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Re: FYA: "The ANOREV INTERCEPTS" [Usenet censorship] (fwd)
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"llurch(a)networking.stanford.edu" "Rich Graves" 24-MAY-1996 01:09:35.99 (quoting tallpaul) >Because of the role I played in the campaign to get people to VOTE NO >on "rec.music.white-power" many people have sent me e-mail asking about >the vote results on several political news groups on the internet. The >following is the latest data available as posted in the official USENET >news group called "news.groups". Oh? And were you, tallpaul, behind the mailing to uninvolved mailing lists of politically-biased pleas to vote "no" on that group, sans a copy of the CFV? If I had had time, I would have voted in favor of it on those grounds. >R. Graves was the original proponent of TPN-S. He had opposed the >earlier RMW-P group but on technical, not political reasons, and he >does, as he once put it, "not consider [himself] anti-racist." Rather >Graves opposition centered on whether the nazi news group had >demonstrated sufficient interest as a music group, whether it had been >properly proposed in terms of proper USENET/uunet electronic paperwork >at the like. I have read over the proposal in question, specifically its latter version. It has a robomoderator that attempts to reach the laudable goal of reducing inappropriate crossposting by persons arguing on this issue. While I have my doubts about how effective this is likely to be (looking for whether approximately identical posts with the same subject line had been posted to the excluded groups would probably be necessary, to prevent spamming tactics from being used), it is a valid goal. >Highly skilled technically, Graves seems quite clueless about the >nature of fascism as a political tendency off the internet in the real >world. He has opposed individual cybernazi dirty tricks in cyberspace, >including some first-class technical tracking of cybernazis using >anonymity and other devices to hide their identities. On the other >hand, he has announced, for example, that there are only some one-to- >two thousand hardened nazis in the entire world. To my knowledge, Rich has not opposed anonymnity; indeed, he has praised anonymnity as needed on groups such as alt.revisionism. I would be interested in hearing whether tallpaul supports anonymnity; it appears to be on-topic for cypherpunks. (Interestingly, the address from which various non-political mailing lists were sent the aforementioned improper email was either quickly shut down or the product of email header faking, according to the results I got when I emailed the person back with a letter of protest.) I would also suspect that tallpaul may be biased on his estimates of the number of full-blown nazis in existence, although this admittedly depends on definitions; activists are prone, often innocently, to overinflate the problems with which they deal. (I refer interested parties to the statistics on rape customarily used by those promoting action against it; they typically include such occurrences as sexual harrassment - a usage of free speech. While I disapprove of sexual harrassment and tend to regard rapists as proper subjects for the death penalty, I wish activists would be more accurate in their statistics.) >Graves's new view threatens additional ominous organizing by cybernazis >on the net as they go for an additional news group even before the >results of their previous organizing effort is announced. Cybernazi organizing is an inevitable consequence of the ability of all minority political groups to organize better thanks to the Internet. They have as much right to organizational activity as anyone else - including anti-fascist activists such as tallpaul. I would suggest reading over some issues of CuDigest with my contributions in them for further discussion on this matter. -Allen

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middleman remailer available on hacktic
by Flame Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The middleman remailer software is now available for download. The file middleman.tar.gz can be found on ftp.hacktic.nl in /pub/replay/pub/incoming and /pub/replay/pub/remailer. Installation instructions are included. middle-man-admin(a)alpha.c2.org

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Alternative to remailer shutdowns...
by MAILER-DAEMON＠kermit.aatech.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There are hundreds of machines littered around the net that dont bother adding "received" headers to mail. I dont think that these provide anything near the security and anonymity that a single remailer (much less a remailing chain) provide, but it seems to me that routing outbound traffic from a remailer through one of these sites would provide at least /some/ measure of protection for the remailer-operator. It feels a bit underhanded, but it may be that involving some "innocent" bystanders in the remail process would be useful. Even if the sites being routed through /were/ keeping logs it would still require their participation in any investigation to discover where the mail had originated, and this would introduce the question of whether the (psuedo)anonymous sendmail host should bear any liability for not tracking where mail came from. The operator of the particular smtp host would seem to have a pretty good defense should a charge be raised, but in defending the smtp-host you could also be strengthening the defense of the r-ops. Another possibility is that rather than operating remailers at all, maybe we should be operating non-logging smtp hosts that dont add received headers. Building a client to take advantage of these servers would be trivial (i wrote one last night, and i am not proficient in C) and it could be argued that the situation was not created intentionally to allow anonymous messages, merely to preserve disk space and bandwidth. Flame Away...

