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Re: Fingerprinting annoyance
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 14-MAY-1996 13:05:37.99 >On Mon, 13 May 1996, Paul S. Penrod wrote: >> Pineapple juice and other weak acidic subtances ruin the ridges on the >> finger tips causing them to smear or not show at all. Unfortunately, this >> takes a period of time and constant handling of such items. >This is interesting. I suspect that you'd have to have major damage to >the ridges however. One idea I've had is dermabrasion of the fingertips. There could be some problems with this, however, in that dermabrasion works best on areas well-supplied with blood vessels and various other healing-promoting characteristics; thus, it is customarily used only on the face. It would be interesting to see if angiogenesis (blood vessel growing) and other growth factors could be used in order to have dermabrasion on other parts of the body without scarring (the normal consequence of using it in other areas); this would have cosmetic as well as identity-related applications. I haven't found any research on this subject on Medline. -Allen

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Mailing list
by The Steel Wolf 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I would like to be added to the Cypherpunk mailing list, please.

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Re: Fingerprinting annoyance
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 14-MAY-1996 12:45:16.88 >It is one of the great advantages of the United States that no >standardized procedure for person identification exists. Seals and >certificates vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Cross the border to >a state and a hospital birth annoucement is enough for a drivers license, >cross again and 4 pieces and a note from mom isn't enough. Are there any good reference works on how such requirements vary between states? I know Loompanics has some works on the subject of identity, but I don't know how reliable they are. -Allen

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Micro$oft Online Banking Strategy
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Extract from Micro$oft WinNews Volume 3, #17: >>>>>>> MICROSOFT ONLINE BANKING STRATEGY Microsoft announced that 58 financial institutions have committed to offering online banking using Microsoft Money through a group of leading banking-software vendors and banking-processing companies. To further help banks build their online-banking services, Microsoft is readying software-component technology for performing secure, ATM-like transactions using popular World Wide Web browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. These tools to facilitate browser-based banking are scheduled to be available by the end of the year. In addition, the Microsoft Windows NT Server network operating system includes embedded support for Internet publishing, helping facilitate an end-to-end Internet banking solution. Press release: http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/press/1996/may96 /hmbankpr.htm <<<<<<<

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Re: Fingerprinting annoyance
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 14-MAY-1996 13:21:35.36 >All this "suck it up and get printed" talk has me somewhat disconcerted >with the list. Have many here not consistantly indicated that privacy is >something that must be self assured? In most cases, such invasions of privacy are voluntary on the employee's part - because he/she chose to be employed there. There are some cases in which the employee doesn't have much other choice: A. The employer is required by the government to collect this information. Such requirements can be direct (laws to do this or else) or indirect (laws to do this or not get government contracts - rather like Clinton's attempt to force contractors to give in to all union demands by forbidding replacement workers). B. The employer is a monopsonic or ogliosonic buyer of the services that the employee can practically provide. While an ogliosonic or monopsonic corporation (including a group of employers that has decided to all follow one policy on such cases) isn't a full-scale government, it's still got enough power to qualify for limits in my book. C. The employer is a government, and thus shouldn't be allowed to go beyond the minimal necessary intrusion to do its job of protecting individual choices. >I think that unless proper means are taken to safeguard information, >social security number, license plates, and fingerprint records included, >that the individual is perfectly within rights to take his or her own >safeguarding initiatives. Social security numbers and license plates are forced upon one by a government. One did not choose to have these pieces of identification; these are therefore exceptions to the above rule. >Where those methods are not intended to simply evade prosecution, but >rather to foil extreme recordkeeping, I believe them legitimate. I would hope that you would also count evading illegitimate prosecution (drug laws, censorship laws, et al) as legitimate uses of them. I would. -Allen

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Re: Edited Edupage, 9 May 1996
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 14 May 96 at 10:57, Doug Hughes wrote: > I wouldn't normally respond to such an offtopic post, but this post > is so egregious I couldn't let it pass. You should have... > Who says they make a choice > to live in rural areas? Why? were they lobotomized? > Do they also choose not to have enough money > to pay for shoes? You got to choose to do what is needed to live a better life. And most of them ain't doing what it takes. > So, because they live in a poor district they are > not entitled to the same level of education as a rich city suburb? > The illiteracy rate in Alabama is 40%! This is just plain sick! When I was a kid, everything that had characters printed on it was readable. Who is *preventing* them from reading? > But the statement that we shouldn't subsidize > rural customers because they CHOOSE to live there (even though some > are poor and can't afford to live anywhere else) is just plain > fallacious. Please, substantiate your claims with in-context arguments. > Just because you choose to live in the city does not > mean people always choose to live where they live. Who cast their feet in concrete blocks? > Education is one > thing (perhaps the only thing) that deserves to be subsidized in > this country. I think that it should not be subsidized. If you feel like subsidising education, then by all means, do it. But why should you stick a gun in my back to do the same? What if I do not want to do the same as you? > the tone of > the above message is callous, besides being wrong. In *my* opinion, it is right on the money. But if you can stand reality, then I understand why you rant... BTW, I do not understand the "logics" that want to bring everybody down because some individuals are down. This is a system that punish achievement for being achievement and value meekness for itself. A total, anti-life aberration. JFA The damn collectivists, thoses with the psycho-epistomology of a leech and lamprey, be absolutely damned! DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Limoges porcelain, Silverware and mouth blown crystal glasses JFA Technologies, R&D consultants. Physists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 Unsollicited commercial e-mail will be proofread at US165 $/h Any sender of such material will be considered as to have ac- cepted the above mentionned terms.

