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Re: [NOISE] Re: Guardian angels, the decency brigade, and
by Declan B. McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message begins here ---------- From: sethf(a)MIT.EDU Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 23:37:48 -0400 Message-Id: <9604270337.AA22787(a)frumious-bandersnatch.MIT.EDU> To: angels(a)wavenet.com Subject: Re: Guardian angels, the decency brigade, and cyberseraphim Cc: fight-censorship+(a)andrew.cmu.edu, mnemonic(a)well.com, cp(a)panix.com I have been researching the issue of ratings for some time, and thinking of getting a SafeSurf rating for a few pages as an experiment, so this "patrolling" is pretty interesting: "Gabriel" writes: > The answer is yes. So how can Safesurf be sure that sites registered with > them are indeed genuinely kidsafe? Simple - someone has to go and check > out all the sites who register with Safesurf. Now, would you be kind enough to tell me what happens next? Suppose you check out a site and find it is in your opinion not "kidsafe". What do you do in that case? This is not clear from your message. If the essence of the the SafeSurf system is "voluntary" ratings, are you not substituting your own standard? After all, in reference to Declan McCullagh's point about the fight-censorship archives, you say: "Why ask? Clearly a site with a message like this would not be suitable for children to read. That would be an adult site rating." Clearly then, you have some standard you are applying, which seems in this case be roughly "any archive which contains any message with any sexual content, no matter what the context or proportion, does not qualify as "kidsafe" in the CyberAngels view." So, in reality do we not have two standards here, the site's "voluntary" one, and the one the CyberAngels apply to the site? Only if the two coincide will all be well. Thus, is it not reasonable to ask that the CyberAngels at least make clear their criteria? I collect items such as this (ratings systems), I would be very interested in what the CyberAngels have come up with. ================ Seth Finkelstein sethf(a)mit.edu P.S. I don't know if you're a recent recruit or not, but Curtis Sliwa has a checkered history at best. Given the fabrications in the Angel's past, what can we expect in their future? References: AUTHOR: Goodstein, Laurie TITLE: Guardian Angels' Chief Clouds His Reputation SOURCE: Washington Post SEC,PG:COL: A, 3:1 DATE: Nov 29, 1992 ABSTRACT: Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, has admitted that some of his 1980s exploits were fabricated to get publicity. AUTHOR: Gonzalez, David TITLE: Police Union to Sue Sliwa over Hoaxes SOURCE: New York Times SEC,PG:COL: B, 6:6 DATE: Nov 26, 1992 ABSTRACT: Ron Reale, the president of the New York City transit police union, said Nov 25, 1992 that his group would file a lawsuit against Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, on the grounds that he had injured the union's reputation by faking crime-fighting exploits in order to garner publicity for the Guardian Angels. AUTHOR: Gonzalez, David TITLE: Sliwa Admits Faking Crimes for Publicity SOURCE: New York Times SEC,PG:COL: B, 1:4 DATE: Nov 25, 1992 ABSTRACT: The Guardian Angels' founder and leader, Curtis Sliwa, admitted in a New York Post article on Nov 24, 1992 that he faked six of the group's early crime-fighting exploits to gain publicity. Some former and present associates contend that even more of the group's activities were publicity stunts. TITLE: Curtis Sliwa's Confession SOURCE: New York Times SEC,PG:COL: A, 32:1 DATE: Nov 27, 1992 ABSTRACT: An editorial wonders why so many New Yorkers got taken in by Curtis Sliwa, the Guardian Angels' leader who recently confessed that he and his Angels fabricated several exploits in order to gain public support.

