 10, 2004 Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC'05) is the premier international forum for research, advanced development, education, exploration, and debate regarding security in the context of finance and commerce. We have augmented our conference title and expanded our scope to cover all aspects of securing transactions and systems. These aspects include a range of technical areas such as: cryptography, payment systems, secure transaction architectures, software systems and tools, user and operator interfaces, fraud prevention, payment systems, secure IT infrastructure, and analysis methodologies. Our focus will also encompass legal, financial, business and policy aspects. Material both on theoretical (fundamental) aspects of securing systems and on secure applications and real-world deployments will be considered. The conference goal is to bring together top cryptographers, data-security specialists, and scientists with economists, bankers, implementers, and policy makers. Intimate and colorful by tradition, the FC'05 program will feature invited talks, academic presentations, technical demonstrations, and panel discussions. This conference is organized annually by the International Financial Cryptography Association (IFCA). Original papers and presentations on all aspects of financial and commerce security are invited. Submissions must have a visible bearing on financial and commerce security issues, but can be interdisciplinary in nature and need not be exclusively concerned with cryptography or security. Possible topics for submission to the various sessions include, but are not limited to: * Anonymity and Privacy * Auctions * Audit and Auditability * Authentication and Identification, including Biometrics * Certification and Authorization * Commercial Cryptographic Applications * Commercial Transactions and Contracts * Digital Cash and Payment Systems * Digital Incentive and Loyalty Systems * Digital Rights Management * Financial Regulation and Reporting * Fraud Detection * Game Theoretic Approaches to Security * Infrastructure Design * Legal and Regulatory Issues * Microfinance and Micropayments * Monitoring, Management and Operations * Reputation Systems * RFID-Based and Contactless Payment Systems * Risk Assessment and Management * Secure Banking * Secure Financial Web Services * Securing Emerging Computational Paradigms * Security and Risk Perceptions and Judgments * Security Economics * Smart Cards and Secure Tokens * Trust Management * Trustability and Trustworthiness * Underground-Market Economics * Usability and Acceptance of Security Systems * User and Operator Interfaces SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS ======================= FC'05 is inviting submissions in three categories: (1) research papers, (2) systems and applications presentations, (3) panel sessions. For all accepted submissions, at least one author must attend the conference and present the work. Research Papers =============== Research papers should describe novel scientific contributions to the field, and they will be subject to vigorous peer review. Papers can be a maximum of 15 pages in length (including references and appendices), and accepted submissions will be published in full in the conference proceedings. Submission of previously published material and simultaneous submission of papers to other conferences or workshops with proceedings is not permitted. Authors of research papers found to be doubly submitted risk having all their submissions withdrawn from consideration as well as other appropriate sanctions. Systems and Application Presentations ===================================== Submissions in this category should describe novel or successful systems with an emphasis on secure digital commerce applications. Presentations may concern commercial systems, academic prototypes, or open-source projects for any of the topics listed above. Where appropriate, software or hardware demonstrations are encouraged as part of the presentations in these sessions. Contributions must reflect careful thought and effort and provide valuable, up-to-date experience that is relevant to practitioners in the fields of financial cryptography and data security. Submissions in this category should consist of a short summary of the work (1-6 pages in length) to be reviewed by the Program Committee, along with a short biography of the presenters. Accepted submissions will be presented at the conference (25 minutes per presentation), and a one-page abstract will be published in the conference proceedings. Panel Sessions ============== Proposals for panel sessions are also solicited, and should include a brief description of the panel as well as prospective participants. Panel proposals should be submitted via e-mail, in plain ASCII format, to the Program Chairs. Accepted panel sessions will be presented at the conference, and each participant will contribute a one-page abstract to be published in the conference proceedings. The Rump Session ================ FC'05 will also include the popular "rump session" held on one of the evenings in an informal, social atmosphere. The rump session is a program of short (5-7 minute), informal presentations on works in progress, off-the-cuff ideas, and any other matters pertinent to the conference. Any conference attendee is welcome to submit a presentation to the Rump Session Chair (to be announced). This submission should consist of a talk title, the name of the presenter, and, if desired, a very brief abstract. Submissions may be sent via e-mail, or submitted in person through the Monday of the conference. Preparation Instructions ======================== Submissions to the research papers and systems/application presentation categories must be received by the due date. Papers must be formatted in standard PostScript, PDF format, or MS Word. Submissions in other formats will be rejected. All papers must be submitted electronically according to the instructions and forms found on this web site. (Specific instructions for electronic submissions will be published in the near future.) Author names and affiliations on submissions must be explicit. In other words, submitted papers should not be anonymized. Submissions must include on the first page the title of the paper, the names and affiliations of all authors, a brief abstract, and a list of topical keywords. Accepted submissions will be included in the conference proceedings to be published in the Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series after the conference, so the submissions must be formatted in the standard LNCS format. Authors of accepted submissions will be required to complete and sign an IFCA copyright form. A pre-proceedings volume containing preliminary versions of the papers will be distributed at the conference. Questions about all conference submissions should be directed to the Program Chairs. IMPORTANT DATES =============== Submission Deadline: September 10, 2004 Author Notification: November 1, 2004 Pre-Proceedings Version Due: TBA Conference: February 28 - March 3, 2005 Final Proceedings Version Due: TBA CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS ===================== Conference Website: http://www.ifca.ai/fc05/ General Chair: Stuart Schechter, stuart(a)eecs.harvard.edu Program Chairs: Andrew Patrick, Andrew.Patrick(a)nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Moti Yung, moti(a)cs.columbia.edu Program Committee: TBA _______________________________________________ fc-announce mailing list fc-announce(a)ifca.ai http://mail.ifca.ai/mailman/listinfo/fc-announce Posted by iang at May 21, 2004 12:49 PM | TrackBack Comments Post a comment Name: Email Address: URL: Remember personal info? YesNo Comments: -- ----------------- 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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The Fingerprint As Password
by R. A. Hettinga 21 May '04

