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Re: punkly current events
by Major Variola (ret) 11 Dec '04

11 Dec '04

At 11:13 AM 12/10/04 +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote: > >Because nodes are not geographically constrained to US jurisdiction? Name a place which is not subject to US juridiction? Ok, Iran, N Kr, until we pull a regime change (tm) on them. Yeah, they have a lot of 'net bandwidth, right. Some of the ex-soviets perhaps, only because the rubles / threats from the mafia exceed the rubles from the USG. Otherwise our "advisors" will help you "Round Up" your local cash crops, you how to shoot down missionaries, teach you how to gore an election. Even the chinese want trade enough to pander and are not unwilling to enforce a police state. Meanwhile all your Pakis are belong to u$ (except for those that don't, but hide the fact and um Sheik Yerbouti). And if extradition isn't happening fast enough, we'll send a DEA agent or snatch-und-grab specops to kidnap them. Hegemony isn't just for breakfast anymore. If you think you're not under Bush's boot, you just haven't pissed him off enough, yet.

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Kazaa can't bar child pornographers, court told
by R.A. Hettinga 11 Dec '04

11 Dec '04

Quadrafecta!!! Horse Number Four, Paedophilia, or "Pokey", to his friends... Only took 36 hours, true to his namesake... Or something. Cheers, RAH ------- <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/10/kazaa_p2p_trial/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Internet and Law ; Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/10/kazaa_p2p_trial/ Kazaa can't bar child pornographers, court told By Tim Richardson (tim.richardson at theregister.co.uk) Published Friday 10th December 2004 17:16 GMT Sharman Networks - the company behind peer-to-peer file sharing outfit Kazaa - has denied it is able to block users who use the service to share child pornography. Sharman Networks is currently in the Australian Federal Court in Sydney facing allegations that it created the world's largest music piracy network and knew that its software was being used to distribute music illegally. Earlier in the trial, Tony Bannon, QC - representing dozens of music companies including Universal, EMI, Warner and Sony BMG - dismissed Sharman Networks' claim that the company had no control over how its software was used. Quoting the company's policy on child pornography, he said: "If at any time Kazaa finds that you are using Kazaa to collect or distribute child pornography or other obscene material, [Sharman] reserves the right to permanently bar you and your computers from accessing Kazaa and other Kazaa services." The argument went on, that if Kazaa could bar traders in illegal child porn images, then it could block users who illegally distribute music. However, Philip Morle, Sharman Network's chief technology officer, told the court yesterday that he did not think the company could bar people who used its P2P software to distribute child pornography. He went on to say that he didn't know how people could be blocked; nor was he aware of Kazaa's policy on child pornography, reported ZD Net Australia. The trial continues. . -- ----------------- 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'

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Steve Thompson
by Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer 11 Dec '04

11 Dec '04

Out of nowhere cometh Steve Thompson, and sayeth he all manner of things. But, while his mouth moveth one way, he seemeth to move the other. http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=%22steve+thompson%22&start=0&hl=en&s… What hath suddenly attracted our AUK creep?

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Steve Thompson
by privacy.at Anonymous Remailer 11 Dec '04

11 Dec '04

Out of nowhere cometh Steve Thompson, and sayeth he all manner of things. But, while his mouth moveth one way, he seemeth to move the other. http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=%22steve+thompson%22&start=0&hl=en&s… What hath suddenly attracted our AUK creep?

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Re: Mixmaster is dead, long live wardriving
by Major Variola (ret) 11 Dec '04

11 Dec '04

At 09:47 PM 12/10/04 -0800, Joseph Ashwood wrote: >Wardriving is also basically dead. On the contrary. A recent article (zdnet IIRC) described a non-hacker visiting his father, and using a neighbor's connection accidentally. This is very common. My own non-tech father regularly finds other nets in his neighborhood, using default apps (not 'Stumbler, etc). Sure there are a handful of people that >do it, but the number is so small as to be irrelevant. That 'wardrive' knowing its called that, yes. That do so accidentally, no. >> Or consider a Napster-level popular app which includes mixing or >> onion routing. > >Now we're back to the MixMaster argument. Mixmaster was meant to be a >"Napster-level popular app" for emailing, but people just don't care about >anonymity. Mixmaster is the most godawful complex thing to use, much less administer, around. Even Jack B Nymble is complex. It needs a simple luser interface and something to piggyback servers on.

