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[ADMINISTRATIVIUM] Firewalls
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy C. Mayonnaise's reheated, refurbished, and regurgitated cud is completely inappropriate for the mailing lists into which it is cross-ruminated. ,,, -ooO(o o)Ooo- Timmy C. Mayonnaise (_)

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(eternity) autonomous agents
by Ross Anderson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back: > If the participant in the CPU resource market is not expected to be > able to vet all source code he runs, this gives the would be eternity > operator a chance to distribute his risk. It's even better than this - your PC becomes a common carrier and you are no longer liable :-) If this doesn't happen, then the advocates of Java need a whole new security infrastructure to assure users that the applets they download aren't defamatory, pornographic, seditious or in breach of copyright! Tim May: > Another science fiction writer, Bruce Sterling, popularized "data havens" At one time, Malta was thinking seriously about becoming just such a data haven, and I expect one will appear sooner or later. After all, what's left of the British Empire is funded by money laundering and tax evasion - pardon me, Sir Humphrey, `offshore financial services'. Once the online world becomes a significant part of the global economy, small countries that wish to achieve the high living standards of Bermuda, Gibraltar and Jersey will be able to get there by cashing in on `offshore data services'. Countries like Tonga already sell domain names, but a full offshore data service would need some way of resisting pressure from the EU and the US government. Most of the tax havens do this by being under a colonial umbrella. Is there an alternative? Can we create virtual colonies in cyberspace? Can we set up a gateway to Eternity in some country like Liberia or Somalia, which is too dangerous even for the US Marines? Or do we have to cut a deal with Sir Humphrey? Hiding stuff inside usenet is actually a bit like hiding behind the skirts of Empire, isn't it? The same goes for hiding stuff on open access web sites, or in spam. Given the rate at which spam is growing these days, maybe that's where to put it. If the only way for Authority to cut mortals off from Eternity was to pass effective laws against spam, and the only way to stop spam was to have a global non-escrowed public key infrastructure so that all mortals could be strongly authenticated, then ... Ross

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Re: Talk of Banning Research into Human Cloning (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 17:02:13 +0100 (MET) > Subject: Re: Talk of Banning Research into Human Cloning (fwd) > From: nobody(a)REPLAY.COM (Anonymous) > > > Spin doctor bullshit. Without the research there isn't anything to publish. > > By banning the basic research we would in fact be banning the publishing of > > the results of that scientific research. > > This is a more significant difference than you let on: if the research is > done abroad, it can be published here. To the extent that one can > theorize without experimenting, that too can be done here. I hope they forward the CNN piece on the European ban on cloning that is occuring as I type this. The bottem line is that saying it's ok to ban it here simply because you are sure somebody somewhere else will allow it is reprehensible and a complete abrogation of both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution. If it's ok to do it there, why isn't it ok to do it here? Smacks of a double standard or some sort of surreptitious conspiracy to control the technology to the benefit of a few. Perhaps the government has already done this research, at Seed's estimate of $100,000 per clone, god knows they already have the money, the equipment, and the people willing to do it. Tell me, once the other countries have banned it will you then argue that we should repeal our own ban and allow such research? > > Not at all. Equating swinging of ones fist in a empty field and swinging it > > into somebodies nose and then taking that supposition as justification to > > ban fist swinging *is* most certainly unconstitutional. Furthermore, robbery > > Congress has the power to choose whether to ban acts when the cause a harm > (fists that connect to federal noses), or just to ban acts whether or not > they cause harms (sending threats to government officials; broadcasting > without a license on an unused frequency). Bans on broadcasting without a license on an unused frequency was found unconstitutional - it seems nobody had *ever* raised the issue before. The interstate commerce clause was also raised and found to be potentialy irrelevant. Until a few years ago the threatening of anyone, even the killing of a president, was not a federal crime. Perhaps that original idea was that since we believe all people to be equal under the law the killing of a bum was no more heinous than killing of a president. One could even argue that such classifying laws as the protection of federal employees over and above a commen citizen are in fact against the equal treatment under the law for all citizens that this country is founded upon. > Like it or not, there is no > question that most of these bans -- including the cloning ban -- are > constitutional under the commerce and other powers, the copyrights clause > notwithstanding. It's 'interstate commerce', and it isn't the copyright clause per se but the clear and plain language regarding 'advancement'. Further the clause *specificaly* states that it is between states - by no stretch of the honest imagination can be be construed to include private functions inside the state boundary. Next you will be telling me I need a federal license to program because somebody might use my software ... Taking away peoples rights and choices is much ruder than anything you could claim I have ever been. Why not answer the points instead of crying about how I hurt your feelings because I won't play within the limited set of rules you want so that you can retain the advantages of that limited set and as a consequence not have to deal with the possible reality that your entire suppositional set is bogus. > unpleasantness, and especially a complete and utter incomprehension about > how the law in this country operates. I know how it operates, that is why it pisses me off. It operates under the authority of a document that prescribes in clear language how that system is supposed to operate and specificaly describes what those limits are, how to apply those limits to new events, and how to change those limits if they should be felt to be too restrictive or damaging. However, those who are entrusted with the operation believe that that self-same trust allows them to ignore their empowering charter. You seem unable to comprehend that perhaps the logic that has been used to justify many of these actions is not only unconstitutional but also in the long term detriment of the country. It's a pitty you're so close minded you are unable to expose your delicate sensibilities to open debate. It's a pity that your only defence is ad hominim attacks and concious exclusion of contrary arguments because of their emotional impact on yourself. Sir, the only thing I have left to say to you is: Yet, it moves. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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1st sign of a closed mind...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"I won't listen to that because ...." ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: (eternity) autonomous agents
by Thomas Womack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ross Anderson wrote: >A virtual datahaven could be constructed eaily provided you knew how to >index controversial matter. > >Publish the rude things about the Prophet Mohammed on a server in Israel, >the anti-Serb rants in Croatia, the kiddyporn in Sweden, the violence in >America, the Nazi hate speech in Syria and the anti-scientology stuff in >Germany. I suspect you will still run into things which are illegal anywhere; national-security stuff can be handled provided you've got a complete list of pairs of unfriendly nations, but I don't think (eg) the more extreme sort of kiddyporn is legal *anywhere*. Tom

