- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

FW: rules of engagement (fwd)
by Carlos Macedo Gomes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: Adam Back [SMTP:aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk] > Clearly I think one should be able to say wtf one wants to, and in > general I endeavor to do just that. But I am suggesting that > cypherpunks individually stear clear of grey areas, such as say > creative tax minimisation, Duncan Frissel style "it's not illegal to > do blah with social security numbers", Tim May style "I've got X > number of now illegal armament Y", (unless you also have the money for > good lawyers) and so on, whether technically legal or not, as one > would be taking above average risks in doing so, because governments > are watching this list, and a number of it's subscribers. I agree with Adam on sticking to legally achievable goals-- or at least legally achievable without needing unlimited funds to feed the army of lawyers that will be needed to keep you and your cohorts out of prison. To me that would include the realm of projects related to strong crypto, electronic cash, anonymity and privacy-- vague as those topics may be. That said... I was at the meeting in July with Jim when Toto showed up. It was my first attendance at an Austin Cpunk meeting and I was looking forward to working on some great projects with some hopefully great local folks. To me Toto showing up was simply a very interesting road sign (or graffiti) on the path to achieving pragmatic, long-living "cypherpunks write code" projects the first of which was to be the Crypto Conference that we were hoping to host and that we were discussing at that meeting with members of EF Texas. BTW: Whatever happended to the Classified Ad project?? Jim fought for that but it fell apart when the focus of the conference was was moved by another local group to a non-crypto topic. We took the synergies from the remains of conference project and started work on a Cypherpunks meta-web-archive this time with a joint effort by myself, some fellow programmers and the Austin Cpunks. This project as well started strong out of the gates but lost steam around the first corner. In part it was due to looming, work related project deadlines-- as far as I know none involved in the local projects are retired, Austin hitech fatcats (yet). But mostly this last project and the local meetings halted I think due to Jim's relating to the group the events that were happening with him regarding Toto. I think the really sad thing here is not that we didn't rise up as a group to stop the government's inquiries of Jim with regards to the Toto case but simply that we individually offered very limited support directly to Jim himself. And from speaking with Jim and reading his emails it appears that the support was in the form of a referral to lawyers (who apparently were not ready to do any _pro bono_ work) and an apology from myself for lack of offer of assistance when it became obvious to me that the long standing local group had not offered assistance. I think Jim did a great job with the local group and it's truly a sad indictment against the relationships we had (or thought we had) in the group where our "sponsor" is put in a spotlight for acting as a primary for the group that we're supposedly active in and there's no show of support... Again, not with intent to support Toto, or thwart government inquiries, but just to check to see how Jim's doing under the strain of possible government scrutiny. Anyhow the local group does look to be dead. I'd still like to get group coding projects and the like accomplished while I'm in Austin and suspect they will still happen and hopefully with Jim and some of the other local folks involved. But I don't think there will be an "Austin Cpunk" group after this. I'd be glad to have someone prove me wrong. That's my $0.02 on the events of the past few months.... Now back to reality. waves, C.G. -- Carlos Macedo Gomes gomes(a)navigo.com a Navigo farmer

1 0

The latest news from Toto
by Joseph 'Anonymous' Howe 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I got a letter from Toto today, and he's doing well. Or at least as well as one can under his circumstances. He has a few friendly requests, though, which I'm not necessarily in any position to respond to. * Does anyone have an RSA-in-perl t-shirt (or sweatshirt, or whatever) to spare? He wants the Well Dressed CypherPunk Defendant Look (TM) in court. * Declan McCullagh: Congratulations, you've been added to the visitors' list. * Oh, yeah! If someone could mail me copies of the FPP stuff, it would be nice, since the Shrink Rapper has copies and I don't. (The IRS is sending it to him as part of his punishment for laughing at my jokes...) If anyone knows what he's referring to, reply to the cpunks list and I'll get in touch personally, or just mail it to him directly. MailMonger

4 3

RE: UK police chase crooks on CCTV (fwd)
by Brown, R Ken 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> William H. Geiger III[SMTP:whgiii@invweb.net] wrote (among other > stuff): > > > What we need is a mechanism to punish the politicians > who go down the Big Brother path *and* the companies > who are making big profits helping them. > IMHO the UK, and the rest of Europe, is a lost cause, > it's sheeple are too brainwashed The best bit of news of the last few days is Pinochet's arrest. It lifted my heart. Almost made up for the all the bad stuff the UK government has been coming out with. (Also it brought Thatcher out of the woodwork. Like a large segment of the British Tory party she really is/was an authoritarian, paying lip-service to the Free Market for political reasons. You can tell them by the company they keep.)

