- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

chaffing and winnowing
by Faustine 15 Apr '01

15 Apr '01

Does anyone know of any serious work being done on developing the concepts of winnowing and chaffing, as outlined in Ronald L. Rivest's 1998 paper 'Confidentiality without Encryption'? (Or any other similar creative uses of MACs and authentication keys, for that matter? This line of thought certainly seems to have some interesting policy implications, particularly re. making the idea of forced key recovery obsolete. Any references to further papers or applications would be most welcome...thanks! ~Faustine. **** 'We live in a century in which obscurity protects better than the law--and reassures more than innocence can.' Antoine Rivarol (1753-1801).

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Reputations and Escrow Agents
by Tim May 15 Apr '01

15 Apr '01

At 2:06 AM +0300 4/16/01, Sampo Syreeni wrote: >On Sun, 15 Apr 2001, Tim May wrote: > >>>As presented, I think she's probably right. Nobody in conventional >>>business is going to want to do a deal with someone when they can't >>>create a legally enforceable contract. >> >>Widespread black markets, for drugs, betting, etc., suggest otherwise. > >That doesn't really kill the argumetn. The key word is enforceable. Black >markets do it directly by guns, the society at large needs the legal system >to mediate. The lack of legal enforceability *is* a problem. > >OTOH, one could imagine reputations being built without them being linked to >a fixed pseudonym. Whether the necessary crypto exists, or if the resulting >web of trust can be made strong enough, I have no idea. You need to read up on how reputations work in many contexts in which there is no government role, i.e., a level of anarchy. Physical traceability to a specific person, place of residence, etc., is only one _facet_ of the costs and tradeoffs in the kind of systems we are talking about. Escrow agents play a central role. I cited a URL for my discussion of escrow agents and reputations. I don't consider Aimee to have made an "argument." She just conjectured that the world she is familiar with, one of courts and government agencies enforcing contracts, is the only one that will work. There are many counterexamples. I gave some. Greg Broiles gave some. Considering how few people are actively participating on the list these days, not a bad response. More than the vague conjectures, based on little background understanding, warranted, IMO. In the early days, Eric Hughes, Hal Finney, Nick Szabo, Duncan Frissell, Robin Hanson, myself, and others used to to write about how and why chop marks work in Asian commerce...even without a physical person to track down and punish. Or why Mafia dons acts as reputational enforcement godfathers, so to speak, avoiding violence when possible. You might enjoy reading some of those early discussions, circa 1992-3. Physical identity is just another credential, sometimes offered, sometimes demanded. But not necessarily. Think about it. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay(a)got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns

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Service Update: EDGAR Online
by Visitor News 15 Apr '01

15 Apr '01

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Starium?
by Dr. Evil 15 Apr '01

15 Apr '01

Does anyone know if Starium is ever going to release anything? I noticed on their News section that they have engaged an M&A specialist. That's probably not a good sign for them operating as a stand-alone company. email to them bounces.

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John Ashcroft's Huge Penis for Jesus
by George＠Orwellian.Org 15 Apr '01

15 Apr '01

Pull up the URL for the full article. http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0115/harkavy.shtml # # Ashcroft to Christian Crowd: Use Government to Sell Jesus # # The Gospel According to the A.G. # # by Ward Harkavy # # In a speech that never surfaced during his confirmation hearing # but reveals much about his agenda as attorney general, John # Ashcroft clearly laid out his dream of government-sponsored social # programs helping convert people to Jesus. Behind the scenes, # his Justice Department is now helping make that possible. # # Government "gives only half a gift when it doesn't give the spirit # of Christ," Ashcroft, then a Missouri senator, told the dinner # crowd at the Washington Court Hotel on September 18, 1996, as # he received the Christian Statesman of the Year Award. "It doesn't # give the spirit of God, it doesn't give the spirit of forgiveness, # it doesn't give the regeneration of healing with its gift." # # Those sentiments, captured on tape and obtained by the Voice, # don't surprise Ashcroft's critics. "That is a statement saying # the government must evangelize," said Barry Lynn, the liberal # minister who's the head of Americans United for Separation of # Church and State. "He views the goal of a politician to be an # active agent of religious conversion." # # What threw Lynn and others was Ashcroft's insistence during the # Senate hearings last January that he could keep his well-known # religious beliefs from affecting his performance as the nation's # top law enforcement officer. "In the past, unlike during the # confirmation hearings, he couldn't separate the secular from # the religious," said Lynn. "He never even suggested that he could. # And I couldn't believe him when he told the Senate that he could." # # For good reason. # [snip]