21 May '04

There's one born every minute, boys and girls. We should take bets on when the first digital robbery occurs spoofing the output of one of these things. Cheers, RAH -------- <http://www.forbes.com/2004/05/21/cx_ah_0521tentech_print.html> Forbes Ten O'Clock Tech The Fingerprint As Password Arik Hesseldahl, 05.21.04, 10:00 AM ET Active Web users have lots of passwords to remember. First there's the log-in information just to sign in to a computer. Beyond that, an increasing number of Web sites that used to let visitors browse unencumbered are now requiring registration user names and passwords. More people are doing their banking online as well. And ever more people are ditching traditional e-mail accounts for Web-based e-mail from Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) Hotmail or Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ). Password overload is a common problem. Both Microsoft and Apple Computer (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) have added new software tools to keep track of all your passwords, and Web browsers are increasingly likely to remember them for you as well. APC's Biometric Password Manager But whatever happened to biometrics? That's the science behind using a part of the body, such as a fingerprint or the iris of an eye, to replace a password. Wasn't biometrics supposed to be the field that would save us all from the frustrations of faulty password memory? If you've been waiting for the right device that will allow you to use a fingerprint to sign in to your PC and access the many password-protected Web sites you use, then your time has come. This week we tested a little device called the Biometric Password Manager from American Power Conversion (nasdaq: APCC - news - people ). This company is better known for its numerous power products, such as surge protectors, uninterruptible power sources and the like. APC's Password Manager plugs into the USB port of your PC. It sits on the desktop and whenever a password would be needed, you use a fingerprint to sign in. Software running on the PC associates the fingerprint with the user name and password and automatically enters them both and signs in the user. The product more or less worked exactly as described. Installation was pretty easy. A simple software wizard took us through the process of scanning the fingerprint, first for practice and then for real. The software supports up to 20 individual fingerprints, allowing for multiple users. It integrates easily with a browser, too. Aside from the system log-in, we trained the software to remember the sign-in information for a Yahoo! mail account. Doing so was a little less clear than was the initial setup and took a few tries. But once it was set up correctly, the fingerprint signed us in smoothly and instantaneously to check e-mail. The software also allows encryption of files on a PC. Say you've got an Excel workbook containing data you'd rather people outside your company didn't see, but which you don't need to refer to very often. You can lock it up with a password, but after several months that password may be difficult to remember. The fingerprint system makes that process easy. The unit is available for about $50. The software supports Microsoft Windows, starting with Windows 98, but doesn't support the Mac operating system. Mac users who want fingerprint security should investigate a similar device from Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ), called the Puppy, which we'll test sometime in the future. Overall, APC's Biometric Password Manager seems a good value, offering a relatively simple method to avoid password overload. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "This Way to the Egress" -- Placard girl in P.T. Barnum's circus

