- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: India, Productivity, and Tropical Climes
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim writes: >Arun Mehta writes: > [huge snip] > >My prediction is that with the blessings of the Internet, the > >next generation of multiracial programmers, even those that were > >born in the USA, will be more likely to be found on the beaches > >of tropical islands than in the fog of San Francisco. When you > >can work in the shade of a palm tree, even if you should earn > >less, it's worth it :-) > As attractive as this sounds, historically this has not happened. And as > many will tell you, the climate of the Bay Area in particular and > California in general is extremely benign and delightful. The average > winter temperature is only about 10C cooler than summer temperatures. > Evenings are not balmy, but neither are they oppressively hot. 'Oppressive' is a subjective term, and is largely defined by what one is used to. Personally, I find the Bay area's climate very boring, too dry, and usually too hot (and yes, I've been there many times, at all parts of the year - I'm speaking from experience). Due to the lack of rain, the whole country side also seems much dirtier than a place where everything, both natural and artificial, gets a regular washing. > Interestingly, and not really related to CP themes, the fact is that is > that most technological developments have come out of cooler climes. Not a > lot of stuff from tropical and island climes. Maybe they realize life is > too good eating roast pig at the beach luau, maybe they are too lethargic > from the heat, maybe tropical diseases and mosquitos have taken their toll, > maybe.... The last time I heard this argument was in a documentary film about South African mining and agriculture, produced by South Africans, during the height of apartheid 'these great natuaral resources lay untapped until the arrival of a more industrious people, tempered by a colder climate...' While there *is* some truth that people living in environments where survival does not depend on long-term planning have less pressure to develop sophisticated industry, to claim that average temperature is the main determinate is betrays an ignorance of history. The technological pre-emminence of Northern Europe and derivative cultures is a very recent phenomenom. Civilization was invented in hot climates, and for most of history the more sophisticated cultures were in locations where you could sweat any time of the year - the Mediterranean basin, Mesopotamia, India, coastal China, Central America - in fact, in the classical period you could have mapped out a 'civilized belt' surrounding the globe in a distinctly sub-tropical climate. > I know an awful lot of folks who could easily affort to move to almost > anywhere in the world, and yet they stay in California. (I also know folks > moving to even cooler climes, in the U.S., especially less-crowded areas.) In any place you can name, most of the people who can afford to move to other areas do not do so. By your argument, Kuwait should be totally depopulated by now. > --Tim May Peter Trei trei(a)process.com Peter Trei Senior Software Engineer Purveyor Development Team Process Software Corporation http://www.process.com trei(a)process.com

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Re: Rumors of death of Anguilla Data are greatly exagerated.
by an584514＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Vince says: > And Anguilla is first and foremost a taxhaven. But it tries hard to be a > very clean taxhaven (does not want drug money etc). I think that "clean" > corporations operating here tax free is a potentially huge market. This is an illusion. There ain't no such thing as a clean corporation operating in a clean tax haven. Every overseas corp that is doing something they can't do without interference back onshore, is running the gauntlet. Remember, its my moral choice as to whether its dirty, and if I am sitting in some Washington quango office, and I decide its dirty, then it is. Plus its my job to fight it, and I'm not afraid of a dirty fight. And I got a list of contacts who've got friends who've got favours to call in... But you must know this, don't you follow the machinations that USG pulls in the region to try and close down the arbitrages? > Anguilla and OIS are not the data haven of cypherpunks wet dreams. Neither > Anguilla nor I want "hit men for hire" advertising here. Sorry Tim. And I > think the loss in clean business would outweigh any money from such by a > long shot. Nobody's talking about things that every body agrees are no-go. Shooting people is generally considered not acceptable. So please don't change the subject. What we are talking about is a fairly harmless concept. An obviously "fake" passport that is designed to fool the supposedly ignorant peasant terrorist when they wave grenades on the some flight from Miami, now going to Havana. It's a laughable concept, and one that most western governments