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Tor 0.0.9 is imminent (fwd from arma@mit.edu)
by Eugen Leitl 11 Dec '04

11 Dec '04

----- Forwarded message from Roger Dingledine <arma(a)mit.edu> -----

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Re: punkly current events
by Major Variola (ret) 11 Dec '04

11 Dec '04

At 01:19 PM 12/10/04 -0600, J.A. Terranson wrote: >I disagree. Except for the early days, spammers have been little more >than a low volume nuisance on Mix. What killed mix was it's complexity - >Joe Blow can't figure out how to use it, and new reops have a hell of a >time getting a node running (with pingers and other required tools). > >Take away complexity, and Mix *could* flourish - in spite of the fedz. I agree, with the additional constraint that mix functionality piggyback with a more popular feature. Most folks won't install even the most benign, easy to use mixer; but include a mix server in a jazzy IM or next-gen napster program, and you get deployed.

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Half baked troll
by R.W. (Bob) Erickson 11 Dec '04

11 Dec '04

The need for a coherent framework to hang our speculations on is obvious. The impossibility of any consensus based prototype is pure politics. We need a way out, and that way is to take a lesson from the theory of evolution. The lucky semantic construction is tested in practice by a virtual swarm of users. If a given notion doesnt hold together the pieces of it still populate the thoughtscape with a free radical chemistry. Agreeing to disagree is insufficient, Critical thought can reveal common folding lines if we accept the notion that whats seperates people are their individual stances, we are on the edge of something interesting. Its my premiss that people are extrodinarily clever at making things fit. We do see that individual pairs of people can find a bridge to understanding, even between radically different world view. We just have never found a way to generalise such mutual understandings. I posit the existence of a net path whereby all people could come to know their commonality. Not saying the path is accessable, but as long as we are unable to free ourselves from ideology, whats wrong with one that builds on our best?

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TSA groping
by Major Variola (ret) 11 Dec '04

11 Dec '04

At 04:50 PM 12/10/04 -0500, R.A. Hettinga wrote: >The change is minor and TSA officials say they have no plans to rescind >pat-down procedures that require screeners to touch passengers' chest and >groin areas while checking for weapons or explosives. Nevertheless, it >represents an attempt by the TSA to improve its image among travelers. I flew monthly for several years after 2001. I was never touched. Should I be surprised to find a goon touching me that way, I would not be able to stop certain reflexes involving ballistic application of elbows and knees. I am surprised this has not happened or perhaps it is not reported.

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No End To His Imagination
by R.A. Hettinga 11 Dec '04

