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Strange Sounds of Silence
by Alan Pugh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please reply to amp(a)pobox.com as this email address dies on the 14th. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- AEN News Commentary by Alan M. Pugh <mailto:amp@pobox.com> The Strange Sounds of Silence Has anyone else out there noticed the strange sounds of silence emmanating from the american print and broadcast media concerning the rider attached to the Telecommunications Act recently signed by President Clinton known as the CDA (Communications Decency Act)? Here we have a piece of legislation that has enormous ramifications to the free flow of information and ideas through various electronic media, and yet we hear hardly a peep from the "defenders of the 1st amendment". Many readers here have probably noticed the screams of censorship and gnashing of teeth that accompany any attempt to pass legislation or regulations that have even tangental relationships to the 1st amendment. The first amendment has, during this century, been greatly expanded from the protections it was widely recognised to afford at the begining of this century. It has been "incorporated" through the courts to bar states from infringing on our freedoms as well as the federal government. The definition of "speech" has been stretched to the point that the act of burning a flag is considered to be an act of speech, and not destruction of property. (I agree with the court wholeheartedly on this point.) We've so expanded its scope, and rightly so, that it is difficult if not impossible to win in court on a charge of slander or libel. The press in this country enjoys wide lattitude. They cannot be forced to divulge sources except under very specific and limited circumstances. They have recently been restricted more than in the past on military operations. These restrictions have garnered almost universal cries of "censorship!" from those news organizations affected. Why then, when almost all of cyberspace is up in arms over this provision is this story almost universally ignored or distorted to be merely an issue of "child pornography" or "protecting our children"? I recall several prominent news organizations across the country coming to the aid of Larry Flint, the publisher of _Hustler_ magazine a few years ago through amicus briefs filed with the court when an overzealous prosecutor was attempting to nail him for the distribution of material that violated his puritanical interpretations of local "community standards". Where are these papers now? Where is their outrage? I'd like to know what the difference is between a picture of Michelangelo's David displayed in an article by the _Smithstonian Institution_, and the same picture when displayed on someone's home page? Where is the outrage that someone who makes a copy of _Catcher in the Rye_ available to people who visit their home page who may very well now be open to prosecution by that same puritanical prosecutor? Where is it? Has the "free" press in this country suddenly discovered the virtues of censorship? Do these organizations not realize that the precidents that will soon be laid down on this issue will soon be affecting them as well? Any major publisher who is not looking at electronic media as a method of distribution is a fool. The _New York Times_ is now available on the World Wide Web. Perhaps they are living in a delusion that *they* will not be held to the same standards that will soon be enforced against the small publisher who sees the Web as means for cheap mass distribution. Perhaps for a time, they won't. Eventually, the bird will come home to roost. One would think that they would understand that the free flow of information is important enough that we will have to stand a little pornography and other distasteful material - the same way we allow magazines to be sold at the local convienience store. If you don't want to see it, don't look at it. If you don't want to read racist material, go somewhere else. Noone will *force* you to consume that which you cannot abide. They also do not seem to recognise the international nature of the internet. It is not something that operates entirely within the confines of the united States. It is an international community that reaches nearly every corner of the globe. What is proper to be displayed in New York City or Los Angeles, is probably not something that, say the government of Saudi Arabia would like to see available to its subjects. By the same token, what is deemed to satisfy the "community standards" of Amsterdam, may very well not fly in many places in the united States. In order for any government to restrict access to any country that flaunts its standards, it would have to disconnect itself from the internet. It is not possible to build walls around a country and still have all the good benifits of the internet still available. Is it a bad thing for a group of children to be able to become electronic pen-pals with another group of students in Malaysia, or Russia? Do we not think that personal relationships with people from another culture helps personalize our understanding of their cultures? I think many wars could have been avoided in the past if each side knew each other better. How can someone claim that "all russians are evil" when they have a personal relationship with Ivan in St. Petersburg? For better or worse, the technology is now out there. The world will always be smaller than it once was. We are no longer limited in our circle of friends by distance or time. (Time could indeed be an issue if one were attempting to place a phone call to someone in Paris from Dallas. Many people don't want to talk at 4am their time.) We are also not limited by the delays and expense of postage. I've met good people around the world through electronic communications who have points of view that I would probably never have considered. Again I ask, "Where is the media?" Why is the censorship of individuals a good thing? Don't come crying to me when you find, a few years down the road that this camel's nose has snuck into the tent with its bad breath, prelediction to spit, and no potty training. Since this message is being transmitted electronically, I feel that it is my moral duty to include the following so this message will fall under the purview of the act I so abhor. Shit, Piss, Cunt, Fuck, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Teats. There they are. Come and get me Big Brother. =end of article= This article was digitally signed with PGP so as to further aid prosecutors. A signed document is hard to deny. amp <0003701548(a)mcimail.com> <alan.pugh(a)internetmci.com> PGP Key = 57957C9D February 10, 1996 15:23 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMRz+6YdTfgZXlXydAQG2qgf+Omae9/yVYvcyX1ADp6mmSHQJlQJ3qS4C AnT4VK4AepDHnqrh7gVsNPQB58QAWekY4IZBGws0mdxDQF9h3q8+pu+CNEFB2CDo Zi24IqjbCD2wYnovPOAZVmppOCoD0Au6XdUPdY2rLN/AEqo7H4H3RefTXDozu1J6 9QTOytuwLhaSlQ6BeBi2XhTrKFM7g1EtpA8O+B2tEOqvghQgq9f5SeY2kOY+5792 RY4EKlhcGIeT95pevnoQFPWTQA5wJghpXD1D4gfg7hULDZM1ZXLZRHF+XxlQImgZ SrxISrE1kDxlwHe4BYM4WXPH3OU0Gj4H9pH2J0YZA5H5pZS90u7mwA== =aNzy -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- #!/bin/perl -s-- -export-a-crypto-system-sig -RSA-3-lines-PERL $m=unpack(H.$w,$m."\0"x$w),$_=`echo "16do$w 2+4Oi0$d*-^1[d2%Sa 2/d0<X+d*La1=z\U$n%0]SX$k"[$m*]\EszlXx++p|dc`,s/^.|\W//g,print pack('H*',$_)while read(STDIN,$m,($w=2*$d-1+length$n&~1)/2)

