- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

If it saves the life of one non-Iraqian child...
by TruthMonger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ya gotta love that Saddam, eh? Allowing the press to do a photoshoot of all those children who don't seem to be the child everyone is desparately trying to save by taking away our basic human rights and freedoms... I loved watching the western newswoman on TV yesterday, trying to explain to the local citizens how the US embargo that was resulting in the deaths of their children was all Saddam's fault. (Although I must have missed the part where she explained Saddam's authority to set US foreign policy.) I think we should immediately drop-ship a few thousand baby T-shirts to Iraq that have "I am not _the_ child!" stenciled on them, so that Americans watching at home don't mistake the starving Iraqian children for the one that we are saving by allowing our government to monitor and oppress us. Next time you pay your taxes, try to remember that you are just following orders...Saddam is evil...those are not _the_ child...you are only doing what is required by law...Saddam is responsible...you are just obeying the law...you are just following orders...you don't put them in the ovens, you just pay for the ovens...you don't turn on the gas, you just pay for the gas...you are just following orders... TruthMonger

1 0

Kashpureff stuff online
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CBC has put together a short (7 mins or so) news piece on the Kashpureff/Alternic situation - it's available via RealVideo (which seems to run reasonably over my 28.8 modem at home) at <http://www.tv.cbc.ca/undercurrents/tv/week09/fugitive.ram>. They've also made an image of his US arrest warrant and the criminal complaint filed in the US district court (ED NY, 97-1343M) available at <http://www.tv.cbc.ca/undercurrents/stories/internic/warrant.html>. -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles(a)netbox.com | Export jobs, not crypto. http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | http://www.parrhesia.com

3 2

No Subject
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

:: Subject: Re: Pasting in From: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Sender: Amad3us <cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net> Robert Costner says: > It seems to me that the purpose of a remailer is to strip the headers, > including the FROM header, not to put in fake headers. Until someone can > explain it to me, I'd consider the idea of adding a FROM header to > anonymous mail to be asinine. The purpose of a remailer is to allow the sender to be anonymous, so it strips real headers to prevent accidents (eg. subject fields organization etc). Then it has to allow you to put headers back in otherwise you can't interoperate with software. Eg pasting in References:, Subject: (I would like to see Cc: and Bcc: being allowed to be pasted in also). I would also like to see From: pasted in. In fact I can see no purpose to restrict what can be pasted in, other than to reduce complaints to the remailer operator possibly. > Best I can tell, the only reasonable good purpose for this is to create a > persistent nym identity without a reply to capability. Well, remailer > software cannot support everything I suppose. (Even if Cracker may > apparently support this) It's easy enough to allow From:. I do it myself sometimes, and notice Nerthus does also, pasting in From fields works at least with Replay as the exit node, but that results in two From fields. My software shows be all headers. I am not sure what other software would do, probably, only display the first From field (the remailers). I would have thought remailers are not actually trying to advertise their From fields. Perhaps allowing bogus From fields, or even putting in remailer(a)dev.null if there is not a From field would greatly reduce complaints from clueless users. If you want to you can always put in Sender: remailer(a)anon.efga.org. > I would think the best way to put in a persistent nym capability would be > to database the PGP key id's along with the persistent identity. Then the > remailer could produce lines like > > From: "Monty Cantsin" <anon(a)anon.efga.org> That'd do. However you'll notice that my address is: Amad3us <cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net> which means that I would like it to be pasted in as it is replyable (for encrypted mail) even though not being a nymserver account. > Persistent identities would be created by sending a signed PGP message that > includes both the PGP public key and the persistent identity. Since the > identity server would not database email addresses, only PGP key id's, and > only work for signed messages, there should be no problem with people > worrying about the remailer being compromised. This also keeps someone > from stealing another's reputation capital. Not sure that the assurance is this strong. However the feature would be useful. Amad3us -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 6.6.6 iQCVAwUBNIKq4PKMuKFNFivhAQGvpwP9HnkWew9lSzQ5cj70UehLkopbLJr7YFSq S5ZJzPp2KuYqVpjs7Lyagg0WtFyX9UUFFCXuWemhjJNLAmqQP7fkAnxs1Epq4LTj cd+qn3Y58EQlyQAlFwF/l7bUedWVwcxIkVmR5PxkwG3LTMzYHGLSIuhF6gqanSv0 EyjvkXIw/as= =fbA1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

