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by Smoke-Away 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Twenty Bank Robbers -- Game theory:)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:03 PM 7/25/96 -0400, Simon Spero wrote: >On Thu, 25 Jul 1996, jim bell wrote: >> My guess? They all agree to kill whoever made that suicidal rule. >> Otherwise, all but two would end up dead. > >But the people at the start of the line know that if they don't >hang together, they will end up dead, and if that they act purely >selfishly only the last two will benefit. Because they want to stay >alive, a better solution for the first person to propose equal shares, >which would be opposed by the last two players, but supported by the rest. >He could also split the money only amongst the first half of >the gang, since he only needs half the votes. My previous answer was incomplete, of course. I continue to believe that the problem is unsolveable as stated, if for no other reason than the "weight" of the negative represented by dying is not stated. It's a VERY complex problem, unless there's some trick I'm not seeing. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Apps: Unix for Windows 95
by Jerome Tan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I want to play with Unix or at least be familiar with Unix. Unfortunately, Unix systems are expensive, if possible, is there any software that can be run in Windows 95 that makes you run Unix in your system?

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Re: CD Prices and Inflation
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:06 AM 7/26/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >So, what do we have now? Salaries are 2-4x higher, gold is at $375 an >ounce, a new 3-br house averages about $100K (and is 2x that in many >places), hamburger is at $2-3/pound, "Scietific American" sells for $3.95 >or $4.95, and paperback books go for $4.95. > >Roughly, then, everything on this list is 3-4 times more expensive than it >was in the late 60s. So, those LPs I was buying for $4-5 should now cost >$12-20, correcting for inflation/price rises. > >And yet I am able to find many CDs I want for $8.67 (Tower Records: "3 for >$25" sales). And they never wear out. And they usually have 60 minutes or >more music on them--at least the CDs I buy do--, compared to the paltry >35-40 minutes on most LPs of the past. >So, while I "wish" CD prices were even lower, I'm paying a lot less in >"real dollars" for more music today than I was paying 15 years ago or 30 >years ago. I think you're trying to hide a 5-year effect by immersing it in 30 years of change. Yes, we've had inflation, but the large spurt of post-Vietnam inflation was basically over by about 1983, when the CD was introduced. At that time, the explanations for the higher expense of CDs included the fact (then true) that they were costlier to manufacture due to the lower volume and lesser competition, as well as a lower production capacity. (all of these effects were essentially eliminated within 5 years or so.) At the time, I recall that most vinyl was around $7 or so, and CD's typically sold for $15. By 1988, therefore, CD prices should have dropped to the same as vinyl, plus whatever inflation had occurred in the 1983-1988 time frame. (20% total?) $9. Maybe. You'll respond, as you did, that SOME CD's are available for $9.00 Yes. A few. (But it's now 1996, and 1988 was 8 years ago, and back then $15 pricing rule was not frequently broken.) When they're on sale. But the vast majority are stuck, as if by glue, to the $12-$15 price range. I think most people understand, implicitly, that "there's something going on." We don't pretend to be able to quantify it, exactly, but it's there. Here's a proposal that I think would fix the problem. What if the copyright laws were amended to allow _anyone_ (individual or a company) to copy and sell any CD, paying the artist a royalty 20% greater than he'd get from the contracted record company, _and_ paying the originating record company, say, 50 cents royalty per CD. The company doing the "legal bootlegs" would still have to pay for its own production, distribution, and any other costs. This wouldn't be practical if the pricing by the main record company is reasonable; it becomes quite profitable for them if they are in competition with $15 discs. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Fireworks expected, missed at Senate crypto hearing
by declan＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 21:05:31 -0500 To: fight-censorship+(a)andrew.cmu.edu From: declan(a)well.com (Declan McCullagh) Subject: Fireworks expected, missed at Senate crypto hearing Sender: owner-fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Contrary to the Reuters report excerpted below, there weren't any fireworks at today's ProCODE crypto hearing before the full Senate Commerce committee -- at least during the first panel when the spooks testified. (I skipped out before the second, which had industry folks.) Just more of the same, though we heard less about child pornographers and more about terrorists. And Sen. Slate Gorton (R-Wash) jumped on the committee staff for leaning too far *away* from national security interests in their summary of the legislation. Most amusing point: Sen. Larry Pressler waved a copy of the floppy with the _Applied Cryptography_ source and couldn't remember what it was called. "Um, I can't export, um, this, um," he mumbled. "Cassette," he decided it was. (Even his committee staffers smirked at that.) The FBI's Louis Freeh kept mouthing the same tired old line: "No reasonable person can envision a lawless information superhighway. It was never meant to be that. We need cops there, as we need them elsewhere. The problem is the proliferation of unbreakable encryption." He said it's "not too late" to stop the spread. After the first panel ended, a gaggle of a half-dozen camera crews waylaid Freeh in the hallway outside. The FBI director fled down the stairs. The crews split into teams. Half took the elevator and half pursued on foot. Downstairs, Freeh shot through the security checkpoint into the safety of a waiting Chevy Suburban. Why were they dogging the guy? They didn't care about crypto -- they wanted a comment about the TWA flight, and Freeh wasn't talking. He didnt' mention it at all during the hearing... -Declan -------------------- Fireworks Expected at Encryption Hearing July 25, 1996 WASHINGTON (Reuter) - After sailing through two quiet subcommittee hearings, a bill to relax restrictions on computer encoding faces a much choppier ride before the full Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday. The committee will hear from some of the Clinton administration's big guns on crime and national security, including FBI Director Louis Freeh and William Crowell, deputy director of the National Security Agency. Software manufacturers and some in Congress argued at earlier hearings that current export restrictions on encryption programs -- which code and decode information -- cost American companies billions in lost sales overseas. [...] Senate bill 1726, the Promotion of Commerce Online in the Digital Era Act of 1996, would abolish most export restrictions and prohibit mandatory key escrow. Vice President Al Gore told reporters at a press conference July 12 that the proposal, known as the ``pro-code'' bill, is ``unacceptable.'' [...] Clinton administration officials have said they favor less radical reform. Officials are expected to reject the conclusions of a study released in May by the National Research Council. The council concluded that encryption export restrictions should be relaxed and rejected key escrow as unworkable. [...]