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Re: Children's Privacy Act
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"llurch(a)networking.stanford.edu" "Rich Graves" 24-MAY-1996 04:18:17.16 >I recognize that criminalizing the free flow of information is like trying >to stick your finger in a dike, but every little bit has an effect. In >this case, I'd call it a positive effect. That's funny, most people would call the German action to censor pro-nazi information a criminalization of the free flow of information with a positive effect. >I was certainly disappointed to hear a couple of cypherpunks the other day >discussing for-profit offshore data havens full of personal information >that is illegal to collect in the US as a business opportunity *they* were >interested in pursuing. I just can't see myself doing that, for anybody. >Gubmint or private, doesn't matter. Why, pray tell, _should_ someone be able to conceal that they declared bankrupcy - e.g., ran out on their debtors that they had freely contracted to repay - more than 7 years ago? Should prison terms to theft be limited to 7 years? Moreover, there are significant negative economic impacts for criminalizing the possession of such information. The above is one instance; another, which is even more of interest to me due to my profession, is that of genetic information and insurance. Genetic screening for insurance purposes decreases the risk to an insurance company. It is therefore possible to issue insurance with less of a pool backing it up (for claims in insurance, for bad debt in the case of credit). This increases the number of businesses who can get into a given market, which will decrease prices for insurance since the current insurance business is quite ogliopolistic. Thus, for the average individual the availablility of such information is beneficial. I would personally be interested in setting up some such business in the future, specifically one with a genetic screening lab. While I would not wish to devote my entire time to it, I would be quite willing to help with setup and updating it - if paid a fee, of course. -Allen

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Re: An alternative to remailer shutdowns
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 24-MAY-1996 11:44:01.40 >While a ski-lift ticket could be considered a "license" to use the >property, selling an actual intellectual property ITEM makes the limiting >terms of its purchase a bit easier for a court to stomach. Telling a >licensee that if he gets hurt its too bad, and telling one that he cannot >call a function or copy the work are fairly distinct in this way. Hmm... the first (license vs item) could be argued with by that the remailer operator _is_ sending the recipient a copyrighted work, which the remailer has - so far as it knows - been given proper permission to choose to transfer to the recipient. The second is more bothersome, and is an instance of the unfortunate overuse of liability in the American legal system. As you state, >In the practical world, the plaintiff who is trying to enforce a software >licensing agreement is much better off than a defendant trying to resist >liability for a tort. I would gather that countersuits for violation of a contract - that not to sue - would not be likely to succeed. Unfortunate. >That depends. If there was reason to believe, for instance, that the >message might indeed be four-horseman type (as a plaintiff's attorney I >would jump all over any messages which came from "soandso(a)PLO.com" or >somesuch) then negligence becomes an issue regardless. Perhaps the host >was the site from which other nastiness was mailed? Anything that could >be shown to put the operator on effective, implied, or constructive notice >that something was amiss. A clear reason for demanding that mail come from a recognized remailer before putting it to an output end. In this case, the ouputting remailer never has to worry about it - that's the job of the actual primary inputting remailer. >Remember, technical savvy judges are few and far between. Technical savvy >juries are nearly non-entitites. My concept of what is or is not >suspicious when it comes to such things is going to be much more >sophisticated than that of a judge or jury in most if not all cases. >This is an important point. >The truth of the matter is entirely pointless in the U.S. Judicial system. >The APPEARANCE of the matter is key. >'punks seem to forget this in all their discussion of what a court might >do because, simply put, they know more than 99% of the population about >the subject. The simple way to put this is that juries and, indeed, the voting population, are completely incompetent to be in power. This is always something that one should remember, and an excellent argument as to why democracy is not a good system of government. >From the recipiant? >I would simply put a notice of where complaints can be directed to, and >publish a stated (and carefully worded) policy for addressing abuses. >This will go a LONG way to insulating remailer operators. >"Your honor, my client has made every effort to filter the legitimate >users of his system from the illegitimate. He has a stated policy >regarding complaints and investigates them to the full extent of his >ability in every case in which a complaint is filed. Even as this is so, >he can no more completely assure that harassing messages will never slip >through than can the U.S. post office protect every citizen from mail >bombings." >Or some such. If you can say this in court and back it up, you're in >better shape. Would also doing a respond-back hold harmless agreement, of the form perhaps of: "We do our best to guarantee that this system will not be used illegitimately. Unfortunately, this is not always possible. By responding to this message and requesting us to send you the information in question, you are agreeing to hold us harmless." help any? Or would this be seen by the court as an attempt to reduce liability when the court (incorrectly) believes it should be assigned? -Allen