3 2

No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> What is privacy? In the longwords of Toto the Manicgnificant (tm): The ability to say, "fuck off", and mean it.

1 0

Censored news topic censored ...
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear TOTN at NPR, This is most distressing. I was one of the very first callers to your Talk of the Nation show today whose topic was relevant news reporting in the US. My topic was the lack of reporting on the FBI's last minute sneak of the roving wire tap proposal into the intelligence budget bill. I wanted Ray to talk about the editorial process and how these things get dropped on the floor as this item is extremely important to our democracy because it is an agency charged with protecting our Constitutional rights (the FBI) who is deliberately circumventing the democratic legislative process to pass a law which was sounded defeated two years ago in open debate. Ironically, my topic was censored, and I waited an hour, while other people wanted to discuss things like how they can vent about their divorce difficulties through the Monica Lewinsky scandal, only to be dropped in the end. Would any of the NPR staff or Mr. Suarez would like to explain just what happened here? Ern -------- Ernest Hua, TeraLogic Inc, 1300 Villa St, Mountain View, CA 94041 (650) 526-6064, hua(a)teralogic-inc.com

3 2

Re: Censored news topic censored ...
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Would any of the NPR staff or Mr. Suarez would like > to explain just what happened here? I'll take a stab: milk spills, people trip, shit happens. They probably didn't mean it. But who knows. -- Spy King Communications spyking(a)hotmail.com ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

1 0

Women cannot commit rape?
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Trees cannot be indicted for assasination -Bono Kennedy

2 1

Re: Censored news topic censored ...
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mr. Suarez, Ah ... I see where the misunderstandings are ... I am listening to the program on "The Budget Deal", which is the hour most likely to have any mention of the roving wiretap provision. On-the-air transcripts or not, however, I think you still miss the central point. The issue is that most major news outlets did NOT report on HOW this provision was rammed through Congress. I did not specifically accuse YOU of not reporting, which is probably why you are so defensive. Certainly, the Market Place show reported this, and so did the San Jose Mercury, but not New York Times. ABCNEWS only said that something was passed to help law enforcement, as if anything passed to help law enforcement is necessarily a good thing. The issue is not whether the issue of roving wire taps got any light of day. The issue is that the process of the roving wire taps being rammed through Congress did NOT get the light of day, specifically because the FBI lobbyists did this at the last minute to get it hidden in all the noise of the frantic 11th hour budget deals ... which is why I thought the topic was most appropriate to the discussion of relevant news today. I did not claim to have a solution to the problem of too much noise to valuable news ratio. However, some insight from someone like you, Ray, could have been a good discussion and education for all of us concerned with the FBI's legislative tricks. I would have also brought up the lack of reporting on the EU's concerns about US/UK mass wire tapping. It's clear that the NSA does not want this topic discussed, and in fact, had pressured the EU to not bring up the topic. Wired magazine reported this within the last week, but S J Mercury had nothing on it, nor the N Y Times, etc ... Ray, please do not think I am accusing YOU of censoring the wire tap topic. What I am concerned about is the news media's role in not shining a bright lights on these topics, and that is a very serious issue. Ern -----Original Message----- From: Mark Hedges <hedges(a)infonex.com> Date: Thursday, October 22, 1998 3:29 PM Subject: Re: Censored news topic censored ... >Interesting. Back to you, Ernest. >>From: TOTNMAIL(a)npr.org >>Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:24:54 -0400 >>To: HEDGES(a)INFOPEACE.COM >>Your "evidence" of NPR collusion and stifling of the news would be most >>disturbing, except for the fact that I have discussed roving wiretaps on the >>air, explained the manner in which they were being rammed through with little >>debate, and talked about how it was a departure from years of precedence >>regarding warrants and court permission. I have the on-air transcript, you >>have >>the hearsay of a caller who is disappointed because he didn't get on the air. >> >>Ray Suarez > >>This is most distressing. I was one of the very first >>callers to your Talk of the Nation show today whose >>topic was relevant news reporting in the US. My topic >>was the lack of reporting on the FBI's last minute >>sneak of the roving wire tap proposal into the >>intelligence budget bill. I wanted Ray to talk about >>the editorial process and how these things get dropped >>on the floor as this item is extremely important to >>our democracy because it is an agency charged with >>protecting our Constitutional rights (the FBI) who is >>deliberately circumventing the democratic legislative >>process to pass a law which was sounded defeated two >>years ago in open debate. >> >>Ironically, my topic was censored, and I waited an >>hour, while other people wanted to discuss things >>like how they can vent about their divorce >>difficulties through the Monica Lewinsky scandal, only >>to be dropped in the end. >> >>Would any of the NPR staff or Mr. Suarez would like >>to explain just what happened here? >> >>Ern