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Keyserver at jpunix.com on WWW
by John A. Perry 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hello Everyone, I just got through implementing and testing Brian LaMacchia's code for WWW access to the PGP keyserver at jpunix.com. This means that the Web page for jpunix.com can now perform interactive, realtime searches and adds against the keyserver database. If you would like to try it, the URL is: http://www.jpunix.com/pks-toplev.html John Perry - KG5RG - perry(a)alpha.jpunix.com - PGP-encrypted e-mail welcome! WWW - http://www.jpunix.com PGP 2.62 key for perry(a)jpunix.com is on the keyservers. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Processed by mkpgp2.0, a Pine/PGP interface. iQCVAwUBMYN2llOTpEThrthvAQEyqwP5AT14+2NbvdXdEnr8nxaSUVcLUmA2M0+z PDdOXidleU4P5BesHe0cIO0FdrpLC7EHi7mhg3XgwEeooCv2wGsOf59oGGikaqSl 4WLEvoQQOftVQNeE5vv7mbiYo4M5CZBm/QSu1QK3SD37ohT/pRy+RFu0ldRuxrAl aPSro/koBN8= =pFGr -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Book: The President's Eyes Only
by hoz＠univel.telescan.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just finished reading "For the President's Eyes Only", a book by Christopher Andrew. It describes the uses that US presidents have made of intelligence and intelligence organizations, from George Washington to George Bush. What caught my eye first was a quotation by David Kahn that says: "This is the most important book ever written about American intelligence." The cypherpunks relevance (Besides the David Kahn quote) is the frequent mention of NSA decrypts and SIGINT. The frequency that nations and individuals have used (and apparently continue to use) breakable encryption is incredible. The intelligence that has been derived by breaking them is worth a great deal, in dollars and maybe lives. This book has made me understand a bit, why a government might try to limit strong cryptography. I suppose I tended to look upon ITAR restrictions on cryptography as a sign of a power-hungry, self-agrandizing, government that has lost track of the fact that its legitimacy depends on protecting the blessings of liberty for its citizens. That's partly true, but there's more to it than that. After reading "For the President's Eyes Only", I can understand that many in government believe that they are protecting the public by outlawing cryptography. After careful reconsideration, I still believe in strong free crypto, but it made me think very hard. I think that some on this list and in sci.crypt should be ashamed of their ad hominem attacks in an area where reasonable people disagree. The crypto-game is being played "for keeps". Someday, all crypto may be too strong to break, but for right now, many "bad guys" (and whatever your philosophy, I bet you can find some) use weak crypto, and this allows the US Govt. to know more about what goes on in the world. As long as Uncle Sam keeps his finger on a nuclear trigger, I can see a strong case that knowing what he's doing and not getting too surprised are (mostly) good things. There will be a price to pay when everyone uses strong crypto. There will be great benefits derived, as well. It will be very expensive, but worth it. If we want to make it happen sooner, we should understand (and respect) our opponents in this debate. Rick F. Hoselton (who doesn't claim to present opinions for others)