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(ALERT) Senators who introduce new crypto bill need support (5/14/96)
by Voters Telecommunications Watch 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

======================================================================== Campaign for Secure Communications Online May 13, 1996 BI-PARTISAN SENATORS INTRODUCE NEW CRYPTO BILL S.1726 PROMISES TO FREE ENCRYPTION FROM COLD WAR REGULATORY STRANGLEHOLD Please widely redistribute this document with this banner intact until June 15, 1996 ________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS The Latest News What You Can Do Now Crypto Factoid Chronology of Crypto Export Liberalization Bill For More Information ________________________________________________________________________ THE LATEST NEWS In an effort to improve privacy and security on the Internet, a bi-partisan group of legislators recently introduced a bill to encourage the widespread availability of strong, easy-to-use encryption technologies. The bill, known as the Promotion of Commerce Online in the Digital Era (Pro-CODE) act of 1996 (S. 1726), would relax Cold War era export controls which have constrained the development and use of strong privacy and security technologies. Encryption is one of the technologies that will allow us to visualize a secure Internet, an Internet useful for conducting all sorts of private business from communicating with one's doctor, loved one, or spouse, to checking one's bank balance. S.1726 is sponsored by Senators Burns (R-MT), Leahy (D-VT), Pressler (R-SD), Wyden (D-OR), Ashcroft (R-MO), Dole (R-KS), Faircloth (R-NC), McCain (R-AZ), and Murray (D-WA). The Pro-CODE Act resolves to: 1. Allow for the *unrestricted* export of "mass-market" or "public-domain" encryption programs, including such products as Pretty Good Privacy and popular World Wide Web browsers. 2. Requires the Secretary of Commerce to allow the less restricted export of other encryption technologies if products of similar strength are generally available outside the United States, roughly up to DES strength. 3. Prohibits the federal government from imposing mandatory key-escrow encryption policies on the domestic market and limiting the authority of the Secretary of Commerce to set standards for encryption products. A copy of the legislation can be found at each of the WWW sites listed at the bottom in the "For More Information" Section. ________________________________________________________________________ WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW As more and more people come online, the need for - and lack of - strong privacy and security is becoming increasingly critical. This legislation represents an important step towards ensuring that the Internet develops into a secure, trusted medium for political, commercial, and private speech. The co-sponsors of S. 1726 have taken a political risk and are challenging the White House, the NSA (National Security Agency, and the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) in a policy battle to protect your privacy. They need your support. Please familiarize yourself with the bill (pointers to background information are listed below), and then take a moment to call, write, or fax the sponsors of the bill and thank them for their leadership on this issue. 1. Call/Fax/Email Senate sponsors and thank them P ST Name and Address Phone Fax = == ======================== ============== ============== R MT Burns, Conrad R. 1-202-224-2644 1-202-224-8594 conrad_burns(a)burns.senate.gov D VT Leahy, Patrick J. 1-202-224-4242 1-202-224-3595 senator_leahy(a)leahy.senate.gov R SD Pressler, Larry 1-202-224-5842 1-202-224-1259 larry_pressler(a)pressler.senate.gov D OR Wyden, Ron 1-202-224-5244 1-202-228-2717 R MO Ashcroft, John 1-202-224-6154 na john_ashcroft(a)ashcroft.senate.gov R KS Dole, Robert 1-202-224-6521 1-202-228-1245 R NC Faircloth, D. M. 1-202-224-3154 1-202-224-7406 senator(a)faircloth.senate.gov R AZ McCain, John 1-202-224-2235 1-202-224-2862 senator_mccain(a)mccain.senate.gov D WA Murray, Patty 1-202-224-2621 1-202-224-0238 senator_murray(a)murray.senate.gov 2. Use sample communication SAMPLE PHONE CALL You:<ring ring> Sen:Hello, Senator Mojo's office! You:Hi, I'd like to thank the Senator for helping to introduce legislation to lift the export controls on encryption. I won't use Clipper and don't think there's enough strong encryption on the Internet to protect my messages. Strong, non-Clipper encryption is needed to secure communications with my doctor, bank, spouse, and attorney. Sen:Ok, thanks!<click> 3. Let VTW know what sort of response you got Just drop us a line at vtw(a)vtw.org and let us know how your phone call went! 4. Forward this to your friends and colleagues. Unlike the debate over free speech, many netizens still do not know much about the issues of security and privacy on the Internet. Take the time to explain to a friend why security on the Internet is important. ________________________________________________________________________ CRYPTO FACTOID According to a 1993 study of encryption products worldwide, there are 193 products in 18 countries overseas that are sold with DES-strength encryption built into them. American companies and American programmers are today restricted from selling products with DES-strength encryption to the overseas market, or even distributing them domestically on the Internet. It is becoming extremely difficult for American companies to compete in the global market against competitors who do not labor under such restrictions. Source: Joint study with Dr. Lance Hoffman, Trusted Information Systems (http://www.tis.com) and the Software Publishers Association (http://www.spa.org) Study updated December 1995 and is available at http://www.tis.com/crypto/survey.html. ________________________________________________________________________ CHRONOLOGY OF THE 1996 CRYPTO BILLS 5/2/96 Bi-partisan group of Senators introduce Pro-CODE Act, which would free public-domain encryption software (such as PGP) for export, free much commercial encryption for export, and reduce the government's ability to push Clipper proposals down the throats of an unwilling public. Original sponsors include: Senators Burns (R-MT), Dole (R-KS), Faircloth (R-NC), Leahy (D-VT), Murray (D-WA), Pressler (R-SD), and Wyden (D-OR). 3/5/96 Sen. Leahy (D-VT) and Rep. Goodlatte (R-VA) announce encryption bills (S.1587/H.R.3011) that significantly relax export restrictions on products with encryption functionality in them, as well as free public domain software such as PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). ________________________________________________________________________ FOR MORE INFORMATION There are many excellent resources online to get up to speed on crypto including the following WWW sites: www.privacy.org www.crypto.com www.eff.org www.cdt.org www.epic.org www.vtw.org Please visit them often. Several organizations are working hard to support your right to have access to strong, effective encryption. We have all collaborated on this alert, funneling it through a single editor. Please address any press queries DIRECTLY to the organizations directly. The editors *do not* speak for the coalition as a whole. Here is an alphabetical list of the coalition members: American Civil Liberties Union Center for Democracy and Technology Computer Professionals for Electronic Frontier Foundation Social Responsibility HotWired / Wired Magazine Electronic Privacy Information Center People for the American Way *Voters Telecommunications Watch *Editors ________________________________________________________________________ End alert ========================================================================