2 1

Offering 50,000 African American Email Addresses . .
by The BSB Publishing Comp. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Email up to 50,000 African-American Consumers CALL TOLL FREE TO ORDER - (800)305-1458 Also . . . Email 4,000 Black business owners and entrepreneurs simultaneously. Generate web traffic and sales by exchanging links and banners with other African- American Entrepreneurs. Do you have a product or service of interest to African-Americans on the Internet? Would you like to effortlessly expand your customer base by up to 50,000 African-Americans for under $100? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then our email marketing lists are what you need. We have a database of well over 50,000 email addresses of African-Americans who may be interested in your products and services. We also offer a email list of 4,000 African American entreprenuers and businesses who do business on the internet. These contacts could lead to a mutually profitible business relationship including banner and link exchanges. These pre-screened email addresses are compiled on 3.5" diskettes in standard "DBASE IV" and "TEXT" format which are universally compatible with email merge programs like CyberMailer Pro and word processing programs. All you need to do is import the list into an email merge program which will automatically email everyone on the list. It couldn't be easier or more efficient. Email up to 50,000 African-Americans immediately! 50,000 AA Email Addresses - $99.95 10,000 AA Email Addresses - $49.95 4,000 AA Entreprenuers - $39.95 ***Special Limited time offer*** Order 50,000 African American Email Addresses and receive 4,000 African American Entreprenuers for FREE. ($39.95 value) CALL TOLL FREE TO ORDER - (800)305-1458 BSB Publishing Co. 151 First Avenue - #225 New York, NY 10003 All orders are shipped C.O.D. $10.00 - Priority Mail Shipping $12.00 - Overnight Shipping

1 0

CDA II and Tax Issues
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: johnmuller(a)mail.earthlink.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:39:13 -0700 Reply-To: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM> Sender: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM> From: John Muller <johnmuller(a)EARTHLINK.NET> Subject: CDA II and Tax Issues To: CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM Some questions for the eminent Constitutional litigators on this list: As noted in the Freedom Forum article posted by David Burt, the newly-adopted Internet Tax Freedom Act contains a provision which makes harmful-to-minor-ographers ineligible for the moratorium on Internet taxes. Specifically, any person or entity that knowingly makes a communication for commercial purposes by means of the Web which includes material harmful to minors does not get the benefits of the moratorium, unless the person or entity has restricted access to the material in specified ways. (BTW, the Web is defined to include FTP and "other similar protocols"). See http://cox.house.gov/nettax/itfafinal.pdf (1 MB+ download). Is it possible to challenge the Constitutionality of this provision even before any state has rushed to tax on-line peddlers of harmful-to-minor materials? If so, why aren't the ACLU/EFF/EPIC challenging this bill? Is the Constitutional challenge significantly harder to maintain than CDA II? After all, it's singling out a particular type of speech, and as they say the power to tax is the power to destroy, even if uncertainty about being taxed is not likely to chill speech as much as uncertainty about going to jail. John Muller johnmuller(a)earthlink.net "Things are not as they seem, neither are they otherwise" --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.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'

1 0