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"Drug czar" McCaffrey cashes in as homeland-security lobbyist
by Declan McCullagh 09 Dec '02

09 Dec '02

http://www.rollcall.com/pages/columns/hoh/ Seeing Green. The latest person to take the well-traveled path from Capitol Hill to greater riches on K Street is Dan Turton, floor assistant for outgoing House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D- Mo.). Turton has singed up with Timmons & Co., which has also snapped up Alan Hoffman, chief of staff to Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.). At a grave time for the airline industry, meanwhile, American Airlines has tapped Daniel Elwell to serve as managing director of international and governmental affairs. Taking a more unconventional path to the lobbying industry, Elwell is a veteran company pilot. That led to the inevitable quip in a company press release that he is "equally at ease navigating a bill through Congress as he is a 767 across the country." Fleishman-Hillard, meanwhile, has signed up the former drug czar, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, to launch a new homeland security practice at the public relations behemoth. Three members of the firm's international advisory board - former Defense Secretary William Cohen, ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and former Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan - will provide "strategic counsel"to the new practice. And Thomas Wheeler, president and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, has been elected president of the board of directors of the Foundation for the National Archives.

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Re: DBCs now issued by DMT
by R. A. Hettinga 09 Dec '02

09 Dec '02

At 4:06 PM -0800 on 12/3/02, Somebody wrote: > I forgot to ask: who the hell is DMT? Nobody I ever heard of... > How are they marketing this > stuff - on a website with only an IP address... :-). > or, who have they gotten to use it thus far? Nobody I ever heard of... However, that old volcano's giving off some tasty beta-waves, dontcha think? Cheers, RAH [Sounds like a low "C" to me...] -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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Re: Money is about expected future value....nothing more, nothing less
by Tim May 09 Dec '02

09 Dec '02

On Sunday, December 8, 2002, at 09:26 AM, Steve Schear wrote: > At 06:19 PM 12/8/2002 +0200, you wrote: >> Errata: "companies are forbidden from accepting them as payment" is, >> of >> course, "companies are REQUIRED TO accept them as payment". >> >> Sorry. >> >> Mark >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Marcel Popescu" <mdpopescu(a)subdimension.com> >> >> > The reason the IOUs emitted by the Bank of England were *initially* >> accepted >> > was that they were redeemable in gold or silver. *One* reason they >> are now >> > accepted is that they are legal tender - you can pay your taxes >> with them, >> > and companies are forbidden from accepting them as payment. > > I seem to recall there are still provisions in the statutes for > contracts to be fulfilled by whatever therms are spelled out. For > example, if a contract requires that you deliver pork bellies, you > cannot merely substitute the cash value of the porkers. Mark cited the Bank of England, not U.S. law. I don't know what British law is in this regard. But I will tell you that the notion that U.S. dollars must be accepted as "payment" in the U.S. (using the variant that corrects Mark's typographical error above) is false. The language is along the lines of "this note good for all debts public and private." This does not stop parties from agreeing to transfers in yak brains, or houses, or gold, or tantalum. It says that if Alice agrees to pay Bob 50 dollars ($50), with no special payment instructions agreed to, and Alice at some point gives Bob a $50 piece of U.S. currency, she has fulfilled her debt obligation under U.S. law. I surmise, but have not verified, that this sort of language was added to banknotes to better ensure that people accepted the banknotes as being equivalent to specie (gold and silver). --Tim May "Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity." --Robert A. Heinlein

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Re: Photographer Arrested For Taking Pictures Of Vice President'S Hotel
by Mark Renouf 09 Dec '02

09 Dec '02

jet wrote: > At 20:48 -0500 2002/12/07, Myers W. Carpenter wrote: > >>http://www.2600.com/news/display/display.shtml?id=1441 >> >>PHOTOGRAPHER ARRESTED FOR TAKING PICTURES OF VICE PRESIDENT'S HOTEL >>Posted 5 Dec 2002 06:03:48 UTC One major issue is these days, the laws have become so incredibly complicated that the average citizen isn't confident in their knowledge of the law, let alone most that enforce it. They know that the average citizen is going to want to 'do the right thing' and comply with any requests, whether or not any laws were broken. And let's face it, even if you or I know our rights to the letter it doesn't make a bit of difference until after the fact in a courtoom. Police generally won't sit and debate with you about it on the spot.