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Re: Why does the state still stand:
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:35 PM 5/14/96 -0700, Hal wrote: >I think the intention then is to create "fully anonymous" companies. >These would be organizations whose principals and employees are known >only by pseudonyms, even to each other. Their only contact is >electronic, via an anonymous network. And the employees are paid in >anonymous ecash, which they don't pay taxes on since it is unreported >income. > >These companies produce products or services which they offer for sale >across the net. They accept payment in ecash, either from end users or >from other companies. > >Such companies would be illegal, with everyone involved subject to >criminal penalties for tax evasion (and no doubt a myriad of other >violations). But because the anonymity is protected cryptographically, >the government is helpless to learn the true identities of anyone >involved. The companies continue to successfully sell their products >and services, advertising and recruiting openly from anonymous sources, >and there is nothing the government can do about it. The goal, obviously, is to make the cost of collection of $1 in taxes sufficiently expensive so that they can't do it economically. But let me draw an analogy: The easiest form of shooting is paper target practice: The target is fixed. More difficult is trap and skeet, where the target moves. More difficult still is hunting, where the target (animals) is at least somewhat intelligent and usually very mobile, as well as camouflaged. This is analogous to encryption. But the most difficult form of shooting is war, in which the "target" can shoot back. If a computer model could be constructed of it, I think you'd find that the most effective way to avoid taxation is to invest money to target those doing the collection. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that it would probably cost less than 10 cents to prevent the collection of $1 worth of tax, and probably closer to a penny. Any analysis of the destruction of the state is incomplete without considering such a scenario. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Past one terabit/second on fiber
by droelke＠rdxsunhost.aud.alcatel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > In the April 1996 issue of Fiber Optic Product news, there is an article on > a Lucent Technologies (formerly Bell Labs...no relation...sigh...) product > which wavelength-multiplexes quantity 8, 2.5 Gb/second signals on a single > fiber, for a total of 20 Gb/sec. This is a real, purchaseable system. On > the same page is a somewhat more experimental system, done by Corning and > Siemens, in which eight channels at 10 Gb/sec each were transmitted on a > single Corning fiber. > > "Wow", I said. Far faster than the 2.5 Gb/sec transmission that is > currently fairly standard for long-haul fiber trunks. The ads say they are selling it - that doesn't mean shipping it... yet at least. (Note that my employer is a direct competitor of Lucent so I have a vested interest in setting the facts straight) > I wasn't prepared, however, for page 38, in an article titled "Research > Teams Achieve 1 Trillion bits a Second." In fact, three separate groups did > this. I copy the article below. Yes - this is still very much a lab situation only though. It will be quite a few years before we hit that in real systems. [...] > > Even if we only consider that 20 Gb/second fiber from Lucent, that is > equivalent to about 300,000 simultaneous voice calls. An OC48 signal (~2.5 Gb/sec) will handle 48 T3's or 48 * 672 voice calls. Multiply by 8 for 20 Gb/second and you get 258048 voice calls. Pretty close to 300k I guess. > With a standard, > 36-fiber cable, that represents 18x300,000 two-way calls, or about 4.8 > million calls. This is probably far greater than the maximum number of > people on LD in the US at any given time, and that's just a single cable trunk. I don't know that any number fiber cable is "standard" but 36-fiber cable is not unusual. To find the capacity of a cable, you have to cut the number of fibers in half (as you did) because generally each fiber is used only for a single direction of traffic. You then have to cut it in half again because phone companies have everything redundant. So, for a connection between two cities, there are generally 2 cables in different locations (so one backhoe doesn't get both), with on average only 1/2 the fibers in each carrying paying traffic. > If we assume that the fiber cable costs $1/meter per fiber, and the cost of > trenching, burial, and interconnects raise this to $10/meter/fiber, and if > we generously assume that the average LD call goes 3000 miles (5,000,000m), > that call occupies 1/150,000th of a $50 million fiber for a few minutes. If > we suppose that the fiber has to gross $100,000,000 per year to pay for > itself, and even if it's only operating at an average 10% load level(both > assumptions are pessimistic, that only works out to a cost of 1.3 cents per > minute per call. That's why these LD phone companies are so scared: If we > can transmit Internet on fiber, that fiber can accept this extra traffic at > very low marginal cost. I can't vouch much for your cost numbers - other than to apply the factor of 2 adjustment noted above. I would add that much of a phone companies cost is in billing and customer service, etc. Not the cost of installing and maintaining the fiber and equipement. This is how the smaller carriers buy lots of bandwidth off of the big guys, and remove all the billing, etc. problems to themselves. They big guys are still making money selling the bandwidth, and the little guy makes his profit by selling for slightly less than the big guy and somehow making his billing, customer service, etc. cost him less. Internet telephony should make the use of bandwidth even more efficient - thereby cutting costs. The big guys who own the fibers will still make money - the pipes that carry internet traffic are still needed. But the little guys will get squeezed out. (until they become ISPs ;-). Internet traffic could theoretically be carried over this large amount of protection fiber (mentioned above) that is out there for a much lower marginal cost than the current T3 or OC3 pipes that are being used. The only "problem" being that these are lower priority channels, so that if a failure occurs anywhere, the traffic on them is dropped. Most customers are demanding high uptimes so much that the idea of a very lost cost, but much less reliable service hasn't caught on yet. Dan ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Oelke Alcatel Network Systems droelke(a)aud.alcatel.com Richardson, TX

