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Re: Book: The President's Eyes Only
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"hoz(a)univel.telescan.com" 28-APR-1996 13:57:13.98 >The cypherpunks relevance (Besides the David Kahn quote) is >the frequent mention of NSA decrypts and SIGINT. The frequency >that nations and individuals have used (and apparently continue >to use) breakable encryption is incredible. The intelligence >that has been derived by breaking them is worth a great deal, >in dollars and maybe lives. This book has made me understand a >bit, why a government might try to limit strong cryptography. But do keep in mind that it's not just the US government that can decrypt weak cryptography. So can a lot of other governments... including ones like France and Japan that engage in a lot of commercial espionage. And ITAR restrictions have hindered the use of cryptography in the US by limiting the market for products. As has been said on here in the past, there are probably several groups within the NSA. Some think that getting the info is more important than protecting US citizens from having _their_ info stolen. Some think the reverse. And the ones in the NSA (and the rest of the US government) with darker motives (power et al) are going to be in the first group - they're not concerned with effects on US citizens. -Allen

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Re: Mindshare and Java
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"tomw(a)netscape.com" "Tom Weinstein" 28-APR-1996 20:13:00.23 >Rich Graves wrote: > >> 3. If I am Jack the Ripper, I have a way of proving that the code is >> my intellectual property. >How do you prove that? If I strip off your signature and sign it >myself, how do you know it's yours? Prior publication or timestamping. Admittedly, you could have come up with the same stuff independently (and will probably have modified some unimportant respects so that the code is different, even if you didn't). But that problem is there in any copyrighting/anti-plagarism scheme. For instance, I recently had an idea on genetic algorithms (I've been researching coding techniques for them.) I then came across a version of it in a journal, so I have to cite that journal when I give the idea - even though I came up with it independently. -Allen

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Re: CryptoAnarchy: What's wrong with this picture?
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"mkj(a)october.segno.com" 28-APR-1996 10:29:40.72 >Most other arguments put forth so far in this thread, about how people >"won't stand for" certain government behaviors and so forth, I don't >find convincing. Modern military technologies, especially in the >U.S., make the prospects of a sucessful popular uprising dubious. Well, atomic bombing your own populace is not exactly the way for a nation-state to survive. Most other high-effectiveness means of taking out internal rebels also don't work very well. Why do you think a lot of areas with civil wars are kind of destroyed by the end of them? Even with the low level of military technology at the time, the South was quite thoroughly devastated by the end of the Civil War - and it would have been even without such "atrocities" (so-called by Confederate sympathizers) as the burning of Atlanta. >Which brings us to the "flight of capital" issue. Will nations be >able to compete freely for the loyalty of the rich? Or will the most >powerful nations form effective coalitions, and perhaps simply bomb >"rogue" nations into the stone age? It depends partially on whether those "rogue" nations have nuclear weapons (or, like Japan, the economic equivalents). I suspect that the best way to have a country with fully anonymous digital cash in widespread, legal use will be to have that country be a nuclear power. Thus, discussions of how to construct a backyard nuclear device (the subject of earlier debates on here between Jim Bell and others) may be quite relevant. Having those loyal rich types around to fund such an effort may make such possible, especially with the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the resulting availability of nuclear material. -Allen

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Re: CryptoAnarchy: What's wrong with this picture?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:12 PM 4/28/96 -0700, jamesd(a)echeque.com wrote: > >> When you cut off someone's air supply, even the nicest, gentlest >> person will go into an unrestrained, murderous frenzy. I expect >> something similar will happen to even the most "civilized" governments >> within the next few years, as popular crypto begins to cut off their >> money supply. > >False on two counts: > >First "frenzy" is exactly the opposite of what the >government needs to stay in one piece, to continue >to be a government. > >Secondly, when you cut of someones air supply, >they do not necessarily defend themselves. While that's obviously an imperfect analogy he gave, I think it's inadvertently instructive for an unobvious reason: Governments are _supposed_ to be products of the will of the people (at least, in so-called "freedom-loving" societies they are). If that's the case, then if society decides that governments should be reduced or even eliminated, those governments should have no objection. To whatever extent they DO have an objection, it can only be because the government is no longer representing the population as it was supposed to do, but has started to represent the vested interests of people whose livelihood depends on that government. And to whatever extent this is happening, that's all the more reason to get rid of that government. Unfortunately, that's exactly the position we find ourselves in today. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: arbiter/escrow agent for hire
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 28-APR-1996 20:43:07.41 >My key is available on the keyservers, as far as I know. >Sandy Sandfort, for one, has spoken with me extensively and his signature >is on my key. If you like, I suggest you ask him as to his view of my >credibility/continuity. My information would appear to be out of date; I was getting it from one of the web-of-trust studies which stated that your new key was not signed by anything except itself. Sorry. >Note, this hardly assures you that I'm not several people working >together, merely that this nym is connected to at least one person who >posts on cypherpunks regularly and has had a presence here since just >after the lists foundation. It would admittedly help if your messages were signed also; this would provide somewhat of an additional confirmation. However, I very well understand that this is not always possible/practical; note that I don't have a key yet. -Allen