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Society and the Future of Computing Conference
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"rre(a)weber.ucsd.edu" 24-MAY-1996 05:04:37.21 Subject: Society and the Future of Computing '96 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help(a)weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 16:14:13 -0600 (MDT) From: Rick Light <rxl(a)lanl.gov> Subject: Important_SFC_Update <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Society and the Future of Computing '96 June 16-19, 1996, Snowbird, Utah, USA http://www.lanl.gov/SFC <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> The conference structure includes keynote speakers, panels of invited speakers, Net-connected poster presentations, debates, and workshops. The intent is to share ideas in a diverse multidisciplinary environment for mutual enrichment and learning, ultimately to affect the directions of computer science research and applications for the benefit of all. See the conference Web site for details and to register. Contents: --------- * Registration Still Open! * Diverse Keynote Speakers Featured * Unique Workshops Offered * Outstanding Agenda Registration Still Open! ------------------------ *** Only 3 weeks left! *** *** Register today to reserve your place at SFC'96! *** Registration for the conference is still available through the conference Web site "Registration" page. Electronic registrations will be accepted only through June 7th. After that you must register at the conference registration desk in the Cliff Lodge in Snowbird. To register see http://www.lanl.gov/SFC/96/reginfo.html. Diverse Keynote Speakers Featured --------------------------------- We are honored to feature the following prominent leaders from industry and academia as the keynote speakers of the conference: Laura Breeden, Formerly of USDC National Telecommunications & Information Administration Tom Landauer, University of Colorado, Boulder Bob Lucky, Bellcore Charlie Slocomb, Los Alamos National Laboratory Bud Wonsiewicz, U S WEST Advanced Technologies Bill Wulf, University of Virginia Other important leaders have been invited as moderators and panelists. See the conference Agenda Web page for details: http://www.lanl.gov/SFC/96/program.html Unique Workshops Offered ------------------------ The conference is pleased to offer 4 unique and important workshops this year. Each offers intriguing opportunities, and all 4 are very different from each other. The workshops are integrated into the conference agenda throughout the conference so that their study and findings will enhance the participants' experience of the conference as a whole, as well as offering their outcomes to the entire conference attendance. The workshops are as follows: Steve Cisler, Willard Uncapher, Larry Press: "Implications of the Net for Industrialized Countries, Developing Nations, and Indigenous Cultures" Richard G. Epstein: "Emerging Realities, Virtual and Otherwise" Mary A. Meyer: "Anthropology and SFC'96 Computer Technologies" Ben Shneiderman: "The Durango Declaration Continued: Toward A Snowbird Conference Statement" Outstanding Agenda ------------------ The conference technical program is very full and provides a robust, multidisciplinary agenda for a wide range of interesting and important discussions. This program is balanced with hikes in the clean mountain air of Snowbird. Attendees are coming from all over the United States and a few foreign countries as well. Please see the Web agenda page for details: http://www.lanl.gov/SFC/96/program.html Questions? ---------- All conference information and the registration form are available through the Web site (http://www.lanl.gov/SFC/96/) Any questions or comments you might have may be addressed to sfc96(a)lanl.gov. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

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Re: Children's Privacy Act
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:00 PM 5/24/96, Rich Graves wrote: >Who would control the offshore data havens? What would they have on me? I >am well aware of what TRW et al can do, but at least in theory (cough), >they're legally accountable (cough). Who would control them? Their owners, presumably. What would they have on you? Depends on what you've done and what they can learn. >I know you disagree, but I'm a big fan of statutes of limitations and the >firewalling of unrelated issues. Someone went bankrupt or beat her husband >seven years ago (or whatever), I don't want to know about it. I'd rather If you don't want to know about it, fine. Set your filters to ignore such things. But suppose *I* want to know? (And there are "legitimate" reasons. Isn't it quite plausible for a woman to be interested in whether her prospective husband is a wife-beater? Even if the last incident occurred (or was publically reported, at least) more than the 7-year (or whatever) period ago?) In any case, there are public records, such as arrest records, court transcripts, newspaper articles, and so on. To forbid me from using these (to throw me in jail, ultimately, for this crime) is inconsistent with a free society. And technology is already finding ways to route around such laws. The stuff we are involved with will shatter such laws completely. --Tim May 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."