have sniffed at and not lifted one finger to even warn about. OK, so there is a chance that a dumb clerk in a bank could be fooled. Still, opening a bank account with such a person could be done any number of ways. It's equally possible to imagine the Honduras passport being used to escape some sudaka warzone, without being shot for a gringo. Remember PGP? It was used for liberty, crime and freedom, all at once. > One simple example is that OIS was given a project Gutenberg CD-ROM and > may sell online copies of old books. Some countries are extending > copyrights back further into the past. Anguilla is not. So we could sell > books that have expired copyrights in Anguilla but not expired in USA etc. > Think regulatory arbitrage. Crap. It's obvious what book your talking about, if you get Europeans down there. It's about as harmless, or harmful, as "kill the Queen" rants, again its my moral choice. If a phone call from your lawyer causes such good responses, then there is no problem about getting this one made out-of-stock. Do you have a lot of tourists then from *that* place? What's the GDP take for the holiday trade anyway? > Taxhavens are a huge and well understood market. Datahavens are still > new. Not counting gambling, they may only be $0/year rounded to the > nearest million. The distinction is irrelevant. What are you going to do to protect my business? Now I know. SFA. I may be asking you for data protection, but my profits, which (might) pay you, come from a long line of other businesses. We're not all geeks. Tim makes good points, especially as he is not (as far as I can see) in the trade. When my company does business with such a jurisdiction, we look for the list of things allowed and the list of no-nos (which we respect). Then we look at the history of how that country stand up to its word. One thing is what they say, then another is what they do. It's surprising how easy it is to see just how much a place really wants your business for the long run. I will say this, it ain't really your fault that this happened. The webshop was too bright, too blatent. He talked to toublesome scam reporters. That sort of thing is going to bring in trouble. Softly softly catchee monkey is what is needed. Then when the phone rang my guess is it all happened to quickly. You win some you lose some. Lets not make a bad story get worse. Even though this is not a happy post (Anguilla was on our list) we still would like you to suceed. Our advice, worth what you paid, is don't advertise this event, one bad storm doesnt sink a ship. Take a look at all your webpages and tone down the noisy ones. Tell them to camoflage their location, no pun intended. Then, get down to your lawyers office and sit down over a beer and work out how your going to handle this thing next time. Properly. Publish (quietly but definatively) your list of no-nos (ok, that's already said). Think about what new shops want to do and talk it over with your man down at the bar (so you can predict the attacks). Learn some negotiating skills, soften the blow from both ends. Nothing I'm sure you hadn't thought of. Cheers, sorry for anonymity, but as I say, its softly softly in this game. Wish you luck. --****ATTENTION****--****ATTENTION****--****ATTENTION****--***ATTENTION*** Your e-mail reply to this message WILL be *automatically* ANONYMIZED. Please, report inappropriate use to abuse(a)anon.penet.fi For information (incl. non-anon reply) write to help(a)anon.penet.fi If you have any problems, address them to admin(a)anon.penet.fi

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Re: Fun with M$
by Dan Siemon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- > From: Rich Graves <llurch(a)networking.stanford.edu> > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: Re: Fun with M$ > Date: Friday, August 09, 1996 8:46 PM > > On Fri, 9 Aug 1996, Jeremey Barrett wrote: > > > Information page with a link to a page which loads the control: > > > > http://www.halcyon.com/mclain/ActiveX/ > > > > Quote from the page: > > > > Exploder is an Active X control which demonstrates security problems with > > Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Exploder performs a clean shutdown of > > Win95 and will turn off the power on machines that have a power > > conservation BIOS (green machines). I don't see how anyone can call this a bug. Microsoft has chosen what Sun should have: leave the security to the user, don't take it away from everyone. Java has been sverly crippled by the removal of features that would have made applets truly usefull, like local disk access. By leaving these abilities and allowing the user to choose whether or not to run the object, leaves the trusted objects to be truly usefull. Microsoft has even designed a system of trust verification for these objects throught the trust chain and the MS download service. For details on the MS download service look at the july 96 issue of Microsoft Systems Journal. Security should be a user/parent decision not a general ban to protect a few.