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POINTERS: 02 08 96 Edupage
by James M. Cobb 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friend, 02 08 96 Edupage includes-- COPYRIGHT IN THE DIGITAL AGE (European Film Companies Alliance: "It's mine!") INTERNET USAGE POLICIES (Employees' rights: NOT!) Cordially, Jim NOTE. Archives: http://www.educom.edu Edupage dated 02 08 96 is archived under date 02 09 96.

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Re: Choices
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:05 PM 2/10/96 -0500, A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security wrote: >Gov does have the right (in fact the duty) to regulate communications >between citizens and non-citizens/sites in other lands (and if you do not >think communications with sites such as anon.penet.fi are inside the charter >of the NSA, I have this prime Florida land - we're in the dry season now 8*). Needless to say, I disagree. Government does not possess ANY "rights." Merely powers. Secondly, the Constitution says NOTHING about the authority of the Federal government to "regulate" (or, for that matter, even merely MONITOR) communications cross-border. Sounds to me like you're arguing the statist line. Jim Bell Klaatu Burada Nikto.

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Re: China
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:18 PM 2/10/96 +0530, you wrote: > Remember that starting this year, satellites of Iridium and other >LEO satellite projects will start to go up, spreading bandwidth around >the world. How will the Chinese government build a firewall against >satellites? Say, for instance orbiting anonymous remailers with pgp? Will >happen some day. Remember that much of censorship, as with cryptography, is economics. With Iridium satellite time at $3/minute, charged to the recipient, it's well within the financial means of a Banned Pharmaceutical Wholesaler, and well outside the financial means of an average Chinese university student, partly because the Chinese economy has much lower price and wage structures than the major Western economies do. On the other hand, renting a few gigabytes per day of satellite broadcast time to broadcast isn't out of the question, or at least renting a few tens of megabytes per day wasn't out of the question a couple years ago :-) On the other hand, as you say, if the Chinese government tries a Tien-an-men in cyberspace, the students _will_ have better tanks. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com / billstewart(a)attmail.com +1-415-442-2215 # http://www.idiom.com/~wcs Pager +1-408-787-1281

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Re: Privacy Without Tears
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>If everyone not only has a link to these pages in text, but also has their >>"PGP secured!", or similar little graphic on their pages, linked to these >>sites as well, it would save a lot of people a lot of redundant explaining >>and it would help spread the word about PGP like wildfire to the masses. > >I like that a lot! A nifty graphic would be the old-fashioned engraving of a >padlock on the O'Reilly book about PGP. ViaCrypt's PGP version for Windows has a more modern-looking padlock; the icon I use for the Program Manager group I keep PGP, Private Idaho, etc. in is the Safe icon that's one of Program Manager's builtins. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com / billstewart(a)attmail.com +1-415-442-2215 # http://www.idiom.com/~wcs Pager +1-408-787-1281