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Re: DBCs now issued by DMT
by Tyler Durden 08 Dec '02

08 Dec '02

I too admit of having done some imbibing (Belgian ale I'm afraid). I was thinking about this on the heels of your last lubricated missive, and a very similar thing occurred to me. Actually, something far less ambitious (in the short run)... First of all, I see no deep reason why some bank acount (or, more likely, a whole bunch of 'em) can't be auto-administered like a simple mini bank. It would be auto-administered via the votes of its "owners", who have never met, and who are unaware of the real names of the other owners. Owners vote to lend money out of this account to whomever. As for the administration, well that's 'obviously' handled by a proxy program somewhere, that translates the votes into actual decisions about the account (including loan amount, interest rate, debt-to-liquidity ratio and so on). Needless to say, since this account is tied to one or more denominations, it could eventually be shutdown through the concerted actions of various governments. But the mechanisms of such a "bank" are (I think) independent of the possibility of reliability of a future digital currency. (And of course, there's a lot such a "bank" could do before getting shut down.) The tough thing (or perhaps not..someone here must surely know) is the possibility of lending money to persons who are unidentified in "meatspace". (But then again, even in the non-Cyber world, 'meatspace' is very rarely an issue when lending money...it all boils down to credit records anyway...) > >But do we need a bank? I'd guess we need an issuer, but why can't it be a >distributed issuer without central control (or even distributed control?)? >Can't the protocol deal with the problem of issue? > >(We'd have to write a damn good one, of course) > >-- >Peter Fairbrother > >bear wrote: > > > > > > > On Thu, 5 Dec 2002, Peter Fairbrother wrote: > > > >> OK, suppose we've got a bank that issues bearer "money". > >> > >> Who owns the bank? It should be owned by bearer shares, of course. > >> > >> Can any clever person here devise such a protocol? > > > > I thought about this problem for several months. > > > > The problem I kept running into and had no way around is that if the > > holders are truly anonymous, then there is no way for them to seek > > redress for fraudulent issue or fraudulent transactions. If the > > banker goes broke, people want to be able to make a claim against the > > banker's future earnings for whatever worthless currency they were > > holding when it happened, and they cannot do that from a position of > > anonymity. People want a faithless banker punished, meaning jail time > > or hard labor, not just burning a nym. > > > > The sole method for any truly anonymous currency to acquire value is > > for the banker to promise to redeem it for something that has > > value. So the banker, if it's to have a prayer of acceptance, cannot > > be anonymous. > > > > And the minute the banker's not anonymous, the whole system is handed > > on a platter to the civil authorities and banking laws and so on, and > > then no part of the system can be reliably anonymous because the > > entire infrastructure of our legal system requires identity. > > > > Look at the possibilities for conflict resolution. How can the > > anonymous holder of an issued currency prove that he's the beneficiary > > to the issuer's promise to redeem, without the banker's cooperation > > and without compromising his/her anonymity? And if s/he succeeded in > > proving it, who could force an anonymous banker to pay up? And if you > > succeeded in making the banker pay up, how could the banker prove > > without the cooperation of the payee that the payment was made and > > made to the correct payee? > > > > We use a long-accepted fiat currency, so we're not used to thinking > > about the nitty-gritty details that money as an infrastructure > > requires. It is hidden from us because our currency infrastructure has > > not broken down in living memory. We shifted from privately issued > > currency to government-issued currency largely without destabilizing > > the economy. Then once people were accustomed to not thinking of a > > promise to redeem as being the source of value, we went off the gold > > standard. Our economy hasn't broken yet, but you have to realize that > > this situation is a little bizarre from the point of view of currency > > issue. We're not thinking anymore about the promise to redeem > > currency for something of value, and the implications of failure to > > honor that promise, because we live in a sheltered and mildly bizarre > > moment in history where those things haven't been relevant for a long > > time to the currency we use most. But any new currency would have to > > have a good solid solution for that issue. > > > > The only way I found to decentralize the system, at all, was the model > > where all the actors are pseudonymous rather than anonymous, each user > > has the power to issue currency, and different issued currencies were > > allowed to fluctuate in value against each other depending on the > > degree of trust or value of the underlying redemption commodity. > > Money becomes a protocol and a commodity and labor exchange in raw > > form, rather than a simple sum - it's back to the barter system. > > > >> I'd guess that all the Bank's finances should be available to anyone >who > >> asks. That should include an accounting of all the "money" issued. And >not > >> be reliant on one computer to keep the records. > > > > An interesting idea, but it more or less prohibits offline > > transactions involving a currency issue. It also means the entire > > market must be finite and closed. > > > >> Or the propounders wanting to: make a profit/control the bank? > > > > I do not think that there are profits to be made as an issuer of > > anonymous or hard-pseudonymous money. That's one of the reasons I > > advocate the "everyone is potentially a mint" model -- the expenses of > > issue, and the cost of doing business uphill against trust until one's > > issue is trusted, should be shared in something like equal proportions > > by people who undertake it voluntarily. > > > > Bear _________________________________________________________________ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL YOURSELF???
by Liver Warning 08 Dec '02

