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Re: IBM_gak
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:17 AM 9/16/96 -0700, Lucky Green wrote: >On Mon, 16 Sep 1996, John Young wrote: >> 9-15-96. PcWe: >> "IBM Boosts Encryption Initiative " >> >> IBM security initiatives next month will include a >> new way to build encryption into software and >> technology that could enable U.S. companies to export >> products with strong encryption algorithms. IBM also >> will introduce several "key-recovery" technologies >> that could enable businesses to satisfy the >> requirement imposed by the U.S. government that it be >> able to access encrypted data on demand. > >Aparently, Al Gore's recent phone calls to everybody who is anybody in the >industry have paid off. After HP, TIS, and other unnamed parties, now IBM >is supporting GAK. Folks, this battle is lost. Domestic GAK is coming to >a PKI near you. So, the "Little Tramp" and the "Great Dictator" turn out to be one and the same... Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Lexis-Nexis scare = opportunity
by Omegaman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've been reading articles about the recent flap over Lexis-Nexis' P-TRAK database with interest. A recent Associated Press article said that the lines at Lexis-Nexis have been jammed with individuals requesting they be removed from the database. Lexis-Nexis is certainly not the only database of its kind, but it has certainly generated quit a bit of attention and panic In terms of cypherpunk goals, I think this is a positive development. It demonstrates ever-so-clearly that the average "Joe Schmoe" does not follow the government line that privacy and security are mutually exclusive concepts. Rather, there is an instinctive recognition that privacy and security are inextricably linked. Only when the government pulls on emotional (as opposed to logical) strings by pulling out the "if you only knew what we knew" & "if it saves just one life" arguments does the easily swayed public get pulled in the other direction. The flap over P-TRAK repudiates arguments by Freeh and others that American citizens want to give up their freedoms in the interest of security. If you are in a position to influence government policy (ie. Jim Ray with Judge Kozinski, EFF personages involved in the Bernstein case, PRO-CODE advocates, et al.), then keep these clippings handy. Here is a concrete example that our government and law-enforcement leaders are woefully out of touch with average citizens (not to mention reality!). The leap from P-TRAK to GAK is not that large in the so-called court of public opinion. Sometimes monkey-wrenching is as simple as pointing out the obvious. me _______________________________________________________________ Omegaman <mailto: omega(a)bigeasy.com> PGP Key fingerprint = 6D 31 C3 00 77 8C D1 C2 59 0A 01 E3 AF 81 94 63 Send e-mail with "get key" in the "Subject:" field to get a copy of my public key _______________________________________________________________

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Re: Kiddie porn on the Internet
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:33 PM 9/16/96 -0400, hallam(a)ai.mit.edu wrote: > >>Yet another obligatory AP (Assassination Politics) reference: If a person >>is really interested in helping out "starving children" he may be able to do >>far more good by purchasing the death of the local tyrant(s), rather than >>(just) buying more food. > > >The problem is that assasination rarely leads to the installation of >a government that is any better. In most cases it gets worse. There is an enormous difference in significance between the following two scenarios: 1. Tyrant A, speaking outside, gets struck by a meteorite and is instantly killed. He is immediately replaced by his second-in-command. 2. Tyrant B is told that he has been threatened with a meteorite strike by an opponent in an hour if he goes on with his speech, he ignores the "unbelievable" warning, and dies on schedule, just as he was warned, struck by a meteorite. What should his vice-thug do in THIS case?!? Physically, the same thing happened: Big boom. But the implications are vastly different. Incident 1 looks like a freak of nature that's unlikely to be repeated. It leads to very few policy changes or changes in precautions. It was a fluke. Incident 2 looks like somebody has developed a new weapon of practically supernatural capabilities. This difference is why I scoff at your attempts to equate political assassination in the past with what will be accomplished in the future. (other people have made this mistake as well; it's a common misunderstanding.) In the past, assassinations have often led to worse replacements, but that is because there is no likely prospect that the assassination will be repeated, as many times as needed, until the job is done. Partly that's because assassinations were often seen to be the work of "lone nuts" (who don't come around all that often), or because they were done by the very people who take over. In either case, the prospects of a repeat are rather low. As anyone who really understands my AP theory recognizes, getting rid of an unwanted leader will become so easy and cheap (on a per-citizen basis) that nobody would dare take the job who angered more than a tiny fraction of the population. A "worse" government would simply never be formed, unless they were suicidal. >In the past the US excuse for supporting bloodthirsty murderers like >Pinochet, Saddam, Marcos and Noriega was that the alternative was >worse. The _truth_, however, is that the alternative was worse...for the US government. It's really very simple: Let me draw an analogy. Modern organophosphate pesticides were initially developed by German chemists in the 1930's. These materials are closely related to Sarin, the well-known nerve agent that killed people in the Tokyo subway attack over a year ago. It turns out that Sarin is a rather simple molecule. Why not use it to kill bugs? Well, it kills bugs just fine. The problem, of course, is