- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: The Net and Terrorism
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Not knowing enough of the posting of John Deters, I can't tell where he is being facetious, where I agree with him, and where I really disagree with him. So, take my comments as responding directly to what I perceive his points to actually be: At 12:52 AM 7/3/96, John Deters wrote: >But here in the U.S., we ARE trying to take them away via the educational >system. About the only thing we can effectively do is to provide more >educational opportunities that denounce violence, racism, hate crimes, etc. >However, you cannot eliminate discontent without eliminating greed; which is >simply not possible. As I see it, the more "educated" a subgroup becomes, in terms of "education" about "the dominant political power structure," the more they see the world in dark terms, and resent it. The more "educated" an ethnic subgroup is about "racism" is, the more racist they themselves are. (I learned this in 1970 when I went away to college in California and found an entire racial/ethnic subgroup totally consumed by fears of persecution and racism, so much so that they could only study their own persecution and so screwed themselves out of any reasonable chance of succeeding in the American culture.) By the way, the accepted name for this is: "victimology." >Even so, there are a couple of problems with even attempting "to take away >the root causes", not the least of which is the Constitutionally protected >right to free speech. I am allowed to teach my kid to hate anyone for any >reason. I can blame this or that group for this set of troubles, and that >the best way to deal with this is not only to scare them away, but to kill >as many of them as possible. It may be morally repugnant, but it is >protected speech. I certainly agree with this. Many people and subgroups are losing sight of this basic point. (Of course, their confusion is partially explained by the fact that they have grown up believing that government schools are responsible for instilling proper ethical values.) >The countries that sponsor terrorists have not been noted for their >successful educational systems. And they certainly are not going to listen >to Western discussions on how best to solve their "problems". And those who think the government school system _is_ responsible for teaching moral and ethical values should ponder the issue of just what moral and ethical values were taught by the official schools of Alabama and Mississippi in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Duh. When you dance with the Devil, you dance to his tune. >For the most part, I see kids today being educated with much less "hatred" >than even my age group was brought up with (I'm 34). We're moving in the I'm 44 and I see just the opposite. Today's kids spout platitudes about "Why can't we all just get along?" without any clues about what they mean. 99% of kids interviewed cite "racism" as the world's Number One problem, showing their education to be a complet failure. --Tim May P.S. I planned to stop here, in the interests of brevity, but: >The U.S. has a level of tolerance for diversity that I only recently came to >appreciate. We hosted a foreign exchange student from Scotland (hardly >culture shock to him), but he surprised me when he commented on how >surprised he was that different groups of people were mixed together -- >black kids hanging out with white kids, catholics and protestants being >friends, the sort of thing that I take for granted every day. > >He expected the subtle racism of home. And lets just say that Great >Britain's culture is probably closer to ours than any other country. Well, on these points I agree. Non-U.S. countries often cluck about America's well-publicized race problems, but we are far more integrated and mixed than are most countries (and I lived for a year in Europe and have visited a few times since). >I am more than willing to agree with you that elimination of hatred and >prejudice will go farther than any law enforcement measures to reduce >terrorist acts. However, my point, and I believe this is Tim's point, too, >is that it will *never* eliminate these acts, and that there must be other >ways of dealing with the problems that occur. One of my "meta-points" is to try to move the discussion beyond comments about "hatred and prejudice," which I find to be code words for meaningless chatter which misses the real issues. (No offense to John Deters is intended.) >You may think that you hold every answer to terrorism in your hand, that >hugs and kisses before bedtime will make the evil monsters under the bed go >away. The point of Tim's essay was that, yes, the net can be used by the >evil monsters, and yes, the evil monsters are here, and no, the evil >monsters are not going away any time soon. Why did you feel it necessary to >try to slam his fairly well-researched and quite obvious conclusion? Thanks for the comments, John. My main point was that we should not give up basic American (and "western") values for the sake of reducing terrorism. (Ironically, one of the basic notions of terrorism of certain sorts is that the very acts of terrorism will bring on some state which will further the causes of the terrorists...the Hegelian triatica and all that revolutionary stuff, etc.) The terrorists should not be given a victory of sorts by implementing martial law to reduce further attacks. --Tim, again Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

1 0

Re: Sameer on C-SPAN
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:42 PM 7/2/96 -0700, you wrote: >bluebreeze(a)nym.jpunix.com (Blue Breeze) wrote: >> >> Not everything. No picture of Sameer!? That's what I'd like to see. > >There's one in the latest WebSmith magazine. As well as his article on writing modules for Apache servers... [BTW, the issue number is no 4.] A worthwhile magazine if you write code for web servers. Now all I have to do is come up with a few ideas for modules... --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