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Fed's train more technology workers? [CNN]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > By MICHELLE LOCKE > Associated Press Writer > > BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) -- America needs more computer workers -- a lot > more. > > That was the message from three Cabinet officials who unveiled > strategies Monday for finding more technology-literate workers as the > U.S. economy enters the information age. > > Their proposals ranged from spending more on education and training > grants to putting out a new message: It's hip to be high-tech. > > "American minds really created the information age economy and > American minds can continue to lead it if we nurture the immense > talent pool here at home," said Education Secretary Richard Riley. > > Or as Deputy Labor Secretary Kathryn O'Leary Higgins said with a > smile, "We're from the federal government and we're here to help." [text deleted] ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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What it means to be in America...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to "the common good," but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way. - Ayn Rand In the United States the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own. - Alexis de Tocqueville ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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mobile agents paper
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Nelson Minar <nelson(a)media.mit.edu> pointed out in email to me the relevance of his thesis proposal and paper "Computational Media for Mobile Agents" to the discussion on autonomous agents as a means to deploying eternity servers and remailers etc. http://www.media.mit.edu/~nelson/ (Not read it yet). Adam

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metrics of eternity service properties
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> writes: > >> This of course doesn't scale at all well. It is semi-OK for a tiny, > >> sparse set of reposted items, but fails utterly for larger database > >> sets. (If and when Adam's reposted volumes begin to get significant, > >> he will be viewed as > >> a spammer. :-) ) > > > >The best criticism of my eternity design to date! I agree. > > I assume you are serious, and do agree, as it is a very solid > criticism of the "Eternity as continuous posting to Usenet" model. Yes. I think my eternity service in USENET is actually fairly resistant to attackers determining readers and publishers. The limiting factor is the bandwidth consumed. We have to keep below some threshold otherwise news admins may attempt to filter out eternity articles; and there is some limit at which the system would break down altogether. One suspects posting more than around 10Mb-20Mb / day would be enough to motivate administrators to start filtering. Some people with questionable motivation also have made something of a sport of sending forged cancel messages, and these people will be more easily motivated, as as far as I can tell their motivation is a perverse enjoyment of censorship, and sense of self importance, and of malice in perpetrating DoS attacks. > I see several axes to the analysis of the various Eternity schemes. > > -- retrieval time for a customer or client to obtain some set of data, > ranging from (I assume) ~minutes or less in an Eternity DDS file system to > ~days or less in a Blacknet system to (I am guessing) ~weeks or months in > an Adam Back sort of system. Actually I was aiming for seconds access time with "Eternity USENET". (I am going to dub it "Eternity USENET" -- just any name -- because the lack of names to denote the services under discussion is becoming awkward.) However the reason I am able to claim seconds is because I aim to keep the data either in the newspool, or in a local copy of recent messages. The design is similar to TELETEXT, the text mode information services hosted as side bands on TV signals. The basic topology is the same: we have a broadcast medium, data is slowly re-broadcast. So my design is fairly analogous to a FAST-TEXT system, which keeps a copy of all the pages, and updates them as the TEXT signal sweeps past. So metrics we could use to describe the functionality of an eternity design should include "update time", and "access time". I'll try a quick table of this to illustrate my understanding of Eternity BlackNet (BlackNet used to host an Eternity like service), and Eternity DDS as compared to Eternity USENET. E-BlackNet E-USENET E-DDS update delay 2-3 days 2-3 days minutes access time 2-3 days seconds minutes b/width efficiency good/ poor intermediate intermediate nodes 10 10,000 10,000 capacity 100 Gb 100 Mb 10 Tb security good good intermediate security dependencies remailers, remailers, custom USENET USENET componenets ease of deployment easy easy hard Clearly these figures are order of magnitude only, if even that accurate. My reasoning is as follows: Eternity BlackNet: I am presuming we have third party BlackNet operators who offer to buy and sell information, acting as distribution agents. It takes around a day to send requests or submissions to the operator via a dead drop (encrypted material posted to USENET via remailer). If requested information is sent to clients via replyable nyms bandwidth efficiency is improved. If information is sent to clients via dead drops efficiency drops because the information is broadcast for each request. Clearly a user could, if he wished to improve his access time for browsing BlackNet eternity documents, replicate the entire BlackNet database locally. (Or perhaps subsets defined as all documents by a chosen set of authors, or all documents with given keywords, or with a given third party rating etc). E-USENET: This involves re-posting documents periodically to USENET, and relying on the small data set size to ensure that local eternity proxies can retain a current copy of the dataset. Variants on this approach can migrate towards E-DDS approach by using publically accessible E-USENET servers, and by E-USENET server caches sharing their then larger document store. Also by adding other submission mechanisms to the pool formed by the set of publically accessible E-USENET services. E-DDS: Economic incentives are used to encourage people to take risks in hosting controversial documents. Indirection is used to have a hidden set of data servers, which are only accessed via publically known gateways. (I would recommend looking at Ian Goldberg and David Wagner's TAZ server, the url for which I posted in an earlier post, for this indirection function). I am unsure how an attacker would be prevented from discovering the hidden set of data servers. How do we exclude the attacker from becoming a gateway server? I get the impression that the idea also is make the service a commercial success as a distributed web hosting system, and to get away with comparitively small amounts of controversial materials which migrate. This idea is a useful model I think. Comments? Clarifications, Ryan? Adam