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Freedom and security
by angels＠wavenet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>No. "Those who sacrifice security for freedom, will have neither" is >not consistent with Franklin's statement, nor is it true. Security and >freedom are antithetical, and worse than that, security is always an >illusion. But you can have your illusion, as long as you keep it out of >my life. Censor yourself if you wish, but don't censor anything I might >want to look up. > The relationship / balance between security and freedom is always a defining factor in a society. My point is that a society with no laws and no codes of conduct is not a free society. This is not the same thing as saying that all societies need government. Small communities can and do operate without major legislation, using what sociologists refer to as "informal social controls", e.g. peer pressure. But even those small communities require and enforce boundaries on the conduct of their members. There is no society that tolerates the murder of its innocent members. The Internet may once have been one of those small close knit communities, small enough not to require law enforcement - although even then it had rules that had to be followed. But that Internet is gone, and it will never return, because now its the biggest city in the world, and the history of the change from pastoral communities to urban life, to the development of nation states and power blocs is also the history of crime. And as the Internet grows, so will its security problems. My position is to seek a balance between the freedom of the individual and the security of the community. My argument is that when the security of the community is threatened by the freedom of the individual, the community will always prioritise its safety. Good government of course means maintaining individual freedoms *and* maintaining community security. I actually disagree that they are antithetical. On the contrary they are a balance that any society has to find. Where individual freedom takes over you have the urban jungle where predators consume prey. Where security takes over you have the totalitarian state. Neither is necessary nor inevitable. We are simply concentrating on the problem from two different angles. My concern is to maximise community safety while protecting individual freedom. Your angle is to maximise individual freedom while protecting community safety. There is IMHO very little difference between the two. ********************************************************* Colin Gabriel Hatcher - CyberAngels Director angels(a)wavenet.com "Two people may disagree, but that does not mean that one of them is evil" *********************************************************

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Re: CryptoAnarchy: What's wrong with this picture?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:44 PM 5/6/96 EDT, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: > >On Sun, 28 Apr 1996, jim bell wrote: > >[...] > >>While strong cryptography is powerful, and secure communications >>liberating, unplugging the phones would about cripple that 'weapon' for a >>while. Any group rebelling based only on high technology communication is >>an extremely vulnerable group, both to widespread denial of service, and >>more specific 'surgical' attacks. (Motorola stock anyone?) > > Wouldn't that partially depend on: > A. the level of backups - packet radio as a backup for phones, >for instance... a reason I've been forwarding the stuff on radio to here. > B. the necessity to the government of keeping what else may >depend on those phones - the economy - going. > -Allen The attribution above is in error. I didn't type those lines above.Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: misunderstandings of PICS
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:40 PM 5/6/96 -0400, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: >From: IN%"frantz(a)netcom.com" 16-APR-1996 20:19:13.88 >>From http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/iacwc.htm >>The second method is for a client to ask an http server to send labels along >>with the documents it requests. The server would most likely offer the >>publishers' labels, but a server could also redistribute labels from third >>parties that it cooperates with. [Client sends URL of label service to browser >>which responds with that service's label. bf] OBCRYPTO: PICS envisions that ratings distributed by this second method will be digitally signed by the 3rd party rating service. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Frantz | The CDA means | Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 | lost jobs and | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Re: PICS & CyberAngels
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"vznuri(a)netcom.com" "Vladimir Z. Nuri" 4-MAY-1996 11:59:26.15 >this seems to suggest a misunderstanding of PICS either by you or >the "CyberAngels". PICS does not require any particular action by page owners >and is entirely based on that principle (there is a pretty good >argument it would be unconstitutional, impractical, idiotic, etc. if >it didn't). it defines a standard by >which ratings servers and queries are constructed and formatted. >anyone can rate any information. if the CyberAngels want to rate >all kinds of pages in cyberspace and set up their own rating service, >more power to them. the ratings do not restrict those who do not >choose the restrictions. The instructions in question, at http://www.safesurf.com/cyberangels/#look, are for their "volunteers" to report - including to both the page's ISP and to government - any page with sexual content that doesn't have a PICS such that it can be censored. In other words, they want to try to kick off systems - including potentially via legal action such as nonsense like "corrupting a minor" or whatever - any pages that don't set themselves up to be censored. That would include by government such as China, as well as by fundamentalist parents. Given their approval of Detweiler, you're making it more and more likely that you're him.... -Allen