List of reliable remailers
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I operate a remailer pinging service which collects detailed information about remailer features and reliability. To use it, just finger remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu There is also a Web version of the same information, plus lots of interesting links to remailer-related resources, at: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html This information is used by premail, a remailer chaining and PGP encrypting client for outgoing mail. For more information, see: http://www.c2.org/~raph/premail.html For the PGP public keys of the remailers, finger pgpkeys(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu This is the current info: REMAILER LIST This is an automatically generated listing of remailers. The first part of the listing shows the remailers along with configuration options and special features for each of the remailers. The second part shows the 12-day history, and average latency and uptime for each remailer. You can also get this list by fingering remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu. $remailer{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"mix"} = "<mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord ?"; $remailer{"replay"} = "<remailer(a)replay.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek"; $remailer{"jam"} = "<remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek"; $remailer{"winsock"} = "<winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub reord ?"; $remailer{'nym'} = '<config(a)nym.alias.net> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{"cracker"} = "<remailer(a)anon.efga.org> cpunk mix remix pgp hash ksub esub latent cut ek reord post"; $remailer{'redneck'} = '<config(a)anon.efga.org> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"bureau42"} = "<remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org> cpunk mix pgp ksub hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"neva"} = "<remailer(a)neva.org> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub ?"; $remailer{"lcs"} = "<mix(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu> mix"; $remailer{"medusa"} = "<medusa(a)weasel.owl.de> mix middle" $remailer{"McCain"} = "<mccain(a)notatla.demon.co.uk> mix middle"; $remailer{"valdeez"} = "<valdeez(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"arrid"} = "<arrid(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"hera"} = "<goddesshera(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"htuttle"} = "<h_tuttle(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp hash latent cut post ek"; catalyst(a)netcom.com is _not_ a remailer. lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu is _not_ a remailer. usura(a)replay.com is _not_ a remailer. remailer(a)crynwr.com is _not_ a remailer. There is no remailer at relay.com. Groups of remailers sharing a machine or operator: (cyber mix reno winsock) (weasel squirrel medusa) (cracker redneck) (nym lcs) (valdeez arrid hera) This remailer list is somewhat phooey. Go check out http://www.publius.net/rlist.html for a good one. Last update: Thu 23 Oct 97 15:48:06 PDT remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- hera goddesshera(a)juno.com ------------ 5:03:45 99.86% nym config(a)nym.alias.net +*#**#**### :34 95.82% redneck config(a)anon.efga.org #*##*+#**** 2:00 95.44% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com +++ ++++++* 19:18 95.27% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de -- ---+--- 2:34:19 95.16% cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net *++***+ ++ 11:26 95.11% replay remailer(a)replay.com **** *** 10:06 94.93% arrid arrid(a)juno.com ----.------ 8:50:34 94.41% bureau42 remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org --------- 3:38:29 93.53% cracker remailer(a)anon.efga.org + +*+*+*+ 16:32 92.80% jam remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca + +*-++++ 24:14 92.79% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net -..-..---- 9:59:18 92.22% neva remailer(a)neva.org ------****+ 1:03:02 90.39% valdeez valdeez(a)juno.com 4:58:22 -36.97% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net 1:01:28 -2.65% History key * # response in less than 5 minutes. * * response in less than 1 hour. * + response in less than 4 hours. * - response in less than 24 hours. * . response in more than 1 day. * _ response came back too late (more than 2 days). cpunk A major class of remailers. Supports Request-Remailing-To: field. eric A variant of the cpunk style. Uses Anon-Send-To: instead. penet The third class of remailers (at least for right now). Uses X-Anon-To: in the header. pgp Remailer supports encryption with PGP. A period after the keyword means that the short name, rather than the full email address, should be used as the encryption key ID. hash Supports ## pasting, so anything can be put into the headers of outgoing messages. ksub Remailer always kills subject header, even in non-pgp mode. nsub Remailer always preserves subject header, even in pgp mode. latent Supports Matt Ghio's Latent-Time: option. cut Supports Matt Ghio's Cutmarks: option. post Post to Usenet using Post-To: or Anon-Post-To: header. ek Encrypt responses in reply blocks using Encrypt-Key: header. special Accepts only pgp encrypted messages. mix Can accept messages in Mixmaster format. reord Attempts to foil traffic analysis by reordering messages. Note: I'm relying on the word of the remailer operator here, and haven't verified the reord info myself. mon Remailer has been known to monitor contents of private email. filter Remailer has been known to filter messages based on content. If not listed in conjunction with mon, then only messages destined for public forums are subject to filtering. Raph Levien