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[CYBERIA] 1st amendment protection of software
by Peter D. Junger 21 May '04

21 May '04

I have started a weblog, which is at <http://sasmara.law.cwru.edu/blog/>. One of the entries, which I enclose, about first amendment protection of software may be of interest to some members of this list. -- Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH EMAIL: junger(a)samsara.law.cwru.edu URL: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu NOTE: junger(a)pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu no longer exists --Begin Enclosure Expression Has Nothing to Do with It If one is concerned, as I am, with extending the First Amendment's protection of free speech and of the press to the writings of computer programmers and to the publication of information in digital form, one needs to find some way not to couch one's arguments in terms of ``freedom of expression.'' Burning a flag to protest a war is protected by the First Amendment, even though flag-burning is not literally speech, because flag-burning is ``expressive.'' That extension of the First Amendment beyond its literal scope does not, however, in any way imply that the speaking or publishing of materials that are not expressive are not acts entitled to First Amendment protection. Saying that ``one and one is two'' is not, I submit, expressive in the sense that burning a flag is expressive. That, however, does not give the government absolute authority under the First Amendment to forbid saying ``one and one is two,'' even though saying that might endanger the success of the government's fiscal policies or its conduct of the war in Iraq. Random numbers are not expressive in any sense at all, yet that does not mean that the publication of a table of random numbers would not be protected by the First Amendment. That might seem obvious, but when some years ago I challenged the constitutionality of the government's export regulations that forbade the publication of computer programs in digital form, the Government's response was to argue that computer programs are ``functional'' and therefore not ``expressive'' and that the publication of computer programs is thus not protected by the First Amendment. Put that way, the government's argument may not seem very persuasive. The trouble was, however, that there are no judicial precedents holding, or even saying, that non-expressive (or functional) speaking and publication are activities protected by the First Amendment--a point that is so obvious that it never has been litigated--and there are lots of precedents saying that one can only obtain a copyright on expressive writings and that functional writings are not copyrightable. Of course, the issue of whether a computer program is copyrightable has no bearing on whether it is entitled to First Amendment protection, but this apparently is not easy to see if one does not have the slightest idea as to what a computer program actually is. How difficult it is for courts, and lawyers, to understand that computer programs are simply writings like the recipes in a recipe book or the mathematical tables in an engineering handbook, is illustrated by the holding of the Federal District Court judge in my case, Junger v. Daley: Source code is ``purely functional,'' in a way that . . . instructions, manuals, and recipes are not. Unlike instructions, a manual, or a recipe, source code actually performs the function it describes. While a recipe provides instructions to a cook, source code is a device, like embedded circuitry in a telephone, that actually does the function of encryption. At that point my long-suffering lawyers had little choice but to adopt the government's interpretation of the First Amendment and argue that computer programs--or at least their source code--are protected by the First Amendment because they are ``expressive.'' And that argument prevailed. The Court of Appeals held in my case that Because computer source code is an expressive means for the exchange of information and ideas about computer programming, we hold that it is protected by the First Amendment. That was a great victory. Junger v. Daley is now the leading case holding that computer programs, or at least their source code, are protected by the First Amendment. The fact remains, however, that there is a much simpler reason for holding that the publication of computer programs--and not just source code--is protected by the First Amendment. To publish a computer program is to publish information and it is the publication of information that is protected by the freedom of the press. It's that simple. Expression has nothing to do with it --End Enclosure ********************************************************************** For Listserv Instructions, see http://www.lawlists.net/cyberia Off-Topic threads: http://www.lawlists.net/mailman/listinfo/cyberia-ot Need more help? Send mail to: Cyberia-L-Request(a)listserv.aol.com ********************************************************************** --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- 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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