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Re: Read; NOW
by Erle Greer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:29 PM 8/11/96 -0400, Unix_Code <unix_code(a)geocities.com> wrote: > Hi I'm Unix Code and have a few things to ask... Ok, go ahead... we're waiting... I thought you had a few things to ask? > (it may not go with >Cryptography but go ahead and read) Maybe I read it too fast. Not only did it have nothing to do with crypto, but I could not ascertain as to it's relevance to anything whatsoever. - I'm sorry, C-Punks; I couldn't resist, but I did keep it short. Vagab0nd<br> <a href="http://ww2.sd.cybernex.net/~vagab0nd/index.html">Visit web page for public key.</a>

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[NOISE] Re: Police prepare stunning e CUT_ags
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Peter Trei <trei(a)process.com> Wrote: On a more speculative note, many years ago Harlan Ellison wrote an anti-statist short story entitled '"Repent Harlequin!" cried the Tick-Tock Man.' , in which the government required all adults to be surgically fitted with 'cardioplates', which allowed the state to turn off the hearts of uncooperative citizen-units by radio. -------- NYP reports today on the thriving market for Radio Frequency Identification (R.F.-ID) tags. And FiTi reports today on tagging cattle, tracking meat from cradle to abbatoir, to ward off mad cow assassination politics. Are these precursors of CU body-tags acoming from ARPA labs? E-Systems and a bunch of comp-conspirators just got supercalifrigalistic HPCC contracts. ----- For the NYT and FiTi reports, see: http://jya.com/cutags.txt CUT_ags

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Re: FCC_ups
by jfricker＠vertexgroup.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:58 PM 8/11/96 -0700, you wrote: >At 14:08 8/11/96, John Young wrote: >> 8-10-96. WaPo: >> >> "Phone Service Via the Internet May Slash Rates." >> >> Labs of Advanced Technology has developed a way for >> people to make long-distance calls over the Internet >> using only their telephones, at about half the price of >> ordinary toll calls. Customers would merely call a >> central number, then dial their long-distance numbers. >> The call is carried on the Internet, then put back onto >> the local phone system at its destination. The company >> plans to charge 5 to 8 cents per minute for all domestic >> U.S. calls, which represents a 50 to 75 percent discount >> off most domestic long-distance rates. > >I am glad to see some movement in this area. I designed a similar system >for a previous employer of mine. But the real choke point is the local >loop. As of this day, the local telos still have a de facto monopoly in the >local markets. The new competitors (the same old Phone Company) that we >will see in the near future seem to show no desire to deliver the really The real issue concerns the $0.03 per minute access fee that LD companies pay the local loop for voice communications. Seems there is difference between data bits and voice bits. VON has sparked this debate and the ISP's may end up paying the RBOCs the access fee. The way around that as well is through point to point wiring (and of course wireless systems). PairGain Technology is manufacturing a product that provides 384Kbps data and voice over a single pair of copper. Many RBOCs will sell you a LAD circuit which is point-to-point, unloaded, and unswitched. They go by different names : telegraph circuits, alarm circuits, Local Area Data Circuit. Ask a security company what kind of circuit they install. Your mileage may vary. --j

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Re: US Power Outages
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:28 AM 8/12/96 -0500, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: >Jim McCoy wrote: >> Even the power company's secret experiments in the cores of nuclear reactors >> have not found a way to get around the 186,000 km/s speed limit on everything. >> > >I wonder where does the 186,000 km/s speed limit come from? ;) > A serious confusion as to proper units. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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New mixmaster/ghio remailer mix@squirrel.owl.de