1 0

Re: But what about the poor?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:16 PM 7/2/96 -0500, snow wrote: >On Tue, 2 Jul 1996, jim bell wrote: >> stated policy of the escrow agent is that the key owner MUST be informed, >> what are the cops gonna do about it? >> >> Further, how are the cops going to evidence the existence of a valid >> warrant? (As opposed to a forgery?) > > The judge that issues it will digitally sign it. You can check the >signature block. However, what about an UNCOOPERATIVE escrow agent? (one who insists on signed paper, or for that matter insists that the judge himself shows up.) Or one, at least, who sites himself in Borneo, on the top of a 4000 foot mountain, with a 386 laptop computer and a box of floppies, and who promises 2 hour services to anybody who shows up? No email, no fax, no phone, no light, no motor car, not a single luxury....oooops....sorry about that...not even radio. Moreover, if the escrow agent is out of the country, can any domestic laws force him to divulge keys? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

1 0

RE: fbi botches intel "ecspionage" case
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: Black Unicorn > >On Sat, 29 Jun 1996, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: > >> 3. hence, one wonders if the FBI could do a better job of >> combating ecspionage > >I believe you mean economic intelligence here, not economic espionage, >or >industrial espionage, or "ecspionage." ............................................................... One day in a future galaxy, "ecspionage" will involve locating "flits"..... .. Blanc

1 0

Re: SAFE Forum--some comments
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:44 PM 7/2/96 -0700, Martin Minow wrote: >It's not quite that bad. Here are a few (more or less strong) crypto >products you might not know you have: > >1. Every Macintosh made since at least 1988 has a secure authentication > client module in the AppleShare Chooser dialog. When you use it to > connect to a remote server, it notes that the user information > is "two-way scrambled." (The server sends a random number challenge > that the client uses to encrypt the username and password. The > encrypted information is sent to the server.) All Macintosh systems > running System 7 or later have the corresponding server software. > What is interesting about this is that the encryption is completely > invisible to the user. How did this affect the Macintosh's exportability? >Note that the VCR companies have solved the vcr problem by receiving >a timecode from a local television station -- making the problem >invisible to the end user. We should be able to do the same with >strong crypto. I haven't bought a new VCR in a few years. Is this real? What prevented them from doing this 10 years ago? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