that it kills farmers just as well. Since you presumably don't want to do that, you have to go to all the trouble to find compounds that kill bugs, but are as non-toxic as possible to farmers. And if you look at the description of the contents of modern organophosphate pesticides on the bottles, you see names that only a chemist could possibly pronounce, names so long (because their molecules were so complex) that you often have to take a breath in the middle to recite. These compounds were found by individually synthesizing thousands, or even tens of thousands of compounds, and testing each one. Individually. Eventually, they found compounds which were as toxic to bugs as Sarin is to humans, but were far less toxic to humans. They found the needle in the haystack. Likewise, as I've discovered through AP, it will be easy to get rid of tyrants. The exquisitely difficult task is to get rid of ONLY SOME of the tyrants, for example Saddam Hussein, Moammar Khadafi, etc, and leaving most of the rest behind. _THAT'S_ the tricky part. I have the easy task: describing a system to get rid of them all, with no exceptions. But that's the system that nobody in the leadership of any current country wants to see. That is why you won't see Clinton announcing that he's going to use my idea to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and instead will waste hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in a failed bid to eject the thug. Doesn't that make you feel a lot safer? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: WinSock Remailer Version ALPHA 1.3 Now Available
by Alex de Joode 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Remo Pini (rp(a)rpini.com) wrote: : To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com : Date: Thu Sep 19 09:07:16 1996 : Has it already been exported by some sinister anonymous? If so, where? ftp.replay.com:/pub/replay/pub/remailer/wsa13.zip where else ...? -- Alex de Joode | Replay IP Service & Web DZign -- The Netherlands usura(a)replay.com | http://www.replay.com mailto:info@replay.com

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Re: ANYONES CREDIT CARD # per your request.
by Lynne L. Harrison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:40 PM 9/21/96 -0500, David E. Smith wrote: > >According to the 800 number, you may also be removed from >their database by sending a letter to p-trak(a)prod.lexis-nexis.com. >You need to send your name and address, and probably your Citizen- >Unit Social Insecurity Number. True. You *do* have to give your Social Insecurity Number ["SIN"(tm)]. While they have discontinued publishing SIN's, they have them in their databanks and require you to state it as their way of "verifying" that it is the "real" you making the request to be removed. ************************************************************ Lynne L. Harrison, Esq. | "The key to life: Poughkeepsie, New York | - Get up; lharrison(a)mhv.net | - Survive; http://www.dueprocess.com | - Go to bed." ************************************************************ DISCLAIMER: I am not your attorney; you are not my client. Accordingly, the above is *NOT* legal advice.

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Where to write crypto?
by Dan McGuirk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If I want to go to a country outside the United States to write cryptographic code that will be freely distributable, what's the best place to go?

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Re: Going AP Shit on the Internet
by Black Art 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:34 PM 9/21/96 -0400, hallam(a)vesuvius.ai.mit.edu wrote: > >[AP drivel deleted] > > [Examples of where AP would fail deleted] > >Both the assumption AP rests on are utterly false. It is neither possible >to assasinate people at will nor will it intimidate. > >In addition *ANYONE* who attempted to implement AP would be someone *I* >would regard as a tyrant and therefore a legitimate target by the rules >of AP. I would naturally consider it permissable to engage the support of >others in their suppression. Since we now live in the fantasy land of AP >I can now wipe out anyone anywhere so I eliminate all AP leaders. I'd buy that for a dollar! I would expect that only a small portion of the "targets" on an actual AP system would be political figures. People have a far broader range of people they would like to see eliminated. How many "hits" would John Tesh have gotten after the Olympics? How many "hits" would Urkel get after anyone actually watched him on TV? These powers could be used for good or evil! People do not just want to kill politicians. Many of them would like to kill people they find annoying in their general lives. TV stars. Advertising executives. Bosses. Bill Gates. Brings stalking to a new level! Say a company came out with an Internet browser that was considered the "market leader". A less scrupulous competitor (who has a large company and lots of cash) could afford to have key personnel off-ed as a part of "doing business". (And it would not have to be the figureheads. Less well-known people in charge of key areas, like security could be off-ed.) Is your job important to KILL FOR? They could even hide it in the sales and promotion budget. It could change the face of business forever! Who do you want to kill today? There is no mechanism to assure that AP is used for only the people that Mr. Bell would like to see killed. If it is implemented, then EVERYONE is a target. >I think that this type of talk is incredibly dangerous. There are plenty of >people on the net who are psychos and if you spread AP drivel arround someone >is going to act on it. Probably not Jim Bell, more likely a psychopath who >lurks on the list but does not post. Actually, I would expect that the various government agencies would do their best to track down those trying to implement such a system. Governments do not take competition lightly. The odds of getting a real hit man are also small. The FBI has agents who frequently pose as hit men for the sole