08 Dec '02

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[ANNOUNCE] OpenSSL 0.9.6h released
by Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker 08 Dec '02

08 Dec '02

OpenSSL version 0.9.6h release correction ========================================= A small packaging fault was just discovered. In crypto/opensslv.h, the macro OPENSSL_VERSION_NUMBER has the value 0x00906080L when it should really be 0x0090608fL. The cause of this fault was a tagging error in our CVS repository. To solve this issue, the faulty has been corrected, and we have rebuilt the 0.9.6h distribution. The 0.9.6h [engine] distribution is unaffected by this. The corrected distribution is available for download via HTTP and FTP from the following master locations (you can find the various FTP mirrors under http://www.openssl.org/source/mirror.html) o http://www.openssl.org/source/ o ftp://ftp.openssl.org/source/ The distributed file name is: o openssl-0.9.6h.tar.gz MD5 checksum: 1a0c2bee9f6b0af95ce65106462411f5 The checksum was calculated using the following commands: openssl md5 < openssl-0.9.6h.tar.gz Additionally, for those who don't really want to reload a full distribution, the following very small patch file is available: o openssl-0.9.6h.BOGUS-0.9.6h.patch Yours, The OpenSSL Project Team... Mark J. Cox Ben Laurie Andy Polyakov Ralf S. Engelschall Richard Levitte Geoff Thorpe Dr. Stephen Henson Bodo Möller Lutz Jänicke Ulf Möller --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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[p2p-hackers] RESCHEDULE: (SF Bay Area) South Bay PeerPunks meeting (fwd)
by Eugen Leitl 08 Dec '02

08 Dec '02

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 13:42:45 -0800 (PST) From: James D. Levine <levine(a)vinecorp.com> To: p2p-hackers(a)zgp.org Subject: [p2p-hackers] RESCHEDULE: (SF Bay Area) South Bay PeerPunks meeting Several people have written to remind me that PeerPunks will conflict with the Creative Commons reception. That's worth rescheduling for, so please note the change- Tuesday December 17, 7pm onward James ------ The second monthly...er, semi-annual South Bay PeerPunks meeting will convene Tuesday December 17 - that's a week from next Tuesday at the time/place below. PeerPunks is just my clever name for the Silicon Valley contingent of p2p enthusiasts, hackers, well-wishers, etc. who can't make it up to Bram's monthly meeting in SF on a regular basis. Any and all are welcome, so please come and join in... If you don't know what I look like, just look for the guy in the red EFF "Fair Use Has A Possee" t-shirt. See you there and then. James Where: Dana Street Roasting Company 744 W Dana St, Mountain View,CA 94041 Phone: (650) 390-9638 This is just 1/2 block off Castro St. When: 7:00 pm onward, Tuesday December 17 -- _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list p2p-hackers(a)zgp.org http://zgp.org/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers

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[ANNOUNCE] OpenSSL 0.9.7 beta 5 released
by Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker 08 Dec '02