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Microsoft Exploratorium, from The Netly News
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

********** http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1685,00.html The Netly News (http://netlynews.com/) January 13, 1998 Which Way the Windows by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) Looks like it's upgrade time not just for Microsoft Windows, but also for Microsoft's legal strategy. As engineers frantically debugged the Windows 98 beta last week, senior Microsoft executives roamed Washington, D.C., apologizing for their previous arrogance and saying they had been misunderstood. Call it Microsoft PR 2.0. "What we have not done is communicate" the way the software works, Robert Herbold, Microsoft chief operating officer, told The Netly News last Friday. But will Microsoft's new humility appease federal judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who already issued a preliminary injunction against the Redmond firm? He's scheduled to hear from the company's lawyers and the Department of Justice this morning. Both have spent a good chunk of the last month complaining about each other: The government says Microsoft violated the judge's order, and Microsoft says the government is "poorly informed." As his attorneys argue the law, Bill Gates will be practicing politics -- a skill that will come in handy if Congress holds more antitrust hearings when it returns in late January. Pundits have made much of Gates's Democratic sympathies, another image he's trying to discard (or at least upgrade). Today Gates is scheduled to sit down for a private chat with technophilic House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia), who will also tour the Microsoft campus. [...] *********** http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/afternoon/0,1012,1686,00.html The Netly News / Afternoon Line January 13, 1998 Microsoft Exploratorium The ugly guts of Microsoft Windows were on display today during a six-hour federal district court hearing in Washington, DC. Attorneys from Microsoft repeatedly pointed at a list of hundreds of .DLL and .EXE files and challenged the government to answer one deceptively simple query: Which files are part of Internet Explorer? The outcome of the case may well turn on the answer to that question, which lies at the heart of the Justice Department's beef with the software giant. Last month Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered Microsoft to stop using its operating system's popularity to force-feed Internet Explorer to computer makers. But, again, which files belong to Internet Explorer? The government's witness ducked the question. "I can't go through your list and say which files are unique to Internet Explorer," replied author and computer consultant Glenn Weadock. "I don't think it's possible or even especially useful to define a list of files and say this is part of, or this is not a part of Internet Explorer." Which Microsoft has argued all along -- their browser is integrated into the operating system. Yanking it out, the company says, would be like amputating a leg: a person could only hobble along, at best. The government views this as a weak excuse, at best. "The court issued a very simple, broad order and Microsoft through its actions defied rather than complied with that order," said Justice Department trial attorney Phillip Malone. The government is asking Judge Jackson to hold Microsoft in contempt and levey a million-dollar-a-day fine. The hearing will continue tomorrow when Microsoft vice president David Cole testifies. - By Declan McCullagh/Washington -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe: send a message to majordomo(a)vorlon.mit.edu with this text: subscribe politech More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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