purpose of tracking down those who want to eliminate their friends and neighbors. Only organized crime and government have easy access to assassination. ("Government Access to assassination" Escrow anyone?) >If you call for people to be murdered - and let us not forget that this is >what AP is about you bear the responsibility when someone acts on it. I do not think that Mr. Bell is willing to examine the moral consequences of the things that he advocates. (He would get alot more respect from me if he would own up to it and admit he is wanting to see mass murder for hire.) There seems to be a big blind spot here. It would also be a great excuse for the bluenoses who want to regulate the net into extinction. (Advocating murder is not taken well in our society, even if the targets deserve it.) >I consider AP to be very close to calling for the assasination of the >President of the USA. That is a federal crime and there is a law that >requires the investigation of any such threats. I suggest that people >think *very* carefully before engaging in this dangerous nonsense any >further. Facilitating the murder of others through hiring of hit men is illegal no matter who the target is. I wonder how he would find a service provider that would dare host the site. I know of no "data haven" that would risk having a murder for hire server anywhere near their site. They would find their feed cut pretty quick or feel the sting of legal liability or both. (Part of being a "data haven" is not to attract attention to yourself. The first rule of not being seen is "Don't stand up".) >PS it is not censorship to stop people from advocating murder. I disagree with this conclusion. It IS censorship. The only thing that seems to change it is the subject matter. If it was changed to "it is not censorship to stop people from advocating cryptography" or "unrestrained sex" or "destruction of the ruling party" would you still agree? Sometimes advocating murder is considered valid. (As the various people in the media talking about how "we should have offed Husain (sp?).) How do you make the distinction. Whoever is in power this week? I think not. Besides, if you want to weed the nut cases out of society, you let them advocate such things in public. Makes it easier to cart them away before they hurt someone. (Unless they are in Government office. By then, it is too late.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Black Art blackart(a)ctrl-alt-del.com "The Government will mind its own business the day that Malcolm McDowell becomes a spokesman for Crisco."

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Re: "Remailers can't afford to be choosy"
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Without going back and reviewing my precise words in my first post on this topic, I don't think Lance is doing anything unreasonable. My comment was more to the point that a lot of the talk I see about filtering topics, looking at content, blah blah blah, is basically inconsistent with the basic concept of a "digital mix," a la Chaum. At 7:19 PM 9/21/96, Lance Cottrell wrote: >One important differentiation to make is filtering on form vs. filtering on >content. Most if not all remailers have clear usage guidelines. These >indicate several form restrictions on what messages the remailer is >offering to transmit. These restrictions may be on message size, >instruction formatting, number of destinations for one message, or number >of identical messages. These restrictions are no more censorship than >restricting messages to SMTP compliant ascii. > >Where people do not follow the stated rules, I take action to enforce them. >Either by source blocking the abuser if known, destination blocking the >destination, or trying to apply public pressure. I think all these actions >are completely reasonable, given that the proper use guidelines were >clearly defined up front. It is similar to putting up a fence around your >yard when people start hanging out there uninvited. Clearly stating policies is fair enough. In the future, with a rich ecology of remailers, I would expect many kinds of remailers with many kinds of policies, prices, etc. Still, it is always useful to remember that a remailer is first and foremost a _remailer_, not an inspector of content to determine appropriateness of topics, whether a receiver "wants" a remailed message, etc. (None of the main "physical remailers," e.g., the US Postal Service, Federal Express, UPS, Airborne, etc., offer "destination-blocking" or even "source-blocking" services. Of course, they charge some form of fee for remailing. And there is nominally a return address (albeit easily bypassed/spoofed).) >Are you suggesting that I not take perfectly legal and open actions to >enforce the public statement of allowed uses of my remailer? No. I think clearly stated policies are perfectly legit. What I was getting at with my "remailers can't afford to be choosy" point was a more general point that sometimes seems to get lost in the discussions, namely, that remailers will, perforce, be used for lots of unpopular, disgusting, flamish, etc. uses. Not all remailer uses are noble whisteblowings (*). (* In fact, some whistleblowings are amongst the most "most illegal" uses! The person within General Dynamics who uses a remailer to describe contract fraud in the Tomahawk Cruise Missile program is almost certainly putting the remailer operator under intense pressure, just as is a person using a remailer to post the Church of Scientology NOTS documents. To me, they are the same. Hence, "remailers can't afford to be choosy.") --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I 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, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Kiddie porn on the Internet