by Johannes Kroeger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I've installed a Mixmaster/Ghio remailer combination on my Linux machine with the address mix(a)squirrel.owl.de. Here are the public keys: Type Bits/KeyID Date User ID pub 1024/0B11B275 1996/08/08 Squirrel Remailer <mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.3ia mQCNAjIJ8IkAAAEEAJvmQTdUL2iLpKmZcnrtQuQWdw1zqt7oYVqkWeFa8J0qrunP smKvfTXmo52y2leLxbKZ6efADvrKq9ThXGF6qREVIdzTOnRYsVIwSSJjqBiDykAU cz8y/rEDes0oty4TRhysve976RwF3dLK7WU0RrDFj3VBLMhzyiQ+wVoLEbJ1AAUR tCdTcXVpcnJlbCBSZW1haWxlciA8bWl4QHNxdWlycmVsLm93bC5kZT6JARUCBRAy DQ4gvA9InihC/mkBAUlnCACgdpUBabYF9mQPaBC69YGxvcmoYQUxtqj7HlSpAAMr l0HlPNVUHuSqgo3Wo54uIHc4fFA2JYyxi/qETrQU5sHGOHq63H66uPylyzTLfE5v uIzbMuikNL2f9SIpdPamW2b+4Jep8UNlSGN0hKtbyedBDClJfPYbCXn9FKgwFcoo UyPTcfiAsV1f97cTGFM88thUVv6pAYNO4quangxnBEtdwY/mrr1xefw36TiC1yPo PNItxHEFRFxD2aEG5vA5hjRp/Sz5ZXZiY8K9X7hlt+n3MUXfKKz/OldWtF+Q9fOg a8Kmqj+duqlS2A4NbWp9emujOEzn2giI7+13B8MEyzVliQCVAgUQMgnwiSQ+wVoL EbJ1AQFKYwP/XqOGRvvjyd3anh42iAG0SASP9e/fIjD8bCymdEhJHdAsNy0H06ns oaLtH20tHN4BAgUo9i9H8h11+AygF4iJokGz1coP2BJI/O2o7YxR8SBWwk1SSrCb utbsi00uz/7QN1zb7Gn/sowUahhBsmhbJbkuur6EB5shBqyq0m/5jVE= =MqM9 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de 072821bee96df27f9defd3b41d216ac2 2.0.3 -----Begin Mix Key----- 072821bee96df27f9defd3b41d216ac2 258 AASyQ7WwBpuGeDdEHnfEZO3WXHbGWbtyz0EKeImP moWsMhfky9H/GoFt3qH10HsH2Hf5TbZBQFim7P2F cgvKNiitUwihSyZcTQEDPbhEIWMQCZdBZLDO8zId eAg3TUhwhHfjdILNyhMTOMyqZQckY+mrUTboT/z3 nloJJdC4PSHPiwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQAB -----End Mix Key----- The Ghio remailer has the following features: $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek" My connection for email is via a UUCP link that is polled every two hours. Do not expect quick turnaround of remailed messages. List pingers please note. This can be a disadvantage or an advantage depending on your needs and expectations. Please read the help file before using the remailer. You can get it by sending an empty mail with subject "remailer-help" to mix(a)squirrel.owl.de. I adapted and extended the original remailer help files and inserted a section about reply blocks and pseudonyms. C'punks, please mail questions and comments directly to me, as I'm not subscribed to the cypherpunks list. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: latin1 Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface iQEVAgUBMg9WB7wPSJ4oQv5pAQFoTgf+NABhSyEDQyzLoAC/FVDSvhSJtdbaXMFz vQOxVpUk9DllNpDIkW8Wj/rdH7QDk2vma8bNAaBD3/7HOs8ygFLWlLC3ZB48TpTK ghd/JT8VTvnHHQ3uM3XyXEwLkykTyJJhDuDBbnVzczCwEGQaaz/cpdQInVzQIOc7 GTNyRGGJX4ILzHNH5hfxZTDMfgCjF1qpvSqgT1qibhbViCH05zT4yykKcl83KE4v M8bFGrw86CUrLoUww5xTmiRIvHbUFCtwwrvjAktAX1U6jUyrJjn8qsyPj8lvA9eB qaRD1PwjJg57QYAkrHl0H11owpUZDPW7y76mBKYzQofPBCIuAkuW6g== =zgfG -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Johannes Kroeger <jkroeger(a)squirrel.owl.de> Send me mail with subject "send pgp-key" to get my PGP key

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don't say "bomb" on the internet
by I=(!isnum(self)) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Below is from EFF source. Does anyone have specifics on where this piece of idiocy is supposedly going from here? When does Congress reconvene on this issue? Any specific activities going on regarding this piece of crap? [begin quote]======================================================================== This is the language that Feinstein inserted into the Defense Authorization Act. It has been passed by the Senate. This is not good, but significantly different from her first effort last Spring (a similar amendment, to the S.735 anti-terrorism bill of 1995). This language is technology-neutral. However, it does have a very slippery 'intent' or 'knowledge' standard, and though the language of the bill does not directly focus on the Internet, all of Feinstein's commentary on the Senate floor and to the press have focused exclusively on "bomb-making information" on the Internet. Though this new version of her Net censorship proposal is possibly constitutional, unlike the earlier one, a key question that all constituents and journalists need to ask of Sen. Feinstein is: If you are simply trying to criminalize online incitement of, or conspiracy to commit, murder