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help with pgp 2.2
by J. Michael Diehl 26 Mar '93

26 Mar '93

Hi all, I'm having problems with pgp 2.2. I am trying to add someone's key to my ring. I get e-mail from them, save it to a file and xfer it to my home system. Then I type pgp -ka <filename> to add the new stuff to my keyring. I've even edited the file to just include the pgp stuff. What am I doing wrong? Thanx in advance. P +----------------------+----------------------------------------------------+ | J. Michael Diehl ;-) | I thought I was wrong once. But, I was mistaken. | | +----------------------------------------------------+ | mdiehl(a)triton.unm.edu| "I'm just looking for the opportunity to be | | Thunder@forum | Politically Incorrect! | | (505) 299-2282 | <me> | +----------------------+----------------------------------------------------+

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anon.penet.fi bites the dust
by Johan Helsingius 26 Mar '93

26 Mar '93

Today I posted the attached message to various newsgroups. I still plan to continue mail service, and my work on the alt.whistleblowers project. Julf ----------- The anonymous posting service at anon.penet.fi has been closed down. Postings to netnews and mail to arbitrary addresses has been blocked. Mail to anonymous users will still be supported, so anon.penet.fi can be used as an anonymous P.O.Box service. Due to the lawsuit-intensive climate in the US, many anonymous services have been short-lived. By setting up anon.penet.fi in Finland, I hoped to create a more stable service. Anon.penet.fi managed to stay in operation for almost five months. The service was protected from most of the usual problems that had forced other services to shut down. But there are always going to be ways to stop something as controversial as an anon service. In this case, a very well-known and extremely highly regarded net personality managed to contact exactly the right people to create a situation where it is politically impossible for me to continue running the service. But of course this political situation is mainly caused by the abuse of the network that a very small minority of anon users engaged in. This small group of immature and thoughtless individuals (mainly users from US universities) caused much aggravation and negative feelings towards the service. This is especially unfortunate considering these people really are a minuscule minority of anon users. The latest statistics from the service show 18203 registered users, 3500 messages per day on the average, and postings to 576 newsgroups. Of these users, I have received complaints involving postings from 57 anonymous users, and, of these, been forced to block only 8 users who continued their abuse despite a warning from me. In retrospect I realize that I have been guilty to keeping a far too low profile on the network, prefering to deal with the abuse cases privately instead of making strong public statements. Unfortunately I realized this only a couple of days before being forced to shut down the service, but the results of a single posting to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.d gave very positive results. I take full blaim for my failure to realize the psychological effects of a strongly stated, publicly visible display of policy with regards to the abuse cases. For this I have to apologize to the whole net community. On the other hand I am deeply concerned by the fact that the strongest opposition to the service didn't come from users but from network administrators. I don't think sysadmins have a god-given mandate to dictate what's good for the users and what's not. A lot of users have contacted me to thank me for the service, describing situations where anonymity has been crucial, but I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams. At the same time quite a few network administrators have made comments like "I can't imagine any valid use for anonymity on the net" and "The only use for anonymity is to harrass and terrorize the net". Nevertheless, I really want to apologize both to all the users on the network who have suffered from the abusive misuse of the server, and to all the users who have come to rely on the service. Again, I take full responsibility for what has happened. Julf

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To be a bit more clear
by Clark Reynard 26 Mar '93

26 Mar '93

Since, after all, the difficulties of broadcasting either anonymously or under one's actual name are not really pronounced; given Ringuette's idea of multiple remailing sites, perhaps several thousand, only a few dozen sites would be necessary to serve as remailers to the larger numbers of anonymous sites; this makes it difficult to trace (unfortunately far from impossible); since each post of a person would seemingly originate from a different site, and in additionit would arrive at that different site from a different point of origin (since NNTP would not begin logging path until after it travelled from site to site via email). Now, to avoid the (inevitable) possibility that one or many of the reposters would have been killed (or simply gone down due to incompetence) each of the actual addresses would have a list of possible sites to attempt to post the message from; the essential fact here is that there is no real way to guarantee this so-called 'minimal moderation.' the possible ways of circumventing it, either by telnetting to different nntp ports manually and simply coming from different sites, or by setting up a number of anonymous remailers to actual anonymous posting sites (none of them having a full list of possible hosts, to avoid a single person from knowing all of them, makes it essentially impossible to track someone determined to post anonymously; people have tried for literally YEARS to avoid anonymous messages. they ain't done it yet, thank god. a lot of people with useful information do not wish to reveal their names, and this is their right. of course, it will be abused as well, as it always has, but this is simply something to be tolerated or ignored. the backbone doesn't have to carry these messages, and if it doesn't wish to, another 'backbone' will arise that will. fc