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STEL b5 released
by Chris Claborne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just a FYI :) From: cert-it(a)dsi.unimi.it -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- STEL beta5 has been released. 1. WHAT IS STEL? STEL is a free telnet surrogate which provides strong mutual authentication, encryption, secure file transfer, automatic s/Key password generation, centralization and management of s/Key passwords and more. 2. WHERE IS STEL AVAILABLE? STEL is available as: ftp://idea.sec.dsi.unimi.it/cert-it/stel.tar.gz Please note that ftp.dsi.unimi.it is not supporting security stuff anymore. All the security archive has been moved to idea.sec.dsi.unimi.it. 3. WHAT IS THE STATUS OF STEL? The latest version of STEL is beta 5. It has been (quite) extensively tested on the following systems: hpux sunos4 solaris24 solaris25 irix linux aix It has been reported to work (but no testing) on: ultrix freebsd bsdi Bug reports, comments and suggestions should be sent to: stel-authors(a)idea.sec.dsi.unimi.it - -- ******************************************************** ******** Computer Emergency Response Team ITALY ******** ******************************************************** E-mail: cert-it(a)idea.dsi.unimi.it Mailing list: unix-security-request(a)idea.sec.dsi.unimi.it Ftp: ftp://idea.sec.dsi.unimi.it WWW: http://idea.sec.dsi.unimi.it - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.3 mQBNAi1eowgAAAECAOTEMFRZHfBb+ndAmdk3vl20EpynEWwB3ZJo/ocZUXgSjBKS op11p19WyyTV9eW2Sosu9GoC4i7VLDiuFRfmKZUABRG0HkNFUlQtSVQgPGNlcnQt aXRAZHNpLnVuaW1pLml0PokAVQIFEC1epVbakBlHrAS41wEBnskB/iXnREAs044y ngOa8uJtYwFaDKc15GUKx9VV2klikcoWKPgaD6WjFs82HmdY86IQL2bFTi8FTKS2 2auGllxW2zaJAJUCBRAtXqV3kbMTtv2Q670BAccAA/sFW+OVkfr8FnClSAlD7fQc /PL0y8qDF4hYx3tIw1utM5zRGlti+KIOpuUIkQpIX4j8f9lIe/cihL5rlusQFsX4 d7cEJWW8GUM3+/mv89jM0ds6IX9KjfJAQPvPFr5rlRgmHdVm9K4ugCTkOzGsv1E4 o5+ZCN5dJW0+EbmjoghwoA== =WPYC - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQBVAwUBMY4wESw4rhUX5imVAQFs1gIAuYqr5IAWRoFQzm71sWdBJCOKTCq/G4ti eucdKJ+5FlmyeQUavWseepozKF019KXElfoHkDVdjl8bnyhFIm7u1w== =nQd0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ... __o .. -\<, Chris.Claborne(a)SanDiegoCA.ATTGIS.Com ...(*)/(*). CI$: 76340.2422 http://bordeaux.sandiegoca.attgis.com/ PGP Pub Key fingerprint = A8 FA 55 92 23 20 72 69 52 AB 64 CC C7 D9 4F CA Avail on Pub Key server. Dreams. They're just screen savers for the brain.

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