by bomb, then what on earth does this bill do? Both of these things are *already illegal* online or offline. S.1762 Department of Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997 (Passed by the Senate) SEC. 1088. PROHIBITION ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION RELATING TO EXPLOSIVE MATERIALS FOR A CRIMINAL PURPOSE. (a) UNLAWFUL CONDUCT- Section 842 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection: `(l) It shall be unlawful for any person to teach or demonstrate the making of explosive materials, or to distribute by any means information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture of explosive materials, if the person intends or knows, that such explosive materials or information will be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal criminal offense or a criminal purpose affecting interstate commerce.'. (b) PENALTY- Section 844(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended-- (1) by striking `(a) Any person' and inserting `(a)(1) Any person'; and (2) by adding at the end the following: `(2) Any person who violates subsection (l) of section 842 of this chapter shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.'.

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Re: US Power Outages
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:02 PM 8/11/96 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: >At 06:15 PM 8/11/96 -0400, Dave Farber wrote: >>attempt to explain that blackout and how to prevent such. We have not >>progressed very far. The avalanche behavior of power systems is still not >>well understood and techniques to prevent such failures are not obvious. > >It surprises me how little these systems appear to be monitored. >It took some hours for them to decide that the brush fire on the >California border didn't cause the system to shut down; >you'd think they'd know quickly that the subsystem shut itself down >or disconnected from the grid or whatever because of reason #17... The story previously being promoted says that approximately at the Oregon/California border, a fire caused problems with the transmission line. This morning, I read the new claim: extreme heat (presumably assisted by heat dissipated in the power line itself) cause the power cables near The Dalles (about 100 miles east of Portland, along the Columbia river) to stretch and sag, eventually shorting themselves out to trees near the ground. I find this claim EXTREMELY hard to believe. The temperature coefficient of expansion of steel is about 10 ppm/degree C, which means that even if the power lines heated up 200 degrees C, that's only 2000 ppm longer, or about 0.2% I don't know the formula to determine the length of a catenary, and I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but I'd imagine that this 0.2% increase in length won't increase the amount of sag by more than a factor of 10 higher, or 2%. That amount should be almost ignorable if the power line was competently installed and maintained. >One of my concerns about the situation is that it's only a week >or two after Clinton's speech about how The Government needs to protect the >National Information Infrastructure for us. I'm not paranoid enough >to think that they did it, but I'm sure that within a week we'll >see Al Gore or somebody making an NII Protection Agency speech >and Louis Freeh explaining that we need enhanced wiretap underwriting >to make sure that encryption-wielding hackers don't do it again. I've long believed that if incidents such as these were the work of saboteurs, it is in the interest of the ordinary citizen that communication with those responsible is maintained. If, on the other hand, the fact of the sabotage is covered up, that will only lead to more. The government, on the other hand, has an illegitimate interest in seeing it hidden (where it can be hidden; and where the government can't see a good reason to publicize it), because if uncovered it would tend to force the government to actually deal with the dissatisfied citizenry: not merely the ones doing the sabotage, but also the ones who have heard what their motivations are and at least partly agree with them. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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