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:34 PM 9/21/96 -0400, hallam(a)vesuvius.ai.mit.edu wrote: > >[AP drivel deleted] > >Go talk to someone who is a member of an organisation like the PLO or >Hammas and pretty near the top. If you think that they would be intimidated >for a moment by AP you have another think comming. It depends entirely on what you mean by "intimidated." AP would make them pretty damn useless, because instead of the typical Palestiniation having to depend on a few corrupt self-chosen leaders, they could get their revenge on an individual basis. Who needs PLO or Hamas under such circumstances? Besides, the Israelis (as well as resentful Palestinians) could get rid of abusive PLO or Hamas leadership using AP. > >If it could the US would have assasinated Saddam by now. No, because the leadership in the US who would either choose such a system (or not) well understand that people who live in glass palaces shouldn't start throwing rocks against the enemy leadership. > It can't because it >is too difficult to find out where exactly a person will be. Assasination >attempts against Castro similarly failed. Assassination can easily fail if you don't give the proper people the motivation to accomplish the task. The key to having it work out is to ensure that the few people who have access to the target are sufficiently motivated to collect the reward. Who, exactly, was given a motivation to kill Castro? A few clowns in Miami? A few crooks in Jersey? Give _everybody_ who meets Castro during the day a $10 million motivation to kill him, and he'll be dead before sunset. >If you care to look at the history of Cambodia you will see that Lon Nol >assumed the presidency despite the knowledge that there was practically no ch >chance of defeating the Khumer Rouge and that he would almost certainly be dead >in less than a week as a result. > >Both the assumption AP rests on are utterly false. It is neither possible >to assasinate people at will nor will it intimidate. Since it's never been tried before, how do you know? >In addition *ANYONE* who attempted to implement AP would be someone *I* >would regard as a tyrant and therefore a legitimate target by the rules >of AP. I don't doubt that there will be many people who misunderstand AP. You're obviously one of them. I would naturally consider it permissable to engage the support of >others in their suppression. Since we now live in the fantasy land of AP >I can now wipe out anyone anywhere so I eliminate all AP leaders. > > >I think that this type of talk is incredibly dangerous. There are plenty of >people on the net who are psychos and if you spread AP drivel arround someone >is going to act on it. Probably not Jim Bell, more likely a psychopath who >lurks on the list but does not post. Pardon me, but what's wrong with this? Follow the news more closely, and you'll hear of a group which is operating in southern Mexico, the "EPR," which is killing off government employees, politicians, and police. True, they're not implementing the mathematical, digital-cash basis behind AP, but they see to be making good progress against the corruption which is Mexico. Increase their productivity by a factor of 10, and the Mexican government would be terrified. Increase it by 100, and the Mexican government would fall within a few months. >If you call for people to be murdered - and let us not forget that this is >what AP is about you bear the responsibility when someone acts on it. Does that make YOU responsible if, by calling for people to NOT kill their oppressors, they continue to suffer oppression? >I consider AP to be very close to calling for the assasination of the >President of the USA. That is a federal crime and there is a law that >requires the investigation of any such threats. I suggest that people >think *very* carefully before engaging in this dangerous nonsense any >further. > > Phill >PS it is not censorship to stop people from advocating murder. Then you obviously don't understand the meaning of the word, "censorship." Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Assassination Politics, was Kiddie porn on the Internet
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:51 PM 9/17/96 -0700, Steve Schear wrote: >>On Mon, 16 Sep 1996, Steve Schear wrote: >> >>> Someone wrote: >>> We've all heard these arguments, but are they true? Who says so, and how >>> can they be certain? Jim's suggestion has never, to my knowledge, been >>> tried on a consistant, large, scale. When all conventional alternatives >>> have been tried and fail, what have we or the starving children got to >>> lose? >> >>I think "Lord of the Flies" answers this question quite well. > >Does it? LOTF was fiction. Can you identify a recent instance in which a >non-governmental organization attempted to influence political/military >events via a concerted AP? As you understand, I really have to question anybody who would take an extraordinarily contrived work of fiction like LOTF and exrtrapolate from it as some sort of "answer" to AP. However, Unicorn is sufficiently confused that it's not surprising that this would come from him. While it's been well over two decades since I read it, LOTF engages in the artifice of separating out a handful of near-pre-adolescent boys, who don't seem to get along particularly well while stuck on an island after being shot down during a war. (Presumably, WWII.) It's hard to understand what kind of lesson we could learn from this, particularly since one person's opinion of what might happen should such an extraordinary and unlikely event occur can't be all that more significant or valuable than another. Or, what if such an event actually happened, and the outcome was quite different? What would that say about Golding's opinions? Or, suppose a similar event occurred, but instead of a dozen boys it was a co-ed college's students, or a few geriatrics, or a family, or a few middle-aged women, or...what? What, exactly, are we learning from one specific speculation that Golding happened to want to commit to paper? Unfortunately (or, perhaps _fortunately_?) I don't think we're going to hear from Unicorn why he thinks one particular dime novel is any more revelational about human behavior than any other. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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