1 0

Conservative groups call for new Net "code of conduct"
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm sitting in the National Press Club, in front of a dozen television cameras, where a conservative press conference on Kids and the Net is starting. Groups like the Family Research Council and the Christian Coalition are complaining that the Internet industry isn't doing enough to label, filter, and rate the Net and is instead looking to "make a few quick bucks." What prompted this event is a two-day summit about to start here in Washington, DC, where high tech firms are joining senior administration officials. The industry's goal: to head off the sequel to the Communications Decency Act. Sen. Dan Coats (R-Indiana), the bill's chief sponsor, is here today. "It has only been the threat of government involvment that has prompted this industry to take any steps at all," he's saying. "There is a dark side to the Internet. That dark side brings unrestrained, unrestricted pornographic material into every home, every library, every school." Now Karen Jo Gounaud is blasting the American Library Association for the unlikely offense of condoning bestiality. "Parents cannot being to handle these problems alone. It's a village problem and it demands a village solution," she says. The solution, these groups say, is to pressure Internet providers to adopt their "Code of Ethical Conduct." It says: "Will adopt terms-of-service policies stating that it reserves the right to take action in good faith to restrict availability of material that it considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected." Among other things, the code calls for Usenet filtering and "parental controls as the default settings" for minors. In a few hours (in the same room, in fact), civil liberties and journalism groups are going to be arguing against "mandatory voluntary" rating systems and pointing out their flaws. This leaves the White House precisely where it wants to be: squarely in the middle. More on this later. -Declan

