- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Last nail for US crypto export policy?
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ed Falk wrote: > Toto wrote: > > I just ran out of asswipe. > I suspect that this crack will *benefit* RSADSI, and the rest of the > crypto community Ed, You're not 'outing' me, are you? Toto

1 0

Re: Fighting the cybercensor
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:40 PM 1/27/97 -0500, Phillip M. Hallam-Baker wrote: > > >jim bell <jimbell(a)pacifier.com> wrote in article <5ch9f2$cuu(a)life.ai.mit.edu>... > >> Look, I've proposed what I consider to be a remarkably consistent method to >> prevent the kind of political tyranny that you criticize, and I don't see >> any recognition of this fact. > >Thats because its a whacko solution that has no credibility >or consistency. > >If anyone tried to set up such a market and a price went out >on any of the heads of state fantasized about Mr Bell would be >dead as a doornail in a week. > So you're saying that the system would work. Mr. bell would be targeted, a price on his head, for starting that very system. Mr. Bell would be a martyr, his system being proven by his own death. It would be some varient of his idea that would be used to kill him, a bounty. I think that the system would work, I also think that it would be easiest to use by those already in possession of the money. It would take care of part of our overpopulation problem though...

1 0

Re: FBI=LIE
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/fbi-lab.html: > The World Trade Center bomb was made of urea-nitrate, a compound > that can be confused with non-explosive mixtures of the same > ingredients. In an informal internal check of lab procedures, some > senior FBI lab workers mixed human urine with fertilizer and added > samples of that non-explosive mixture to the flow of material being > tested by the chemistry unit. A manager in the chemistry lab > identified the urine-fertilizer mixture as an explosive. Just coincidentally, these errors imprison the innocent instead of freeing the guilty. > Still, Joseph E. DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney in Washington, > said the issues raised in the report would allow defendants to > contest lab findings against them and would permit people convicted > of crimes to attempt to reopen their cases, based on the possibility > of flawed forensic evidence. > "It's going to be a royal pain in the neck for federal judges and > prosecutors and a godsend for defense attorneys looking for a means > of getting their clients off," he said Why not "proving their innocence"? A prosecutor - and one who does not respect our legal tradition of presumed innocence - is not a good choice for a quote here. Nowhere in the entire article is there evidence that the reporters talked to anyone outside the FBI/Justice Department milieu. > Scientists at the lab said they were often stifled in a lab run by > non-technical field agents who had little knowledge of science and > who regularly altered reports to help prosecutors. But law > enforcement officials said there was little evidence that anyone had > been wrongly convicted based on improper lab work. Why isn't this the story? FBI agents regularly committed perjury, and we see a story about lab errors. Elliot Ness

1 0

Re: uae_1.html
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

jim bell wrote: > I wonder what these people will think when organizations like Teledesic and > Iridium start operating (low-earth-orbit satellites) to allow > totally-wireless connectivity. It seems to me that there will be a market > for services that allow anonymous browsing, perhaps with encrypted requests > that return otherwise-unidentified data on a publicly-accessible airwaves. Think of the possibility of satellite-fed 'roving' InterNet sites. What will be the 'export' implications of sending crypto to a place such as site.nowhere, site.somewhere, and site.intheUS-hee-hee. Toto

1 0

Workaround for filtering/cybersitter
by Mark Rogaski 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If I had experience with Netscape plugins and spare time, I'd try it myself. But here's my proposed solution. A plugin in Netscape intercepts all requests, encrypt the URL with a pubkey algorithm, encode the string base64, send it as GET input to a proxy server. The proxy server decodes and decrypts the URL, gets the requested page, and returns it. This beats out URL-based filtering. Still need to figure out the specifics of key-exchange. If we use 40-bit encryption, it's exportable, and it still works in our threat model (ie. we don't care if the watchers figure out the URL a few hours later). To beat out dropping packets with unacceptable pattern in them, we could use an SSL-based server as the proxy. The plugin could even have a nice little on/off switch and a list list of available proxies. mark -- [] Mark Rogaski || "Computers save time like kudzu [] [] wendigo(a)pobox.com || prevents soil erosion." [] [] http://www.pobox.com/~wendigo/ || - afcasta(a)texas.net [] [] >> finger for PGP pubkey << || []

1 0

Re: Fighting the cybercensor
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I think that with the demise of Mr Bell and anyone running a remailer there would be an end to his scheme pretty quickly. Society is not bound to put up with cranks and psychopaths. there is no right to anonymously call for murder. The authorities could easily stop Bells scheme. The point I was making is that it is not consistent as claimed. Phill

3 3

Re: Last nail for US crypto export policy?
by f_estema＠alcor.concordia.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, Dan Geer wrote: > Export controls are meaningless without domestic use restrictions and > domestic use restrictions will never pass the test of the First > Amendment. <snip> Just because something is unconstitutional doesn't mean that learned judicial appointees will find it unconstitutional. When domestic GAK is passed, it will be structured to fit into the judicial philosophy of the day. This is under the same philosophy that says television shows are not speech, but rather a commercial enterprise. If the courts were first amendments absolutists, like the persons on these two lists, there would be no problem seeing porn on primetime TV. There would also be no V-chip law. When they manage to get the political conscensus, they will pass it. Incidentally, I remind you of the results of the moot court that was held at one of the CFP conferences, where a GAK case was tried in front of real federal judges by real lawyers. Our side lost.