1 0

And the way this relates to cryptomony is...uuhhh.......
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There is an amusing discussion of metaphor and metonymy in David Lodge's novel, Nice Work. A typical instance of this was the furious argument they had about the Silk Cut advertisement... Every few miles, it seemed, they passed the same huge poster on roadside hoardings, a photographic depiction of a rippling expanse of purple silk in which there was a single slit, as if the material had been slashed with a razor. There were no words in the advertisement, except for the Government Health Warning about smoking. This ubiquitous image, flashing past at regular intervals, both irritiated and intrigued Robyn, and she began to do her semiotic stuff on the deep structure hidden beneath its bland surface. It was in the first instance a kind of riddle. That is to say, in order to decode it, you had to know that there was a brand of cigarettes called Silk Cut. The poster was the iconic representation of a missing name, like a rebus. But the icon was also a metaphor. The shimmering silk, with its voluptous curves and sensuous texture, obviously symbolized the female body, and the elliptical slit, foregrounded by a lighter colour showing through, was still more obviously a vagina. The advert thus appealed to both senual and sadistic impulses, the desire to mutilate as well as penetrate the female body. Vic Wilcox spluttered with outraged derision as she expounded this interpretation. He smoked a different brand himself, but it wasas if he felt his whole philosophy of life was threatened by Robyn's analysis of the advert. 'You must have a twisted mind to see all that in a perfectly harmless bit of cloth,' he said. 'What's the point of it, then?' Robyn challenged him. 'Why use cloth to advertise cigarettes?' 'Well, that's the name of 'em, isn't it? Silk Cut. It's a picture of the name. Nothing more or less.' 'Suppose they'd used a picture of a roll of silk cut in half - would that do just as well?' 'I suppose so. Yes, why not?' 'Because it would look like a penis cut in half, that's why.' He forced a laugh to cover his embarrassment. 'Why can't you people take things at their face value?' 'What people are you refering to?' 'Highbrows. Intellectuals. You're always trying to find hidden meanings in things. Why? A cigarette is a cigarette. A piece of silk is a piece of silk. Why not leave it at that? 'When they're represented they acquire additional meanings,' said Robyn. 'Signs are never innocent. Semiotics teaches us that.' 'Semi-what?' 'Semiotics. The study of signs.' 'It teaches us to have dirty minds, if you ask me.' 'Why do you think the wretched cigarettes were called Silk Cut in the first place?' 'I dunno. It's just a name, as good as any other.' "Cut" has something to do with the tobacco, doesnt it? The way the tobacco leaf is cut. Like "Player's Navy Cut" - my uncle Walter used to smoke them.' 'Well, what if it does?' Vic said warily. 'But silk has nothing to do with tobacco. It's a metaphor, a metaphor that means something like, "smooth as silk". Somebody in an advertising agency dreamt up the name "Silk Cut" to suggest a cigarette that would'nt give you a sore throat or a hacking cough or lung cancer. But after a while the public got used to the name, the word "Silk" ceased to signify, so they decided to have an advertising campaign to give the brand a high profile again. Some bright spark in the agency came up with the idea of rippling silk with a cut in it. The original metaphor is now represented literally. Whether they conciously intended or not doesn't really matter. It's a good example of the perpetual sliding of the signified under a signifier, actually.' Wilcox chewed on this for a while, then said, 'Why do women smoke them, then, eh?' his triumphant expression showed that he thought this was a knock-down argument. 'If smoking Silk Cut is a form of aggravated rape, as you try to make out, how come women smoke 'em too?' 'Many women are masochistic by temperament,' said Robyn. 'They've learnt what's expected of them in a patriarchical society.' 'Ha!' Wilcox exclaimed, tossing back his head. 'I might have known you'd have some daft answer.' 'I don't know why you're so worked up,' Said Robyn. 'It's not as if you smoke Silk Cut yourself.' 'No, I smoke Marlboros. Funnily enough, I smoke them because I like the taste.' 'They're the ones that have the lone cowboy ads, aren't they?' 'I suppose that makes me a repressed homosexual, does it?' 'No, it's a very straightforward metonymic message.' 'Metawhat?' 'Metonymic. One of the fundamental tools of semiotics is the distinction between metaphor and metonymy. D'you want me to explain it to you?' 'It'll pass the time,' he said. 'Metaphor is a figure of speech based on similarity, whereas metonymy is based on contiguity. In metaphor you substitute something like the thing you mean for the thing itself, whereas in metonymy you substitute some attribute or cause or effect of the thing for the thing itself'. 'I don't understand a word you're saying.' 'Well, take one of your moulds. The bottom bit is called the drag because it's dragged across the floor and the top bit is called the cope because it covers the bottom bit.' 'I told you that.' 'Yes, I know. What you didn't tell me was that "drag" is a metonymy and "cope" is a metaphor.' Vic grunted. 'What difference does it make?' 'It's just a question of understanding how language works. I thought you were interested in how things work.' 'I don't see what it's got to do with cigarettes.' 'In the case of the Silk Cut poster, the picture signifies the female body metaphorically: the slit in the silk is like a vagina -' Vic flinched at the word. 'So you say.' 'All holes, hollow places, fissures and folds represent the female genitals.' 'Prove it.' 'Freud proved it, by his successful analysis of dreams,' said Robyn. 'But the Marlboro ads don't use any metaphors. That's probably why you smoke them, actually.' 'What d'you mean?' he said suspiciously. 'You don't have any sympathy with the metaphorical way of looking at things. A cigarette is a cigarette as far as you are concerned.' 'Right.' 'The Marlboro ad doesn't disturb that naive faith in the stability of the signified. It establishes a metonymic connection - completely spurious of course, but realistically plausible - between smoking that particular brand and the healthy, heroic, outdoor life of the cowboy. Buy the cigarette and you buy the lifestyle, or the fantasy of living it.' 'Rubbish!' said Wilcox. 'I hate the country and the open air. I'm scared to go into a field with a cow in it.' 'Well then, maybe it's the solitariness of the cowboy in the ads that appeals to you. Self-reliant, independent, very macho.' 'I've never heard such a lot of balls in all my life,' said Vic Wilcox, which was strong language coming from him. 'Balls - now that's an interesting expression...' Robyn mused. 'Oh no!' he groaned. 'When you say a man "has balls", approvingly, it's a metonymy, whereas if you say something is a "lot of balls", or "a balls-up", it's a sort of metaphor. The metonymy attributes value to the testicles whereas the metaphor uses them to degrade something else.' 'I can't take any more of this,' said Vic. 'D'you mind if I smoke? Just a plain, ordinary cigarette?'