11 Dec '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 <http://www.investors.com/editorial/lands.asp?view=1> Today in Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news Leaders & Success No End To His Imagination BY KEN SPENCER BROWN INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Imagination should have no limits. And for Alan Turing, it didn't. By refusing to envision only what was strictly practical, he expanded the bounds of what was possible. Blending his command of mathematics with boundless imagination, he pioneered the notion of a thinking machine and paved the way for the computer age. By the time he died at age 42, Turing had become a renowned British mathematician, logician, cryptographer and war hero. Later, Turing's most advanced ideas became a foundation for computer science with the dawning of the digital age he'd envisioned. If things like software code, cryptography and artificial intelligence leave you scratching your head, just imagine wrestling with those concepts decades before the invention of the computer. Turing (1912-54) wasn't an outstanding student. But as a child, his focus was already keen, and he loved to experiment. In her 1959 biography of her son, "Alan M. Turing," Sara Turing recalled that some of Turing's grade-school inventions included a typewriter and a camera. His math skills quickly showed themselves, though the young Turing drew complaints from teachers for his messiness and penchant for neglecting the basics as he dived ahead into more advanced topics. As a house master put it in 1927, Turing was "trying to build a roof before he has laid the foundations." Actually, Turing figured that as he already understood basic concepts, it was little use wasting time on them when he could home in on more complex ideas. He was thinking beyond the educational system - and it would become key to his future breakthroughs. Early Inspiration Despite his shyness and occasional social awkwardness, friends knew Turing as an avid runner and rower, and fiercely loyal. Normally gentle in speech, Turing would defend his friends' views intensely when they were challenged. They often inspired him, too. The death of a close schoolmate in February 1930 sparked Turing's first published thoughts in metaphysics. In letters to the friend's mother, Turing pondered the connection between the human mind and the brain. These ideas sparked his thinking on artificial intelligence, which tries to model the human brain and the thought process. Turing failed to win a scholarship to his first-choice school, Trinity College, because of his erratic academic performance. But he didn't let that hold him back. Turing quickly made a name for himself at King's College in Cambridge, his second choice, on a math scholarship. He studied hard, striving to excel in each class. In 1935, at age 22, he received a fellowship there - a remarkable achievement for one so young. Still, he stayed his usual humble self. On his first night as a fellow, Turing's mother recalled that her son was happier that he'd beaten the school's provost at rummy, not that he was a fellow at 22. And though entitled to dine at the school's "high table," some complained that he seemed to prefer the company of other undergraduates. In her biography, Sara Turing says this was a sign her son simply didn't want to flaunt his new privileges. This isn't to say he held himself in low esteem. On the contrary, Turing was confident in his work, certain that he'd win academic prizes for several papers he submitted over the years. Invariably, he did. Even so, Turing insisted on giving others proper credit in collaborative projects, often downplaying his own contributions. This was one of many thoughtful traits that won Turing friends. On May 28, 1936, he submitted a paper titled "On Computable Numbers, With an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem." Designed to solve a 400-year-old logic problem, Turing described the functions of a machine that could solve any problem stated as a mathematical algorithm. Now known as a Turing machine, the theoretical device was the first to conceive of a general-use device that could store data and instructions and be programmed for lots of different math problems. Turing's attempts to build such a machine failed, but many of his ideas helped create the electronic computer. He wasn't living in a theoretical world, however; Turing searched for practical applications for his work. He put some of his ideas to use during World War II, when he helped crack secret codes used by the German air force. Turing's "bombe" machine sped up the decryption process through an electro-mechanical process of elimination. Cracking the Enigma codes used by the German navy proved tougher. But Turing loved a challenge. In 1936 - 11 years before the invention of the transistor and more than two decades before the integrated circuit - he envisioned his Turing machine as a mechanical device. This made it too slow for practical use. His exposure to the military's electronic calculators pulled his earlier ideas within reach. In 1946, Turing got the OK from England's National Physical Laboratory to create an electronic version of the Turing Machine, now dubbed the Automatic Computing Engine or ACE. It aimed to rival a planned U.S. system called the Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer. As biographer Andrew Hodges notes in "Alan Turing: the Enigma," Turing's ACE was a radical break from the electronic calculators of the time. It could be set up for all sorts of calculations, making it far more useful than existing machines. "He had created something quite original and something all of his own," Hodges wrote. "He had invented the art of computer programming." The machine was never built, but Turing's ideas played a big role in other early computers, including one built in 1948 that proved his basic ideas. Yet Turing continued imagining what the still-crude technology could do. Ahead Of His Time In 1950, he published the seminal essay "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" in the journal Mind. Here, he proposed the question "Can machines think?" He didn't believe there was an answer, but suggested that computers would someday be able to fool humans into believing they could think. He proposed what is now called the "Turing Test," an experiment to see whether people could tell human from machine in a typewritten chat. The test is still used today in artificial intelligence experiments. In the paper, Turing also was one of the first to suggest that computers would someday triumph over humans at chess. Again, he was way ahead of his time. A computer didn't beat a human until 1958, playing against a secretary who'd learned how to play the game only an hour before. Computers wouldn't become decent chess players until 1962, and wouldn't beat the best players in a regular game until 1997. That's when IBM's Deep Blue machine defeated champion Garry Kasparov. Despite his work in artificial intelligence, Turing was no robot. He had a deep concern for other people. When colleagues went through difficult periods, Turing helped them in their research to ease their schedule, or lent a sympathetic ear. Compassion, he believed, was as important as innovation. And technology, in Turing's eyes, was no substitute for humanity. - -- - ----------------- 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' -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 1336 iQA/AwUBQbsGecPxH8jf3ohaEQKAPgCdFGTYtszj39ZiduKm5xWk7RWB2YkAoJXF bj3bnlYXVovnri8SV5UA1PWf =bK0h -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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