1 0

Re: FC: Revolution and the limits of free speech online
by Mike Godwin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The proper test is not the Yates test, but the test of Brandenburg v. U.S. (1969, I believe), which distinguishes between mere advocacy of violence and "incitement to imminent lawless action" that is "likely to result in such action." Brandenburg is the leading case. Under Brandenburg, Tim May or anyone else could call for violent revolution (or for the commission of other violent acts) and the speech is understood to be protected. Only an incitement to *imminent* (that is, immediate) violent action, where such incitement is likely to cause an unreflective response, is punishable. The facts of Brandenburg concern a speech given at a KKK rally in which the speaker called for a race war and "revengeance" against non-whites. The speech was deemed to be protected by the First Amendment. The decision was authored by Justice Hugo Black. Mike >---- > >Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 00:45:48 -0500 >To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com >From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> >Subject: Is Tim May guilty of illegally advocating revolution? > >So I've been reading "Freedom and the Court" by Henry Abraham, and a >passage in it made me think of Tim May and the cypherpunks list: > > "//Actual, overt// incitement of the overthrow of the government > of the United States by force and violence, accompanied by the > language of direct and imminent incitement, is not freedom of > expression but a violation of Court-upheld legislative > proscriptions; yet the //theoretical// advocacy of such > overthrow, on the other hand, has been a judicially recognized > protected freedom since 1957." [See Yates v. United States, 354 > U.S. 298 (1957), particularly Mr. Justice Harlan's opinion for > the 6:1 court.] (Emphasis in the original. --DM) > >Some civil liberties lawyers, incidentally, have told me that Internet >messages almost by definition are probably not "direct and imminent >incitement." > >Some excerpts from Yates v. United States: > >http://caselaw.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=354&p… >2 >9 > The essential distinction [354 U.S. 298, 325] is that those to whom > the advocacy is addressed must be urged to do something, now or > in the future, rather than merely to believe in something. [...] > > Instances of speech that could be considered to amount to "advocacy > of action" are so few and far between as to be almost completely > overshadowed by the hundreds of instances in the record in which > overthrow, if mentioned at all, occurs in the course of doctrinal > disputation so remote from action as to be almost wholly lacking > in probative value. Vague references to "revolutionary" or > "militant" action of an unspecified character, which are found > in the evidence, might in addition be given too great weight by > the jury in the absence of more precise instructions. > Particularly in light of this record, we must regard the trial > court's charge in this respect as furnishing wholly inadequate > guidance to the jury on this central point in the case. We cannot > allow a conviction to stand on such "an equivocal direction to > the jury on a basic issue." > >-Declan > > >Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 07:25:01 -0500 >To: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com>, cypherpunks(a)toad.com >From: Duncan Frissell <frissell(a)panix.com> >Subject: Re: Is Tim May guilty of illegally advocating revolution? > >At 12:45 AM 11/28/97 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: >>So I've been reading "Freedom and the Court" by Henry Abraham, and a >>passage in it made me think of Tim May and the cypherpunks list: > >There is no crime called "advocating revolution" or even >"revolution." The crime that is being discussed in such cases is >"sedition." > >Any US Attorney will tell you that sedition convictions are hard to >win because of the difficulty proving that the defendant actually >tried to do so in a realistic way. Tough. > >The trial of a group of isolationists during WWII and some white >supremacists a few years ago resulted in acquittals. > >DCF > > > >Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 22:33:10 -0800 >To: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com>, cypherpunks(a)toad.com >From: Bill Stewart <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com> >Subject: Re: Is Tim May guilty of illegally advocating revolution? > >At 12:45 AM 11/28/1997 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: >> "//Actual, overt// incitement of the overthrow of the government >> of the United States by force and violence, accompanied by the >> language of direct and imminent incitement, is not freedom of >> expression but a violation of Court-upheld legislative >> proscriptions; yet the //theoretical// advocacy of such >> overthrow, on the other hand, has been a judicially recognized >> protected freedom since 1957." [See Yates v. United States, 354 >> U.S. 298 (1957), particularly Mr. Justice Harlan's opinion for >> the 6:1 court.] (Emphasis in the original. --DM) >> >>http://caselaw.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=354&p… >>=2 >Actually, the linewrap munged the "page=298" at the end, leaving a >reference is Reid vs. Covert, another fascinating case, >dealing with the limits on US jurisdiction on citizens outside the 48 states, >in particarticular military jurisdiction and territorial jurisdictions >(including pointers to the cases about confiscation of Mormon Church property >during the Defense Of Marriage\\\\\\\\\\\anti-polygamy legislation.) > >Yates, a case about the legalization of Communism, is at >http://caselaw.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=354&p… >2 >98 . >While the primary opinion of the court was as above, the court >unfortunately stopped short of the blazingly absolutist defense of free speech >by Justice Hugo Black (joined by Douglas), in an opinion that partially >concurs and partially dissents, and is therefore only dicta. > "I believe that the First Amendment forbids Congress to punish people > for talking about public affairs, whether or not such discussion > incites to action, legal or illegal." ...... > >It was either this case or cases like it that spurred the >John Birch Society to their calls for impeaching Earl Warren, >even before that pinko compounded his anti-Americanism by >insisting that cops read people their rights and get search warrants. > >As for the case of May vs. Reno, 99 US 666 (1999) (:-), I've never >heard Tim call for the violent overthrow of the US government. >He's called for a far more dangerous method of getting rid of it >(rendering it obsolete and letting the public catch on at their own speed), >and he's also expressed the position that if a bunch of >black-hooded thugs invade his house some night he'll defend himself >first and not worry about checking their bodies for stinkin' badges >or designer logos on their backs until the bullets stop flying. > >Not guilty. > > > Thanks! > Bill > > > >Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 23:04:58 -0700 >To: Bill Stewart <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com>, Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com>, > cypherpunks(a)toad.com >From: Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> >Subject: Re: Is Tim May guilty of illegally advocating revolution? > >At 11:33 PM -0700 11/29/97, Bill Stewart wrote: > >>As for the case of May vs. Reno, 99 US 666 (1999) (:-), I've never >>heard Tim call for the violent overthrow of the US government. >>He's called for a far more dangerous method of getting rid of it >>(rendering it obsolete and letting the public catch on at their own speed), >>and he's also expressed the position that if a bunch of >>black-hooded thugs invade his house some night he'll defend himself >>first and not worry about checking their bodies for stinkin' badges >>or designer logos on their backs until the bullets stop flying. >> >>Not guilty. > >An almost complete summary of my stance. > >But Bill left out the third leg of my tripod, that I expect to wake up some >morning and learn that some major city, perhaps Washington, D.C. has been >nuked or bugged. > >And, as I am fond of saying, I doubt I'll shed any tears. > >(Which got first twisted into "Tim wants to see D.C. nuked) (possibly >true), and then further mutated into "Tim is involved in a conspiracy to >help terrorists destroy major cities" (possibly true)). > >Fortunately for me, none of these legs of the tripod are (yet) illegal, >though I gather from what I saw of several of Hettinga's recent foamings >that he thinks they should be. > >--Tim May > > >The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography >---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- >Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, >ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero >W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, >Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. >"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway." > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >This list is public. To join fight-censorship-announce, send >"subscribe fight-censorship-announce" to majordomo(a)vorlon.mit.edu. >More information is at http://www.eff.org/~declan/fc/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- We shot a law in _Reno_, just to watch it die. Mike Godwin, EFF Staff Counsel, is currently on leave from EFF, participating as a Research Fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center in New York City. He can be contacted at 212-317-6552. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