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by larryking＠aol.com 15 Apr '01

15 Apr '01

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Zapros
by �� 15 Apr '01

15 Apr '01

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ELIMINATE YOUR DEBTS!
by ynot3544＠msn.com 15 Apr '01

15 Apr '01

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New York Times Mentions Matthew (Critic) Gaylor
by Matthew Gaylor 14 Apr '01

14 Apr '01

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/13/technology/13CYBERLAW.html Carl S. Kaplan in the NYT wrote: >Recently, a critic e-mailed Sunstein, pointing out that the >professor's own academic Web site at the University of Chicago did >not offer links to other thinkers. Sunstein concedes the point. In >the spirit of democracy, he said that within a week or so his Web >site will link to the works of Richard Epstein, a libertarian legal >scholar at the University of Chicago Law School and Catharine A. >MacKinnon, a feminist theorist at the University of Michigan Law >School. CARL S. KAPLAN has an article in the April 13, 2001 New York Time's CYBER LAW JOURNAL: "Law Professor Sees Hazard in Personalized News" which is an overview of Cass Sunstein's theories as contained in his book Republic.com. Sunstein has a theory in his book "Republic.com" that the Internet allows a "Daily Me" phenomenon where users isolate themselves and watch, read, and communicate only with those who they agree with. This in turn will cause a move towards more extreme viewpoints and less tolerance. As a solution to his imagined problem, he first wants web sites to link to "opposing" viewpoints voluntarily. And here is a direct quote from Sunstein: "If these routes do not work, it would be worthwhile considering content-neutral regulation, designed to ensure more in the way of both links and hyperlinks." In other words Sunstein wants to force opinion journals like "The National Review" (An example he uses) to carry "opposing viewpoint" links and hyperlinks. Needless to say, I first thought his theory of the problem was flawed, as anyone who has spent anytime online can testify. And I found it idiotic in the extreme that Sunstein thinks the government could be trusted to implement "opposing viewpoint links" fairly. Can you imagine the time wasted trying to satisfy this new bureaucracy that will have to be created to govern which links get chosen? Which also does raise the question of who gets to decide what an opposing viewpoint is? Some issues have multiple opposing viewpoints. Couldn't you imagine the political ramifications of his plan? Perhaps the government would only allow legally established parties to be considered as an "opposing view" on political web sites? Or should a Black oriented civil rights site be legally required to carry KKK or other racist links? In addition, Sunstein hasn't explained why his theory should or shouldn't apply to print books and magazines? Could you imagine the mess that would cause? His theory seems antithetical to private choice and free speech. Naturally, when I first visited Sunstein's Web site at the University of Chicago http://home.uchicago.edu/~csunstei/, I saw no links to opposing viewpoints. Since there isn't anybody much worse in my book than a hypocrite, I wrote the professor and requested he add links to opposing viewpoints. I did this in Princeton Press's online book forum located at: http://pup.princeton.edu/sunstein/ under the forum topic: "Why not practice what you preach". I found it troubling that I had to publicly confront Sunstein to get him to test his theory voluntarily, for a theory he thinks should be enforced by law. But I'm happy that teaching by example is something that Sunstein is apparently willing to try. You can read my Review of Republic.com in the April issue of The Ethical Spectacle http://www.spectacle.org/. Regards, Matt- ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt(a)coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, 2175 Bayfield Drive, Columbus, OH 43229 (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************

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Learn English, please
by Dr. Evil 14 Apr '01

14 Apr '01

>From Declan's wired.com article of today: "We have never seen a cyber attack of national proportions resulting in mass disruption of our society and our lives, but such a scenario is not unprecedented." - Newt Um, Newt, if we have never seen such a scenario, how could it have a precedent? And these are the people who make the laws that we have to live with.

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