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Re: CryptoAnarchy: What's wrong with this picture?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:21 AM 4/28/96 -0400, mkj(a)october.segno.com wrote: >Sandy Sandfort wrote: >> Income tax is the Godzilla of taxes. It is THE TAX when it comes >> to the US. (Perhaps VAT has a similar status elsewhere, but both, >> as pointed out, are subject to crypto-anarchistic subversion.) >> >> > ...taxes existed, and governments sustained themselves perfectly >> > well, long before these systems arose. >> >> But at nowhere near the voracious levels of modern states. > >This is a point I hadn't considered. If the govt doesn't know where >most of the money is, they can't "harvest" it nearly as efficiently. >Although they will almost certainly try to extract as much as possible >from the poor, you can't get blood from a stone. Hence the size of >current governments will undoubtedly have to shrink. >Most other arguments put forth so far in this thread, about how people >"won't stand for" certain government behaviors and so forth, I don't >find convincing. Modern military technologies, especially in the >U.S., make the prospects of a sucessful popular uprising dubious. Then you obviously haven't read the essay (AP) I sent you yesterday. "Military technologies" only work effectively against a military target. Kill civilians and you just make other civilians angry. At that point they'll be look for a weapon that "military technologies" cannot effectively oppose. That weapon is already known to be possible. Quite the contrary, I think that a "successful popular uprising" will require only a very small investment in time and money, in which some of they key players in government are targeted and the prospect exists for easily and cheaply getting the rest. At that point they will resign in droves. > >When you cut off someone's air supply, even the nicest, gentlest >person will go into an unrestrained, murderous frenzy. I expect >something similar will happen to even the most "civilized" governments >within the next few years, as popular crypto begins to cut off their >money supply. As I see it, only those relatively few citizens who can >afford to flee will dare to resist. Please read the essay. I think it may enlighten you. Even with "conventional" analysis, there is no reason to believe that governement will be able to avoid shrinking. Aside from making it easier to avoid taxation, the vast increase in information communicated by the Internet is taking a huge amount of power away from the traditional media, and the media is (despite the illusion they want you to believe!) the main backer of the government in most cases. In addition, this information flow is making it ever more difficult to pass abusive laws; if the government does something stupid in the morning, by noon they are being flooded with faxes and emails. And the whole concept of having a "governement" tends to be based on the assumption that people are incapable of making decisions for themselves. That's an increasingly unrealistic position. Government feeds on its own size; once government is dramatically reduced below its current size, it will become even less able to resist further contraction. Probably few government employees realize this. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: RSA Algorithm
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Drunkard Vagina has been fired for masturbating in front of his boss. ^-^-^-@@-^-^-^ (..) Drunkard Vagina

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Re: Defeating fingerprints
by droelke＠rdxsunhost.aud.alcatel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > Burglars and safecrackers sand the ridges off. > > This sounds like it'd work, but quite tedious. > Two words - "power tools" !!! ;-) I've sanded my finger tips down rather well with a belt sander and a fine grit belt on numerous occasions. While I've speculated that I probably wouldn't leave much of a finger print, I've never actually tried to take prints after such an operation. Dan ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Oelke Alcatel Network Systems droelke(a)aud.alcatel.com Richardson, TX

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Re: concerning Ben Franklin
by David Farber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My favorate Ben Franklin quote is "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin, ~1784

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by tlmjc＠msn.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: The Joy of Java
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"frantz(a)netcom.com" 27-APR-1996 02:59:17.07 >At 3:57 PM 4/26/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >>I think the interesting target date to plan for is a year from now. >I said a few months ago that I thought Java would be ready for prime time >in a couple of years. I think we are in complete agreement here. If Java can indeed be reworked to provide proper security (e.g., if Perry's incorrect in this case - everyone's falliable), then how much modifications are likely to be necessary? I'm currently looking at the possibility of learning a modern high-level computer language, and Java looks like one of the more promising options. (I currently know a bit of Applesoft Basic, Quattro Pro Macro language, VAX/VMS .COM file language, and MS-DOS batch file language.) In other words, I'm wondering if it's worth my while to learn Java now, or if I should wait (and possibly learn another language) until the bugs are worked out? Will removing the flaws make it such a different language that learning it now won't be of much use for someone like me? Thanks, -Allen

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Re: CryptoAnarchy: What's wrong with this picture?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:50 PM 4/28/96 +0000, Jonathon Blake wrote: > Jim: > >On Sun, 28 Apr 1996, jim bell wrote: > >> Government feeds on its own size; once government is dramatically reduced >> below its current size, it will become even less able to resist further > > The only true part of this paragraph is that government feeds > on its own size. > >> contraction. Probably few government employees realize this. > > What was the name of that government department that was > created to obtain and store Helium for the US dirigible > fleet? And just how recently was it abolished. I don't see that what you said challenged what I said. For most of this century, government (and in particular, the Federal government) has been on a fast-track to expansion. Only quite recently has this expansion begun to slow. I was referring to contractions to come; not to contractions (if any?) that have occurred in the past. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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