None
by Off-Topic.Header.Remailer＠sasknet.sk.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anon-To:

1 0

Re: Another Anti-Privacy Bigot Heard From (was: The Guilmette/Burnore deba
by owner-cypherpunks＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Joe "We are Borg" Foster <joe(a)bftsi0.UUCP> wrote: > > That was an impressive tantrum that you and Belinda just staged. I > > suppose you thought it would distract attention from the fact that > > you still refuse to reveal what your motive was for harassing Jeff > > Burchell this summer in a failed attempt to get him to turn over the > > logs containing the names and e-mail addresses of everyone who > > either sent or received an anonymous message through his remailer. > > Et tu, dumbass? Have you forgotten the existence of the "old" Deja News > database? That won't work for two reasons: First, Gary is now "cloaking" his posts with an "X-No-Archive" header to keep them from being archived by neutral parties such as DejaNews. In addition, if you do a search on his name as author in the old database, you get a bunch of matches that say "article not available", indicating that he's requested that such articles be removed from the archives. Second, how does one search for something that was never posted? The only thing I see in the Deja News archives is Jeff Burchell's explanation of Burnore's $cientology-esque attack on his remailer: -> Subject: Re: DataBasix vs. the Remailers -- Gary Burnore's -> Dirty Tricks Exposed (was: Jeff's Side of the Story.) -> From: toxic(a)hotwired.com (Jeff Burchell) -> Date: 1997/07/02 -> Message-ID: <5pc9mb$omg$1(a)re.hotwired.com> -> -> [...] -> -> : > Mr. Burnore requested a copy of my (non-existant) logs. -> : > I told him to get me something in writing, signed by his lawyer that -> : > stipulated that the logs were confidential, and not to be revealed to -> : > anyone outside of the lawyer's office. -> : -> : He requested the logs of the messages of *EVERYONE* using Huge -> : Cajones? What was his rationale for such a fishing expedition? -> : (Cases like this are a good reason for remailers to NOT keep logs.) -> -> I have no idea of his rationale. And I don't know of any remailer -> operator who keeps logs that would identify a user. I had my machine -> configured to log in a fairly standard way, but I used a different -> sendmail configuration for the remailer, that had all logging (except -> for certain error conditions) turned off. -> -> Part of me thinks he wanted the logs so he could tell if I was going -> to be able to identify him when he started his attacks. Thus far, that's the best explanation I've seen for Gary Burnore's threats and harassment. > > If posts from "anon assholes" really offend your sensitive feelings, > > then you might want to stay away from most of the NGs where you've > > been posting your blather. SUGGESTION: stick with "safe" groups > > like comp.org.cauce where anonymous posts are banned and content is > > censo^h^h^h^h^hmoderated to ensure an appropriate level of political > > correctness. > > Posts from assholes definitely offend me, whether they're anon or not! True, but the chance that somone might be offensive is not sufficient reason to censor it. (If that were true, Usenet references to Whitewater might be declared "pornographic" by the Clinton administration.) Gary Burnore keeps whining about posts from "ANON assholes" not just "assholes" in general. That definitely reveals something about him. If he were to gripe about posts from "black assholes", one might (rightly) conclude that he was a racist. If he were flaming posts from "gay assholes", you'd probably figure that he was a homophobe, right? The fact that he doesn't flame the CONTENT but some characteristic about the author marks him as a bigot. > Well, if you really think about it, just about any news post might be > "anonymous". After all, how do you know that whoever typed all this is > really named "Joe Foster"? You don't! Remember "Mahmud al-Hijazi"? You've got a point there. <g> I don't place much faith in what I see in the From: line, even if it appears to be a valid e-mail address.