08 Dec '02

The fifth beta release of OpenSSL 0.9.7 is now available from the OpenSSL FTP site <URL: ftp://ftp.openssl.org/source/>. This beta contains quite a number of fixes since beta 4. This is NOT a final beta, even if that was the original plan. The updated plan has beta 6 as final beta. It is scheduled for release on Thursday 2002-12-12. The final release of OpenSSL 0.9.7 has been rescheduled for Tuesday 2002-12-17. To make sure that it will work correctly, please test beta 5 thoroughly, for example with your favorite piece of software, and please report back to us! Also, please test on as many platforms as you have available and you have time for, especially on less common platforms. If you're interested in helping further, please join the openssl-dev(a)openssl.org list, where test requests on specific development snapshots will be announced. Changes between 0.9.7 beta 4 and 0.9.7 beta 5 include: o Bug fixes. o Only supports MIT Kerberos for now, Heimdal support is disabled. o Support for new platforms: Linux x86_64. The full set of changes between 0.9.6{x} and 0.9.7 beta 5 include: o New library section OCSP. o Complete rewrite of ASN1 code. o CRL checking in verify code and openssl utility. o Extension copying in 'ca' utility. o Flexible display options in 'ca' utility. o Provisional support for international characters with UTF8. o Support for external crypto devices ('engine') is no longer a separate distribution. o New elliptic curve library section. o New AES (Rijndael) library section. o Support for new platforms: Windows CE, Tandem OSS, A/UX, AIX 64-bit, Linux x86_64 o Extended support for some platforms: VxWorks o Enhanced support for shared libraries. o Support for pkg-config. o Lots of new manuals. o Change DES API to clean up the namespace (some applications link also against libdes providing similar functions having the same name). Provide macros for backward compatibility (will be removed in the future). o Unify handling of cryptographic algorithms (software and engine) to be available via EVP routines for asymmetric and symmetric ciphers. o NCONF: new configuration handling routines. o Change API to use more 'const' modifiers to improve error checking and help optimizers. o Finally remove references to RSAref. o Reworked parts of the BIGNUM code. o Support for new engines: Broadcom ubsec, Accelerated Encryption Processing, IBM 4758. o A few new engines added in the demos area. o Extended and corrected OID (object identifier) table. o PRNG: query at more locations for a random device, automatic query for EGD style random sources at several locations. o SSL/TLS: allow optional cipher choice according to server's preference. o SSL/TLS: allow server to explicitly set new session ids. o SSL/TLS: support Kerberos cipher suites (RFC2712). Only supports MIT Kerberos for now. o SSL/TLS: allow more precise control of renegotiations and sessions. o SSL/TLS: add callback to retrieve SSL/TLS messages. o SSL/TLS: support AES cipher suites (RFC3268). The distribution file name is: o openssl-0.9.7-beta5.tar.gz MD5 checksum: 2d8dcddb3b545d9354178d41f8bb01bd The checksum was calculated using the following commands: openssl md5 < openssl-0.9.7-beta5.tar.gz --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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[ANNOUNCE] OpenSSL 0.9.6h released
by Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker 08 Dec '02

08 Dec '02

OpenSSL version 0.9.6h released =============================== OpenSSL - The Open Source toolkit for SSL/TLS http://www.openssl.org/ The OpenSSL project team is pleased to announce the release of version 0.9.6h of our open source toolkit for SSL/TLS. This new OpenSSL version is a bugfix release. This will be the last release in the 0.9.6 series. The most significant changes are: o New configuration targets for Tandem OSS and A/UX. o New OIDs for Microsoft attributes. o Better handling of SSL session caching. o Better comparison of distinguished names. o Better handling of shared libraries in a mixed GNU/non-GNU environment. o Support assembler code with Borland C. o Fixes for length problems. o Fixes for uninitialised variables. o Fixes for memory leaks, some unusual crashes and some race conditions. o Fixes for smaller building problems. o Updates of manuals, FAQ and other instructive documents. We consider OpenSSL 0.9.6h to be the best version of OpenSSL available and we strongly recommend that users of older versions upgrade as soon as possible. OpenSSL 0.9.6h is available for download via HTTP and FTP from the following master locations (you can find the various FTP mirrors under http://www.openssl.org/source/mirror.html) o http://www.openssl.org/source/ o ftp://ftp.openssl.org/source/ [1] OpenSSL comes in the form of two distributions this time. The reasons for this is that we want to deploy the external crypto device support but don't want to have it part of the "normal" distribution just yet. The distribution containing the external crypto device support is popularly called "engine", and is considered experimental. It's been fairly well tested on Unix and flavors thereof. If run on a system with no external crypto device, it will work just like the "normal" distribution. The distribution file names are: o openssl-0.9.6h.tar.gz [normal] MD5 checksum: 621bef36ad61012bb71945a1cb449073 o openssl-engine-0.9.6h.tar.gz [engine] MD5 checksum: a7e3f5c0a5451ca666e4cbe23a8617a2 The checksums were calculated using the following commands: openssl md5 < openssl-0.9.6h.tar.gz openssl md5 < openssl-engine-0.9.6h.tar.gz Yours, The OpenSSL Project Team... Mark J. Cox Ben Laurie Andy Polyakov Ralf S. Engelschall Richard Levitte Geoff Thorpe Dr. Stephen Henson Bodo Möller Lutz Jänicke Ulf Möller --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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