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CDR: KONLIN Letter Sets $4 - $5 Target On NU ELECTRIC (NRGE) 25404
by marketing22＠uole.com 15 Nov '00

15 Nov '00

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CDR: Mayhem 2000: Pro-Bush Rebels Seize Power in West, DC in Flames
by George＠Orwellian.Org 15 Nov '00

15 Nov '00

Heh-heh-heh: don't miss http://www.theonion.com/ during this fun time. NBS News reverses earlier report of Gore's death Florida recount reveals Nader defeated Serbia deploys peacekeeping forces to the U.S. Bush executes 253 New Mexico democrats Strom Thurmond Begins Preparing Cabinet Clinton declares self president for life ---- BTW, the mystery of how Bush poo-pooed the call for Gore was just reported on, on NBC TV. A cousin of Bush was the head of one of FoxNewsChannel's polling results desk, and was constantly on the phone with Jeb and Dubya. After that, Bush new before any networks announced it that Florida was going to be [network] called for Bush. I think someone said FoxNewsChannel called it first. ---- Seen elsewhere in Usenet... NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE To the citizens of the United States of America, In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The rt. hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect: 1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed". 2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. 3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. 4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. 5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through. 6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005. 7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. "Merde" is French for "sh*t". 8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day". 9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. 10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy. Thank you for your cooperation.

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CDR: Re: A secure voting protocol
by Peter Capelli/Raleigh/Contr/IBM 15 Nov '00

15 Nov '00

>Also, the day-to-day business of running the government (The Commerce >Department today announced a comprehensive new study of blah...) will >happen no matter how controversial the election process is. > >-Declan Well, thank God for that! We wouldn't want the inner workings of a republic (such as a study to determine other uses for asparagus) to stop due to a minor dispute about the presidency, would we? -p "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin, 1759

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CDR: Earth (was ip: Soldiers test `Digital MP System')
by R. A. Hettinga 15 Nov '00

15 Nov '00

--- begin forwarded text

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CDR: Boost Your Windows Reliability!!
by info＠rniureo17.com 15 Nov '00

15 Nov '00

Dear Windows User, Now you can boost the reliability of ordinary Windows 3.x, 95 and 98 to nearly the level of Windows NT or 2000, Microsoft's professional and industrial version of Windows. The new WinFix 4.3 is a very effective way to improve the reliability of Windows, because it makes Windows fault-tolerant and self-repairing. And WinFix is very safe, because it operates completely independent of Windows. http://www.rniureo17.com/comph to find out more about WinFix, the safest, most effective way to keep you working, by keeping your PC working non-stop. Arlen Dixon, CEO Westwood Software Marketing * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * This announcement is being sent to PC users who asked to be kept informed about new developments in Windows(tm) technology. To be removed from our mailing list, go to the Email-us page. OR To be removed mailto:remove@rniureo17.com?Subject=REMOVE

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CDR: Re: A secure voting protocol
by Trei, Peter 15 Nov '00

15 Nov '00

> From: Anonymous[SMTP:nobody@remailer.privacy.at] > Peter Trei wrote: > > > I can state from personal experience that Silver Nitrate solution will > > produce stains on skin which gradually blacken in the light, and > > don't come off till your skin wears off. > > But what happens when it is applied to Lakeesha Aswamba's finger? Would > the staining be visible? > I'll ignore the possibility that there is a racist implication behind this.... Who said it had to be black, or be Silver Nitrate? The example I saw used a purple dye. If you actually knew any blacks (I'm using that word instead of the currently PC 'African-American' because it's skin color that's under discussion, and the discussion applies to people outside the US as well), you'd know that the palmar side of the hand and fingers are much lighter than the back. Also, if you want to get high tech, use a fluorescent dye mixed with DMSO. It'll penetrate deep into the skin, and be visible under UV (no cosmetic objections). I suspect it'd take weeks to wear off. Sometimes crypto is not the best solution. The various 'Internet voting at home' schemes bug the hell out of me. Peter

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CDR: Close Elections and Causality
by Tim May 15 Nov '00