1 0

Spammernomicon
by Spam Man 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Selected passages from Spam-Bot: A Technical Manual for Independent Spammers. It is my opinion that the professional spammer fills a need in society and is, at times, the only alternative for "personal" anonymity. Moreover, if my advice and the proven methods in this book are followed, certainly no one will ever discover your identity. Almost every man harbors a fantasy of living the life of Dimitri Vulis or some other fictional hero who spams for fun and profit. They dream of living by their knee-jerk reflexes, of doing whatever is necessary without regard to moral or legal restrictions. But few have the courage or knowledge to make that dream a reality. You might be like my friends -- interested but unsure, standing on the sidelines afraid to play the game because you don't know the rules. [But] within the pages of this book you will learn one of the most successful methods of remailer operation used by an independent spam-bot operator. You will follow the procedures of a man who works alone, without backing of organized crime or on a personal vendetta. Step by step you will be taken from research to equipment selection to job preparation to successful job completion. You will learn where to find employment, how much to charge, and what you can, and cannot, do with the money you earn. But deny your urge to skip about, looking for the "good" parts. Start where any amateur who is serious about turning professional will start -- at the beginning. [And when] [y]ou've read all the suggested material, you [will have] honed your mind, body and reflexes into a precision piece of spamming machinery. You [will have] assembled the necessary tools and learned to use them efficiently. Your knowledge of dealing spam [will have] increased to the point where you have a choice of methods. [After you spammed your first victim,] you felt absolutely nothing. And you are shocked by the nothingness. You had expected this moment to be a spectacular point in your life. You had wondered if you would feel compassion for the victim, immediate guilt, or even experience direct intervention by the hand of God. But you weren't even feeling sickened by the sight of the victims pathetic reply. After you have arrived home the events that took place take on a dreamlike quality. You don't dwell on them. You don't worry. You don't have nightmares. You don't fear ghosts. When thoughts of the hit go through your mind, it's almost as though you are recalling some show you saw on television. [E]verything seems to have changed. The people around you have suddenly become so aggravatingly ordinary. You start to view them as an irritating herd of pathetic sheep, doing as they are told, doing what is expected, following someone, anyone, blindly. You can't believe how dumb your friends have become, and your respect diminishes for people you once held in awe. You too have become different. You recognize that you made some mistakes, but you know what they were, and they will never plague you again. Next time (and you know there will be a next time), there will be no hesitation, no fear. Your experience in facing anti-spammers head-on has taught you about life. You have the power and ability to stand alone. You no longer need a reason to spam.