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Re: Twenty Bank Robbers -- Game theory:)
by Erle Greer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:09 AM 7/25/96 -0500, you wrote: >Here's a puzzle for our game theorists. > >Twenty cypherpunks robbed a bank. They took 20 million bucks. Here's >how they plan to split the money: they stay in line, and the first guy >suggests how to split the money. Then they vote on his suggestion. If >50% or more vote for his proposal, his suggestion is adopted. > >Otherwise they kill the first robber and now it is the turn of guy #2 >to make another splitting proposal. Same voting rules apply. > >The question is, what will be the outcome? How will they split the >money, how many robbers will be dead, and so on? > >igor > Here's my guess: Eache robber is going to want the largest share of the money possible. Therefore The first guy dies automatically because that increases the share size. This continues on until there are only two robbers left. Robber #19 suggests that he receives the full 20 million and since his vote is 50%, he receives it all. 18 robbers dead. vagab0nd(a)sd.cybernex.net http://ww2.sd.cybernex.net/~vagab0nd/index.html Visit web page for public key.

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Re: Why the world needs privay protecting Ecash
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:17 PM 7/26/96, Lucky Green wrote: >>>> S.KOREA PROBES 15,000 PEOPLE OVER CREDIT CARD USE - South Korean >> state prosecutors are probing 15,000 people for excessive use of >> their credit cards overseas in a crackdown on lavish spending, a >> prosecution official said on Thursday. [Reuters, 200 words] > Good to know that the U.S. will cooperate in these investigations. I would hate to see these South Korean's spending "the people's" money in improper ways...oops, am I confusing South Korea with the Benevolent People's Republic of North Korea? Or are they just converging, just as the U.S. is converging with the PRC? Which raises a question about the laws in the U.S. on "structuring" of financial transfers. If Alice uses her U.S. VISA card to make many cash withdrawals at ATMs in Zurich, Lichtenstein, Geneva, London, etc., are there any U.S. requirements that she obtain and fill out reports (in triplicate) on these transactions? Suppose the cumulative ATM transactions hit the magic $10,000 level? I've heard folks describe this as a sure-fire way to transfer funds out of the U.S. to offshore banks, without the risks of carrying cash (*), but I wonder if any laws actually make this fall into the "structuring" penumbra. ("Structuring" refers to, for example, making multiple sub-$10,000 transfers so as to (apparently) evade the intent of the U.S. law on reporting all transactions of $10,000 or more.) (* Traveller's checks, cashier's checks, etc., are other options. One Cypherpunk has some interesting ideas about using traveller's checks to evade the U.S. requirements.) P.S. Do you know that if you save $200 a week out of your paycheck and put under your mattress, that after a year you will have saved $10,000? That's the good news. Now, the bad news. Do you know that if you try to deposit this $10,000 in cash in a bank, or spend it on a car, that an investigation may be triggered? That your money may be taken from you in an "asset seizure"? Unless you can prove where you got the money--rather hard in the mattress example--it may be taken from you and never returned, even if there is never a court case charging you with a crime, much less a conviction. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Produce 7 Hertz Frequency
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, On Thu, 25 Jul 1996, Jerome Tan wrote: > Does anyone know how to produce a 7 hertz frequency? No, but hum a few bars and we'll fake it. S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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RE: Schelling Points, Rights, and Game Theory--Part II
by jbugden＠smtplink.alis.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If crypto is going to become widespread, at some point it will need to enter the mainstream consciousness. We have already discussed the issue of "getting the word out" about GAK in comparison to video cameras in every home. "If people understood the issue, they would never accept GAK..." The stats on the average internet user are usually something like 85% male, US$50K average income, 30-35 years old, Univeristy education. It may come as no suprise then that Internet users as a group could have life experiences significantly different than a majority of the population. Similarily, their views may also be in the minority. On the other hand, they do hold a majority of the technological power. Revenge of the Nerds is one phrase that I have heard. tcmay(a)got.net wrote: >Even meant humorously (">;-)"), many of us would dispute the notion that >a voluntarily-taken job is a "McJob." Frankly, working at a fast-food place >is usually not a lifetime career, but is instead a [stepping stone] And what or who guarantees that this later, better job exists. Much of what I read today suggests that McJobs may become the norm for many. >>jbugden(a)alis.com >>As soon as those with power are not able to see a situation where they >>could become like those without power, there will cease to be motivation >>to maintain a "safety net" of rights or economic means to protect the >>"losers" of our society. >What are "those without power"? Can you image working at a low paying job for your entire life. I personally can't. I work hard and am doing well for myself. Like most of those here, crypto would be a benefit for me. On the other hand, unlike most of the population, I could join Mensa if I applied. My point: I'm not average and I suspect that neither are you or most of those here. How do you make the cypherpunks agenda (on the days that there is one ;-) of widespread concern to the average citizen? >The best way to help the "losers" of our economy is to allow voluntary >economic relationships to be formed. I always thought that feudalism was a voluntary economic arrangement. The vassals pledged allegiance and offered their labour while the feudal lord pledged protection. Here is where Phil could give better examples. If we are not prepared to maintain some lowest common denominator (a.k.a. safety net), what will keep our individual freedoms intact if the concerns of the "average" citizen drift unchecked towards simple survival? I'm having a hell of a time getting my e-mail read because I'm too busy shooting at the food scavengers. They killed my dog! James

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Re: Twenty Bank Robbers -- Game theory:)
by eli+＠gs160.sp.cs.cmu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hal Finney writes: >I think the best way to approach this problem is to first try to solve >it assuming there are only two robbers rather than 20. Right. Of course, you're implicitly assuming not only that this bunch of bank robbers is rational, but that they're familiar with mathematical induction. :-> -- Eli Brandt eli+(a)cs.cmu.edu

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