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Re: Many Important Items in the News
by karn＠qualcomm.com 26 Mar '93

26 Mar '93

I agree. It's time to take mail anonymity into the mainstream. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for anonymity, as the Caller ID debate shows. I think an enlightened approach that eschews a single, network-wide policy on the acceptability of anonymous messages in favor of leaving it up to the individual email recipient is something that we could sell to the Internet as a whole. We shouldn't have to treat this as a confrontational either-or issue when there's a third way out that balances everybody's interests. Phil

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ANON: Anon.penet.fi no more
by internaut＠aol.com 26 Mar '93

26 Mar '93

>>> The anonymous service at anon.penet.fi has been closed down. This is a dark day indeed. The forces of Repression are upon us yet again. OK, where do we set up the next one? I guess the solution here is to have a floating set of difficult-to-detect anon remailers and switch between them regularly. Someday, when I can afford the hardware, I vow to provide this service and not be harrassed into shutting down. Toward this end, it would be great if Julf could post a list of the sys admin's who were instrumental in shutting down penet.fi. I think all of us should be made aware of their presence for future reference. And now, Upward! dave

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A New Usenet...
by mccoy＠ccwf.cc.utexas.edu 26 Mar '93

26 Mar '93

The automatic cancellation/censorship was the straw that broke this camel's back. I have had it with what I perceive as limitations in Usenet based upon artifacts of a design that did not understand just how fast and large it would become. The time has come to rebuild that system. No one else is going to do it if we don't, and no one will take into consideration the distinct nature of privacy and expression in this medium as much as the sort of people who are on this list. The time has come for a revolution. I will take up the sword of my C compiler and the shield of perl scripts alone if necessary, but I hope to find the cadre of network visionaries and inspired hackers that are willing to help shape the next generation of the Usenet. Usenet is suffering from growing pains. If you want to help shape it then send me mail (I will set up an actual mailing list in the next day or two, once I do so I will let people know.) Even if you are not particularly interested in working on this project, I am looking for a nice snappy name (marketing, marketing, marketing.... :) and would love to hear suggestions. Enough of the grand speeches though, here are a few things that I think that need to be a part of the next usenet: Multi-level news hierarchies: -Some are read-write, like the current usenet. In these groups, identity has no real meaning (it is so trivial to fake postings now that I could not believe the indignation peopel seemed to feel about anonymous postings) and it functions much like the current usenet with only a few modifications (no cancel messages and a few other hacks to get people up to speed with the realities of modern communication) -Read-only groups, similar to existing moderated groups, but moderation is authenticated using cryptographic techniques. -Read-mostly groups, in these groups thre exist moderators and a small group of people who are given the ability to post messages. Those who are given posting ability is determined by others in the group or some other agreed upon method. This is mostly for technical and scientific groups where the purpose is to maintain a very high signal-noise ratio. The function of the moderators is to provide minimal guidance regarding topics and to provide an editorial gateway through which people who are not members of the group could post questions or comments. MIME and crypto authetication built into messages. -only the poster or moderator (if there is one) could cancel a message -people are identified only by thier key and not by any particular email address. the news server itself can serve as a gateway to get messages to people who post an article (and can include the basics of the anonymous remailers to preserve poster anonymity if desired Any other idea out there? Let me know. The only limitation I can see at the moment on the scope of ideas is that it needs to be backward compatible with the existing system; this makes it much easier to implement and have a wide ranging audience from day one. Comments? jim

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No Subject
by XXCLARK＠indst.indstate.edu 26 Mar '93

26 Mar '93

Subscribe Ernest Clark

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Re: Many Important Items in the News
by karn＠qualcomm.com 26 Mar '93

26 Mar '93

Absolutely -- "Consenting adults" is the key phrase here. I think we should stress it in everything we do as cypherpunks. This profound concept once made it as far as an important Supreme Court majority decision. But that was a long time ago. Look how far downhill we've gone since then. Phil

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Re: Many Important Items in the News
by Arthur Abraham 26 Mar '93

26 Mar '93

"Consenting adults" should be able to do whatever they want -- your comments go to obtaining consent for anonymity. Since on my good days I try to act like an adult, I support the truth in labeling of anonymous postings as anonymous postings. -a2.

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Re: FREE: warning to "sci" anonymous posters
by Arthur Abraham 26 Mar '93

26 Mar '93

Dear internaut(a)aol.com, I note that the quoted posting, threatening use of an "Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation" to "restore the pre-Julf status quo" is anonymous. I assume you know the identity of this poster...how delicate of you to conceal it. -a2.

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