2 1

Authenticated mail command processor
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I am wondering if anyone has written a package for remote command processing that has authentication and access control built in. I am looking for the following: 1) PGP Authentication of each incoming message 2) Access control where ability of users to execute commands is finely limited 3) Protection against replay and MITM attacks, encryption 4) Sending back of the results of execution 5) Some form of logging I need it for my cryptorobomoderator bot, to allow moderators to go to vacations and perform other admin tasks w/o logging in. Thank you. - Igor.

1 0

Re: East German Collapse (Was: Fighting the cybercensor
by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rich Graves <rcgraves(a)disposable.com> wrote in article <5cnvpf$jeu(a)life.ai.mit.edu>... > Hallam-Baker wrote: > > > > One point I had forgotten. The demonstration took place > > on the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht. This is one explanation > > as to why the border guards did not attempt to open fire with > > firearms or attempt to break up the demonstration with tear gas. > > I think the timing was a coincidence. (And I'm told that Kristallnacht > wasn't well advertised in East Germany; especially after the Soviets > sided the United Arab Republic, the official story was that Hitler had > been exterminating good Communists, not Jews.) This differs from my information. In point of fact the Nazis _did_ exterminate communists. At the time of Kristalnacht it was the communists who were the more direct target because they had places in the Riechstag. It was by imprisoning the communist deputies that the Nazis were able to take power and pass the enabling act. Portraying the Nazis as uniquely persecuting Jews is simply not supported by the facts. The Jews were the largest group of those persecuted but not the only group. Gypsies had less support in other countries. Other groups were persecuted for opposition rather than who they were but the numbers of murders were still large. This is one reason why the Catholic church established a convent inside Aushwitz where it is estimated that about a quarter of a million Catholics were murdered. Quite what one is then to make of appeasement by the Papacy at the time is beyond me... I don't think it points to any great moral or spiritual stand. > They gave him a gun and put him on the front, where he waved to his > friends as they walked across the border. > > I think a lot of the border guards were like Thomas. Shades of Machiavelli's description of the mercenaries union in the 1500s. Basically you could hire yourself an army but they weren't keen on there being much killing. > Yeah, yeah. Economics has something to do with it. But I think it comes > down to "Sure, I'll carry a gun, and I'll go where you tell me to go, > but I will not hurt anyone." Ideas matter. Absolutely! Phill

1 0

Re: Getting into MIT is impossible
by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anonymous <nobody(a)REPLAY.COM> wrote in article <5cndl2$89k(a)life.ai.mit.edu>... > "The only thing I didn't have that the next MIT applicant had was money. I > made the mistake of letting them know that I was dirt poor and would need > full aid/grants/etc, and to quote "The Great Escape" it was "Zzzt! To the > Russian front!"" > > My guess is that "other factors" were involved. Inevitably since the admissions tutors would not have known the means of the parents. Thats the whole idea of "needs blind" admissions. The admissions people could not give a damn about means. The alumni that are most likely to make donnations are those who made it from scratch in any case. > I noted with some interest, but little surprise, that the guy claiming MIT > required a 4.0 GPA and a 1600 combined SAT score could barely spell, and > had major problems making a coherent point. Methinks this is why MIT > rejected him, not his lack of a "1600." Possible but remember that dyslexia is not an indicator of intelligence. The director of the Media Lab is dyslexic. Certainly if you think that being taught in a particular operating system is important you should probably try elsewhere. Depending on which classes you take you could end up using UNIX, Windows or Genera. The main advantage of UNIX is that it is reasonably compact and we have full sources which means that people can be set operating system projects. Windows NT is much too large for that although it does have many interesting APIs that make it usefull for teaching application level stuff. I would imagine that there will be people interested in NextStep for Apple too, Tim-B-L was always a Next person, but he learnt how to use it because he had an open mind. If he had thought that nothing could be better than what he had already he would still be using CERN-VM. If someone can't cope with an unfamilliar O/S they probably shouldn't be an engineer at all. An O/S is only one large software system a grad needs to deal with. They have short lifetimes, rarely being dominant for more than a decade. Phill

1 0