15 Nov '00

* In a close, nearly-tied election, should a re-vote be allowed? * In a close sports game, should all potential "fork" decisions (referee calls) be reviewed and the game rolled-back...even hours later? Should critical plays be re-played the next day? * Did the woman who voted at 9 a.m. but whose vote was counted at the _end_ of the final count, and whose vote seemingly "caused" one candidate to win and another to lose _actually_ "cause" the outcome? * Did Oregon, for example, whose votes were counted last and whose votes put a candidate over the top actually "cause" the outcome? First, a few words about causality. Most people think they know about cause-and-effect. The earth turns, and this "causes" the sun to rise. A rooster crows, but this is _not_ the cause of the sun coming up...so we know from modern science. But how about this example: a golfer is about to be defeated in a tournament. He hits his ball, it appears to be going wide, then it hits a tree branch and bounces toward the hole. It goes in. The golfer wins. It turns out (pointed out by Patrick Suppes 30 years ago in one of his textbooks) that nearly every person will say something like "The tree branch _caused_ him to win." That is, the tree branch is seen as an intervening agent which altered history. The weird thing is that a ball bouncing off a tree branch is quite clearly a _scattering_ event. In our crypto and information theory terms, we would say it "increases entropy," it randomizes the outcome. The fact that sometimes the randomization or scattering works to the benefit of one player does not mean much about "causation." How this relates to voting: In close elections, as in close sports games, as in the golf example, there will be many events which are later claimed to be "hinge points," or forks. -- Someone will say that a highway being closed prevented them from getting to the polling place in time, and that there additional vote "would have made the difference." They want a re-vote. -- Someone who voted at 9 a.m. will be characterized as having "caused" the outcome to be as it was...which is an obvious misuse of "causation" (just by the basic ontology that her vote at 9 a.m. could not have "caused" other votes to be as they were). -- The most commonly heard version of this "causation fallacy" is the usual stuff about how "Oregon made the difference. The voters in Oregon caused Al Gore to win." Do the mental experiment of assuming votes were tallied in the _other direction_, with votes on the West Coast counted and reported _before_ votes to the east. Then the comments would be about how "Rhode Island made the difference...the voters in Rhode Island caused Al Gore to be elected." Again, a misuse of the term "causation." Ironically, the book I recommended several weeks ago, Judea Pearl's "Causality," is very apropos here. It _caused_ me to better understand these points. OK, how about re-votes? Many are calling for a re-vote in Palm County, Florida. Various issues are cited, and the "voters in Palm County will make the difference" point is heard often. "The vote in Florida will cause one or the other of the candidate to win." "The outcome hinges on the vote in Palm County." First off, the points above, about causality and who gets counted last, apply. Second, at the time of the "approximately simultaneous" vote on Tuesday, no particular state, no particular county, and no particular precinct had any way of "knowing" that it would be a hinge site. Thus, some people didn't bother to vote, some were careless in reading the ballot instructions, some just made random marks, some were drunk, all of the usual stuff happening in polling places across the country. This despite the estimated $3 billion spent on wooing voters. Deciding that one of those states or one of those counties was "decisive" (caused the outcome, was a hinge point, etc.) and thus should be given a chance to hold a new vote, has numerous implications for fairness: * instead of being just another voter, just another voting site, the N residents will now have the weight of the entire election outcome on their shoulders * intensive lobbying for votes will occur, far beyond the original lobbying (when I say "far beyond" I mean by several orders of magnitude...it might be that all residents would have to be sequestered from the time of the announcement of a re-vote to the actual re-vote just to ensure that bribes are not offered, etc.). * the claims by some that people would simply "repeat their votes, except without the confusing ballot issue" are naive. Sensing their new role as determiners of the outcome, many would change their original votes (And of course there would be no way of knowing if someone had changed their vote, for obvious reasons that ballots are not linkable to the voter.) * and there are the points about the ballot raised earlier: the ballot had been used before, there were no legal challenges made, the voting commission was led by a Democrat who had approved the ballot, the ballot was published in newspapers, etc. In summary, close elections and close sports games often seemingly depend on minor factors. These minor factors are, paradoxically and incorrectly, ascribed to be the "causes" of later events. Lastly, allowing a re-vote when the hinge points have already been identified is a serious distortion of the process. Rules are rules. The time to object is beforehand. Unless extremely serious voter fraud is found, results should not be thrown out when those results are in accordance with the rules. In no cases should a re-vote of a "hinge county" be allowed for less-than-massive-fraud reasons. And, of course, Palm County will _not_ be given a second chance to vote in this election. I guarantee it. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.

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CDR: Wired article on Jim Bell, links to search warrant and photo
by Declan McCullagh 15 Nov '00

15 Nov '00

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40102,00.html IRS Raids Cypherpunk's House by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)wired.com) 2:00 a.m. Nov. 11, 2000 PST WASHINGTON -- When a dozen armed federal agents invaded Jim Bell's home this week, he wasn't exactly surprised. Ever since Bell, a cypherpunk whom the U.S. government has dubbed a techno-terrorist, was released from prison in April, he's predicted another confrontation with the Feds. "They're basically trying to harass me," Bell said in a telephone interview. He has not been arrested or charged with a crime. In 1996, Bell attracted the unwelcome attention of the IRS and the U.S. Secret Service after they learned he was talking up a plan to promote the assassination of miscreant bureaucrats through an unholy mix of encryption, anonymity and digital cash. Bell even gave his scheme a catchy title: "Assassination Politics." Four years, three arrests and one plea-bargain later, Bell was released from the medium-security federal penitentiary in Phoenix, Arizona. Since then, he's been busy trying to prove allegations of illegal surveillance on the part of the Feds, including his charge that they unlawfully bugged his home. For Bell, that meant spending the last six months compiling personal information about IRS and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents, a move that appears to have led to the six-hour search of his home in Vancouver, Washington. Government offices were closed on Friday, and representatives were unavailable for comment. But the agents' search warrant cites "evidence of violations" of a federal law that prohibits intimidation of IRS agents. [...] *********** I've included links to the original documents in this article: http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/11/11/101218&mode=nested Feds Raid Cypherpunk Jim Bell posted by declan on Saturday November 11, @05:58AM from the now-who-saw-this-coming? dept. Crypto-convict Jim Bell, best known for popularizing the idea of offing Feds through anonymity, encryption, and digital cash, was raided this week by the IRS and BATF. He has not been arrested and is irate, vengeful, and computer-less, but otherwise fine. This happened just half a year after he was released from prison. We've placed JPGs online of the search warrant, vehicle search warrant, justification, and list of items taken. Note the justification includes items related to his "Assassination Politics" scheme. We also offer some background and a surprisingly flattering color slide photo I took of Bell. ********* Photo: http://www.mccullagh.org/image/9/jim-bell-3.html

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CDR: Fwd: Second Site
by ellie900＠usa.com 15 Nov '00

15 Nov '00

YET ANOTHER CHANGE!! PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO CHECK OUT THE IMPROVEMENTS http://3638141293/36/1059436/newflash.htm

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CDR: Invitation
by customercare＠net21.com.sg 15 Nov '00

15 Nov '00

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