1 0

Stanford student "blacklisted" from jobs because of his Internet writings
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's a good argument for anonymity: New York Observer: November 24, 1997 Salomon Brothers Tattler Gets Famous on the Web by Tinker Spitz Tim Shields, a student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, spent the summer working as an investment banking summer associate for Salomon Brothers. He didn't like it much. When he got back to Stanford, he wrote two articles about his experiences and published them in The Reporter, a business school publication. No harm done, right? Wrong. Now, through the magic of the Internet, all of Wall Street is aware of Mr. Shields' complaints. Overworked bankers, chained to their desks, often turn to their computers for entertainment to break up the tedium of creating shareholder profiles and whatever other dreary analyses their clients might demand of them. Lately, Mr. Shields' bitter article, making the rounds by e-mail, has been that entertainment. Mr. Shields was merciless in his depiction of Salomon Brothers and the people he encountered from other business schools. Here is a line that nicely sums up his impression of his summer: "The 38 members of my Investment Banking Summer Associate class represented a wide range of personality types, from the merely obnoxious to the moderately narcissistic to the overwhelmingly repugnant." He also makes Salomon Brothers chief executive Deryck Maughan look like either a hypocrite or a fool. In a meeting on Aug. 18 with the investment banking unit, Mr. Shields reports, Mr. Maughan said, "We have absolutely no reason to believe that we are a buyout target, nor that we will be in the near future." Only weeks later, Salomon Brothers was acquired by the Travelers Group Inc. Mr. Shields also remarked on the general climate at Salomon: He writes that a managing director at the firm told him, "Salomon Brothers is just not a culture where anyone says 'please' or 'thank you' or 'good job.'" And, according to the much e-mailed articles, one Salomon vice president told Mr. Shields, "You don't want this job. You really don't want this job. You get sucked in by the money and then find yourself trapped and miserable like I am. Don't be me." Salomon Brothers had no comment on the matter. The writer was at his most cutting in his assessment of his fellow summer associates, classifying them by school. Those from University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School were, in Mr. Shields' estimation, "boorish and dull, and interacting with them was like being locked in a room with a Bloomberg machine, except that the Bloomberg screen has two dimensions." Mr. Shields writes that he amused himself by needling the Columbia Business School students with his own feeling of Stanford superiority: "If I was in a truly nasty mood, I would follow up with a discussion hypothesizing on the quality-of-life differences between Palo Alto and Harlem. As you might guess, I wasn't too popular among the Columbia crowd." His take on those from Northwestern University's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management? "Not the sharpest Ginsu knives in the set, they were as out of place on Wall Street as you might expect from people who'd spent the prior year intensely debating the merits of Dave Thomas appearing in person in the Wendy's commercials." About those from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, Mr. Shields writes, "I think I found Waldo. Every stereotype you ever heard about M.I.T. is true. These guys were such incredible weenies, brilliantly managing to combine both the brainpower and social grace of an HP 19B-II." And the Harvard Business School types? "Floating through the summer like Cinderella at the ball, they expected you to accept their jargon-laced drivel with the same attitude that Moses and his stone tablets received on Sinai." Mr. Shields' articles first drew the attention of Wall Street when they appeared in the on-line version of The Reporter. Someone an incensed first-year Salomon Brothers associate, according to a source downloaded them and attached the following message: "A Stanford student who did not receive an offer from Salomon Brothers was bold enough to put his name in print with these two articles. Maybe he doesn't want a job at all ..." Then the associate started e-mailing like crazy, sending the piece to job recruiters, among others, the source said. Mr. Shields' fame on the Web could not have come at a worse time. Now in the middle of on-campus job interviews, trying to parlay his $80,000 M.B.A. degree into a full-time job, Mr. Shields' only hope is that someone who may well have attended one of the schools he slagged is willing to hire a guy who went gleefully public with a nasty description of life with a previous employer. According to a friend of Mr. Shields, the e-mail has indeed come up in his first four interviews. "They seemed as though they were giving him a chance to explain himself," said the friend, "but when I talked to him, he hadn't heard yet whether he had gotten a call back which would be the ultimate test of whether they were willing to overlook it." Stanford is most certainly not standing behind its student. "That was a real silly thing for him to do, and not in any way appropriate," said George Parker, director of Stanford's M.B.A. program. "It's just arrogant." Other business students are aghast. "No one could believe that he would write this and not realize what the ramifications or consequences might be," said one. Mr. Shields would not comment for this article. People who know him said he's a nice guy despite his sharp edges. One friend, Giles Kavanagh, a Web site producer in New York, described Mr. Shields as "very ambitious" and "extraordinarily hard-working," adding, "He disguises his ambition." The son of a New York City police detective, Mr. Shields, now in his mid-20's, attended Regis High School (a Jesuit school on the Upper West Side) and received his undergraduate degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Before going for his M.B.A. at Stanford in 1996, he spent three years in the financial division at J.P. Morgan & Company. "He's always had an interest in making money," Mr. Kavanagh said. But that may be more difficult now, since the e-mail has apparently fallen into the hands of recruiters. One anonymous friend said that, while Mr. Shields has decided that "investment banking wasn't really for him ... he still didn't mean to get himself blacklisted across Wall Street." The friend added that Mr. Shields is trying to get a job in either private client services, a field related to investment banking, or consulting. Given his bitterness, his ambition, his ability to turn a phrase, his lack of respect for authority and his willingness to squawk about people he has met, perhaps Mr. Shields should consider a career in the glorious field of journalism. ============================================================================= --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

1 0