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Re: Children's Privacy Act
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:00 AM 5/25/96, Hal wrote: >I think the reason (some) cypherpunks support things like offshore data >havens isn't that they think it's great to reduce the amount of privacy >people have. Why would they support crypto and such if that were their >motivation? The real reason is because we expect that such databases are >going to come into existence regardless of legal efforts. They may be >"underground", or for that matter they may be run by governments >themselves, whom we are supposed to trust with our secrets. Yes, this is part of it (at least for me, and many others have expressed similar thoughts). We all as Cypherpunks know about "security through obscurity." Related names are: the _illusion_ of security, the "ostrich effect," etc. (Another key development which informs the CP outlook is the Lotus experience with their CD-ROM database on zipcodes, names, etc. I think it was called "Neighborhoods." Privacy advocates bought themselves the illusion of privacy by getting Lotus to cancel this...even as the data remained available to corporate, credit, intelligence agency, etc. customers.) >The point is that the best countermeasure is to prevent the collection of >the data in the first place. Ecash is better than credit cards for this >reason. People should try to structure their lives so that as little >information is leaked about them as possible. Relying on laws forbidding >people to keep information they have run across isn't likely to be >effective. Indeed, and "privacy laws," besides infringing on the basic freedoms of people to compile public data as they see fit, give people a "security blanket" which lessens their motivation to ensure their own privacy through direct, technological means. I frankly cannot understand how _any_ member of this list could _ever_ support so-called "privacy laws." Such laws fail to actually ensure privacy, and in fact give government new avenues for control. --Tim May 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."

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Re: [SCARE]: "If you only knew what we know..."
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:07 PM 5/24/96 -0600, David Rosoff wrote: >At 01.03 PM 5/24/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: > >>If the Libyans are so bad (and they probably are) then why shouldn't the >>public in other countries be entitled to pool their contributions and take >>their government down? > >I believe I understand the basic concepts of AP - perhaps not the far-reaching >implications, but the fundamentals. I've thought about it, and I am against this >system. What will happen when you've killed off all of the politicians/gov't employees >who haven't quit? Do you really think this will make things better? 1. There will be no politicans and government employees, except for those few who do not arouse the ire of more than a tiny fraction of the population, and are paid for by voluntary contributions. In other words, damn few. 2. There will be no taxes and no war. Any disputes will be of very small scale, a handful of people at most. 3. Individuals will be able to, and in fact will be responsible to defend themselves, although they may be able to do it by proxy. People will always have the option of defending others, and will do so if they believe that it deters future crimes that might be against them. >Anarchy simply >won't work with people. Have you ever read Lord of the Flies? I'm sure some >people haven't. Yes, I read it years ago. That book is fiction. Whether it represents any sort of potential reality is highly questionable. Even its premise is stilted: It hypothesizes a tiny, essentially homogenous society populated by immature boys, dropped into circumstances entirely foreign from anything they had ever known, with no adult guidance at all. Can you really expect good results from this, in fiction no less? Would it have made a good book if everything had happened hunky-dory? Anyway, anarchy is tradionally considered unstable because the strong are able to oppress the weak, and the weak can't effectively fight back, so governments are instituted. The system I've described, AP, allows a substantial number of anonymous weak people to (anonymously) pool their resources and defend themselves against a smaller number of strong oppressors. This is NEW. It may, in fact, allow anarchy to exist in a stable form, which may sound like an oxymoron but is not. If anarchy does indeed work, when suitably stabilized, then your premise is simply wrong. > Have any of you AP proponents >considered that perhaps our oh-so-corrupt government officials are simply >the best that our amoral, decaying populace has to offer? What would we >gain by rubbing them out? I see we have another Dr. Pangloss here. "the best of all possible worlds." We have plenty to gain by removing them from their positions of power. They are wasteful parasites. They engage in make-work. They manipulate the rest of us. They criminalize activities that should not be crimes. They make us waste our resources, for example by keeping ever-larger numbers of people in jail and prison. They are protected by militaries, which are wasteful uses of our resources. Ultimately, they end up killing huge numbers of people, ultimately just to protect the supremacy of these government employees and officeholders. > Maybe the current form of government isn't perfect, or even great, but it is still >much better than anything that could possibly result from anonymous terrorism, >which is really what AP is, isn't it? Who is to say that we even need a government? What, exactly, is the function of a government? Is that function truly necessary? Remember, AP changes the political landscape substantially. You can't any longer say things like "governmnet is necessary so that we can protect ourselves against foreign nations," because there will no longer be any foreign nations, or foreign armies, etc. >Peace can only be achieved by understanding, not through force or fear. Sounds like a truism that isn't necessarily true. Don't deny individuals the right to defend themselves. If you do, then you actually encourage force used against them, and magnify their fear. Don't selectively apply this rule to ordinary citizens, while forgetting to apply it to officials. And maybe we don't really even need to "achieve peace." I've come to the conclusion that the only reason war is "necessary" is to protect the leadership of a country, not to protect its citizens. Remove that leadership from power, and peace will be automatic. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: (Fwd) Re: TCM: mafia as a paradigm for cyberspace
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:14 PM 5/24/96 EDT, Paul J. Bell wrote: >Right, someone tells your wife that you are sleeping with someone else. >The truth, does it hurt? (-: Let's ask John Bobbit, shall we? Ouch! Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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