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Privacy Without Tears
by Bruce A. Baugh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Since it wouldn't do me any good to write code (I've _seen_ my code, it's not pretty), I'm writing in English instead. :-) I've started work on what I currently call Privacy Without Tears, a guide to PGP and related programs pitched specifically at a novice audience. I would appreciate comments, particularly in the fact-checking line (more on this in a moment). I'd also appreciate anyone who feels like it passing the URL I'll give in a moment on to crypto newbies and seeing if they can follow the instructions and get good results. So far, I've only written an intro and a section on PGP. Now I'm working on a section on DOS and Windows front ends. I'm only discussing software I can actually use on my own system, so explaining to me about the merits of tools for other OSes won't do any good. But if you have useful information about such, I'd be happy to link to your pages. Likewise, I'm deliberately not getting in a number of technicalities up front - only in the last section, for instance, will I explain about IDEA's role in PGP keys. This is for _novices_, the people who have as much need to protect their privacy as any of us but fewer clues. One thing I could really use is a short - paragraph-length - discussion of probable times to crack keys of various lengths. The URL (for the moment): http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce/privacy/privacy.html Thanks in advance for constructive comments! Bruce Baugh bruce(a)aracnet.com http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEQAwUBMR0Phn3AXR8sjiylAQGkMgfRAcH5qowi9wG/4o2cYR0qwlNXZM92TLJJ G8Klpk//5Hd3q5PAdz6QOL3ct7QYhlpjlT/UYrJ/dhjpIxWX6jmgxM0jTDdDr1q8 qXcWwzNMz5d1V0z+95NkD7hCOV7inP5ycqFRRPtAgF4LCiT4V0GrbaTLaqKbi7G+ 1YXo6ginBOjQ8WABRtpwIgGbxmJPQmTue5SqTX6zuGhTGrounCGShYZKT8ViLqtl swtD6sG6TPCAOpAgeV8TOPnJEKdbd9ASHAFdEN63DnTHNgjUWLo2bO3VcblRHVjf 1fi+UkeEF/yYXD4nryhhA8E95GUqBdIasN2E8J214Wp4Qoo= =5fO2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Reasons in support of crypto-anarchy WAS Re: Why am I (fwd)
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It's hard to tell the difference between "Assasination Politics" and government-sponsored provocateurism, a well-documented practice to stigmatize anarchical and anti-authoritarian ventures. However, it takes guts and thick skin to advocate overthrow of authority, knowing that reasonable people will think you're a nut seeking celebrity martyrdom. Happily for the careers of agent-and-anarchist back-stabbing back-scratchers, there is no easy way to know for sure which is which, or even if there's any difference when the media juggernauts are provocateuring both roles for melodramatic infotainment.

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Re: A Cyberspace Independence Refutation
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:36 AM 2/12/96 -0500, lmccarth(a)cs.umass.edu wrote: > I'm afraid I'm not willing to take [vulnerability of the state] on faith. You delete my arguments, and then say: "I am not willing to take this on faith", implying that I made no arguments. > Strata made some good > observations about the tangible vulnerability of the net-as-we-know-it to > government intervention. During the American revolution, the British troops could go where they pleased, and destroy whatever they wished, but they could not obtain political control by so doing. Yes, we are vulnerable, and so are they. If they used the measures proposed by Strata, the measures proposed by Jim Bell would gather wide support. Ob Crypto: They cannot obtain political control by mere acts of destruction, because they cannot be sufficiently selective in who they silence. For destruction to be effective, you must not only harm those who oppose you, you must refrain from harming those who do not oppose you. The destructive acts proposed by Strata conspicuously fail to do this. Under the extreme conditions that Strata envisages, the measures proposed by Jim Bell would be effective in obtaining politically desired consequences, because they are selective and targeted, and the measures that Strata fears would be ineffective in obtaining the politically desired consequences, because they are unselective and untargeted. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: Put the Protest where your money is.
by Ray Arachelian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, Mark Allyn (206) 860-9454 wrote: > What do you mean by a speech bubble? > > "write in a speech bubble to the president dude" > > Does this mean a transparent plastic bubble over his head?? Like in comic books. i.e: __________________________________ /CDA is unconstitutional and sucks \ | Exon sucks rhino dick for lunch | ___ \ _________________________________/ / \ |/ |O O| \ ^ / -~- :-) ========================================================================== + ^ + | Ray Arachelian |Emptiness is loneliness, and loneliness| _ |> \|/ |sunder(a)dorsai.org|is cleanliness and cleanliness is god-| \ | <--+-->| |liness and god is empty, just like me,| \| /|\ | Just Say |intoxicated with the maddness, I'm in| <|\ + v + | "No" to the NSA!|love with my sadness. (Pumpkins/Zero)| <| n ===================http://www.dorsai.org/~sunder/========================= [This Bible excerpt awaiting review under the Communications Decency Act] And then Lot said, "I have some mighty fine young virgin daughters. Why don't you boys just come on in and do em right here in my house - I'll just watch!"....Later, up in the mountains, the younger daughter said. "Dad's getting old. I say we should do him." So the two daughters got him drunk and did him all that night. Sure enough, Dad got em pregnant....Onan really hated the idea of doing his brother's wife and getting her pregnant while his brother got all the credit, so he whacked off first....Remember, it's not a good idea to have sex with your sister, your brother, your parents, your pet dog, or the farm animals. [excerpts from the Old Testament, Modern Vernacular Translation, TCM, 1996]

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Re: Encryption and Backups
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- GNU-Zip (GZip) format has encryption defined, but (AFAIK) not yet implemented. The probably won't use the vile PKZip method... and they probably will implement an unpatented method, if ever. Mark C. Henderson wrote: > GNU tar is not the commercial backup solution many folks will be > looking for, but it works, and has nice built-in hooks which are > intended to call a compression program. > > One can also use these options to call an encryption program, as long > as the encryption program takes stdin as input, stdout as output, > encrypts by default, and decrypts when given the -d option. - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMR4ebyoZzwIn1bdtAQE9gwF/cDRa2Ke0i1LoezO68du4VnaR9oQmrRdS qzAQ4mM3zNsiYVRDtDrz3yqlWwtUcse3 =DQKs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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