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Re: Edited Edupage, 9 May 1996
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:09 PM 5/15/96, Doug Hughes wrote: >environment, lack of education, lack of money, lots of factors. Nobody >is holding a gun to anybody's head saying "Don't Read". But improving >literacy is a goal that needs to be undertaken. Do you not agree that >low literacy is a bad thing and needs to be taken care of? If not, why >not? Naturally, you can't force someone to read who doesn't want to. No, I don't think "low literacy" in some subcultures is something that "needs to be taken care of." If members of that subculture think it a bad thing that their kids (not to mention themselves) are not readers and are not sufficiently literate to thrive in a high-tech world, then they need to take steps to change the basic values of their subculture. As I mentioned, many subcultures--too numerous to name, actually--have a strong belief in literacy, learning, and success, and are doing extremely well in modern American society. Other subcultures do not, and are seeing the fruits of their bad values realized. (One notable subculture currently has 40% of its adult male population either in prison, on parole, under indictment, or otherwise involved with the legal system in a debilitating way. This same subculture now has close to an 85% illegitimacy rate.) There is nothing "I" can do about such subcultures. Loads of tax dollars have not helped. As Charles Murray points out in "Losing Ground," the loads of tax dollars and special giveaways to some subcultures have very likely made the situation much worse than it was 30-40 years ago when the programs started. >Some people on this list argue that the current representative govt >system is bad, and that true democracy is better. You can't have true >democracy without education. (You can, but it would be very bad). >True democracy relies on people being educated, the more the better. >(Actually, education benefits the entire society.) "True democracy" is actually much worse than what we have now. The advantage of what we are doing with strong cryptography is that it undermines democracy. --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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