1 0

Hi I want to meet you im a model!
by BUTCHER56 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To: BUTCHER56(a)aol.com Subject: Hi I want to meet you im a model! From: BUTCHER56 <BUTCHER56(a)aol.com> Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 22:21:48 EST Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Come to my home and get inside and you will seem! click here

1 0

Re: Lack of PGP signatures
by Brad Shantz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mark M. Wrote: > > Is it because most mail programs are not PGP aware? > > I don't know of any mail programs that can use PGP (I know there are various > interfaces, sendmail wrappers, and other hacks, but I have yet to see a mailer > with an "Encrypt" or "Sign" option. Once upon a time last year or the year before, Tim May posted why he doesn't use PGP very often. And I have always stood by that same sentiment. Yes, it is a good encryption product, but it is not integrated seamlessly into other applications. Tim, feel free to whack me if you think I'm speaking for you. If, as cypherpunks, we want to spread the use of strong crypto, we need to have a better interface than what currently exists on PGP 2.6.2. I'm sure Derek and the other guys on PGPlib will make it easier to integrate into applications. Am I just blowing smoke, Mr. Atkins? PGP is a pain for encrypting or signing e-mail when you have to save your message out to a temp file, encrypt it, and load it back in to your mail package. Sure, there are things like Private Idaho, which I use on occasion. But, it is still a seperate application that just doesn't fit seamlessly into most applications. In my free time, I have been playing around with add ons for Microsoft Exchange. I've got an OLE 2.0 encryption object that embeds nicely into an Exchange message. I haven't tied it in to PGP yet, because I have been waiting for the release of PGPlib. However, that will allow at least some seamless integration. Brad Shantz TRIsource Windows Development Services

4 3

Re: AT&T bans anonymous messages
by youssefy＠ucla.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:43 AM 6/24/96 -0500, you wrote: >AT&T WorldNet service has banned the sending of anonymous email or >posting anonymously. > Can someone please explain to me the technicalities of how they know I am sending anonymous e-mail?

1 0

COMMUNITY CONNEXION ANNOUNCES STRONGHOLD VERSION 1.2
by sameer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For Immediate Release - July 16, 1996 Contact: Sameer Parekh 510-986-8770 COMMUNITY CONNEXION ANNOUNCES STRONGHOLD VERSION 1.2 Oakland, CA - Community ConneXion, Inc., the leader in uncompromising security for the World Wide Web, today announced the release of its newest version of Stronghold: Apache-SSL for the US. Stronghold is a webserver based on the popular Apache server, which has the highest marketshare of all webservers on the Internet according to the Netcraft server survey at http://www.netcraft.com/survey/. Stronghold's marketshare has more than doubled every month since its release in January of this year. "[The competition]'s secure servers just didn't work the way we wanted them to; the interface was clunky and required firewall adjustments to run, the access control didn't work well for us, and it was just too black-boxey for us," commented Dan Kearns, of the Motorola ISG Internet Business Group. "We like the lean/mean-ness of Apache in general, and the actual useful development that goes on. We look forward to generating client certificates for our channel partners using the bundled internal certificate authority tools." "We have been working with Community ConneXion for over a year to enable our Digital IDs in their Stronghold server products," said Greg Smirin, Product Line Manager at VeriSign, Inc. "We look forward to using their new version of Stronghold to demonstrate client certification on our own website." VeriSign is the leading provider of digital authentication services and products for electronic commerce and other forms of secure communications. "Stronghold is the first widely used web server that can authenticate clients on the basis of their digital certificates," said Dr. Andrew Csinger, President of Xcert Software, Inc. "Stronghold is a natural server platform for Xcert's Sentry suite of security enhancement products. The combination of Stronghold's uncompromising security profile and Xcert's flexible certificate management and secure database technology represents great value and convenience for Internet users." Xcert and C2 have entered into a co-marketing agreement to provide easy access to the Stronghold/Sentry bundle. The Stronghold/Sentry combination puts organizations of any size in control of their own security, allowing them to cost-effectively implement secure Intranets based on public key certificates. Xcert Software, Inc. is the premier provider of security enhancement software for safe and secure commercial Internet applications. Xcert's Sentry product line is the first cross-platform, server-independent public key infrastructure implementation. A live demonstration using the Stronghold webserver has been available on the company's website since April 1996 (http://www.xcert.com) Because it is based on Apache, Stronghold can be used with the innummerable third party CGI and Apache API applications which have been developed for Apache, including perl & python integration, database connectivity, and Kerberos support. "Direct support within the server for scripting languages can produce an excellent performance improvement over standard CGI methods," said Sameer Parekh, President of Community ConneXion, Inc. Community ConneXion ships binaries for Sparc Solaris 2.5, x86 Solaris 2.5, Sparc SunOS 4.1.3_U1, DG/UX, FreeBSD 2.1, BSDI 1.1, AIX 3.2.5, IRIX 5.3, HP/UX (9 & 10), OSF/1, UnixWare, Ultrix, BSDI 2.0, and Linux (ELF & a.out). Additional platforms may be supported on request. Stronghold may be ordered and downloaded at http://www.us.apache-ssl.com/. Portions developed by the Apache Group, taken with permission from the Apache Server http://www.apache.org/. This product includes software developed by Ben Laurie for use in the Apache-SSL HTTP server project. This product includes software developed by Eric Young (eay(a)mincom.oz.au)

1 0