- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: CIA Using Remailer System?
by jdd＠aiki.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message <199408181058.AA15812(a)xs4all.hacktic.nl> nobody(a)vox.hacktic.nl writes: > Wouldn't it be funny, if the CIA (or other agency) used the remailer system > (alon with PGP) for regular communication with operatives overseas. When the CIA wanted to deliver some packages during the Viet Nam war, they set up their own air line, Air America. If they wanted to send encrypted traffic through a 'civilian' system, I would suppose that they would do the same sort of thing. Did you know that Sprint has set up a Global SprintLink service, with offices opening up in London, Paris, and Tokyo, and that Sprint already handles a large chunk of the traffic to the former Soviet Union? They have a direct link from Falls Church (you know, next to Langley) VA to Moscow. ;-) -- Jim Dixon

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ACTION ALERT! PTO Commission Lehman's Intell. Property report
by Jim Warren 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all -- [blind cc'ed to numerous folks] Just spotted this in Dave Farber's interesting-people msgs. Personally, I think that Lehman and the PTO is permanently-entrenched in offering nothing better than band-aids to protect the past. I think that the *only* chance we have for a more-enlightened approach to freedom versus software monopolies is massive, virulent [articulate] *torching* of our Congress-creatures. (At the least, it will force the monopolists to spend much more loot bribing friendly votes from the representatives they are buying.) Like always, freedom requires vigilence AND action. --jim Jim Warren, columnist for MicroTimes, Government Technology, BoardWatch, etc. jwarren(a)well.com -or- jwarren(a)autodesk.com 345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/415-851-2814 ===re===

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coming soon: secure digit
by weidai＠eskimo.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- tcmay(a)netcom.com wrote: > Their work involves having the user compute a hash of the document > he wishes to be stamped and sending the hash to them, where they > merge this hash with other hashes (and all previous hashes, via a > tree system) and then they *publish* the resultant hash in a very > public and hard-to-alter forum, such as in an ad in the Sunday New > York Times. Can you give a more detailed description of the system? The specific question I have is how exactly does a third party know that a time stamp is not forged? What algorithm or protocol does he use? If there is more than one time stamping service and if they use different systems, how do the courts know which ones to accept? Wei Dai cc: TCMAY(a)NETCOM.COM in 0009 on ESKIMO -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLlad5Tl0sXKgdnV5AQFjXQQAuIU+eb/yLxrhXWwDwOfuK/rKi7Tq+Pz8 3FFe+BD6ZB+nLrXPnb5geNQuVFQX3K4cW1JEm4dVPvo5DDXFZaM/sH5g2XySrjaz 9FeeTa4wYtEydhJXAlzpENuWxyXTn+NIQov+e5kKQybKgOW5AglwnMexd+ls7o1U juUxkbqdSZY= =FyNB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- PGP Public Key available

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ride to crypto 94 (santa barbara) available
by phr＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The person who I planned to drive with made other arrangements. Anyone interested, send mail to phr(a)netcom.com ASAP, or phone 510-843-8236. Leaving Berkeley preferably Sunday midday, but flexible about departure time and route. Probably going to take 101 all the way down for speed, but might be willing to take highway 1 back for the view. Paul

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WORKING ALONE...A new book
by felsher＠tmn.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

List members will be interted in acquiring WORKING ALONE, by Dr. Murray Felsher (Berkle, NY) just published. Felsher, a former professor and former NASA and EPA headquarters scientist, left government employ (that's quit --- not retired) without paycheck and without pension in 1980. He formed an aerospace consulting firm and began publishing newsletters. He has been so engaged since then --- working alone! WORKING ALONE, now available at your local bookstore, is comprised of 67 short (1-5 page) pieces which detail the mindset required to undertake such a venture, and the experiences encountered along the way...

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e$: buyinfo, internet commerce, and GMU
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:41 PM 8/20/94 -0400, Pat Farrell wrote: >C'punks: > >There is another Professor Denning who is chair of a CS department >in the Washington DC area. Here is a position paper that was >published in a packet distributed at the 1992 Computers, Freedom, and >Privacy conference (CFP-2) Washington DC. > [snip] >Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ There are some people from GMU ("Coalition for Electronic Markets; George Mason Program on Social and Organizational Learning") talking about superdistribution schemes (one put an article in the new Wired) and internet commerce on the new (?) www-buyinfo list I just started watching. The buyinfo folks seem to be reserecting the discussions which used to take place on the imp-interest list, which has pretty much croaked. They are talking on buyinfo about secure mosaic, digital signatures, digital cash, etc. I think the list is driven by majordomo and its address is: www-buyinfo(a)allegra.att.com If anyone has comments on this bunch, it may be interesting to hear them here. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

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Re: e$: e-cash underwriting
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:25 AM 8/21/94 -0700, Hal wrote: >Come on, Bob, we've talked about a lot of problems in the last few weeks: the >prohibitions on most forms of bearer bonds; the prohibitions on banks >issuing their own currency; the stringent regulations for private scrip >circulation. Our people who know securities law can probably list a few >more. I have have been paying attention, I was not trolling. I would like to see a formal, concrete analysis of the legal issues if there is one out there. Or at least someone's best efforts at it. If it isn't there, then it may be time to commission one. For money. (Anyone out there want to e-mail me a quote?) Because I expect that it can be done and should be tried, and probably isn't going to send *anyone* to jail. I don't think that e-cash is a bearer bond. Its portfolio management from the underwriter's side is like that of a callable bond (more like managing the cashflows of a mutual fund while keeping the income), but to the holder it behaves just like cash (perticularly if it doesn't bear interest ;-)). If an underwriter is not a bank anymore than the underwriter of an traveller's check, or a mutual fund is not a bank, then a bank isn't issuing currency. I've heard arguments on both sides of the question of whether or not e-cash is scrip (it has an explicit value in dollars, and is redeemable in cash), and I think until the secret service bangs on someone's door, or more to the point, a real lawyer says it's expressly not legal, than it's at least possible. That which is not forbidden is permitted, the last time I looked. Legal hacking is not a bad thing to try to do at this point. No great green monster is going to shit on my head if I try, or anyone else tries, to start an ecash underwriting business. :-). The most that can happen is that the business fails, and most likely on economic, not legal, merits. >>The only way to find out about the *market* for the product is to test it. > >OK, but also one way to find out whether it is legal or not is to test it. >If you end up in jail, I guess it wasn't legal. Maybe that's not the >best strategy, though? Bill McGowan of MCI did not go to jail. He died in his bed of a massive coronary after a triple-bypass and a heart-lung transplant. Cigarettes killed him. He fought the law and the system, and he won on the economic and legal merits of his case. I don't expect the legal entry cost of a business like ecash underwriting to be nearly as complex. > >Send mail to netbank-info(a)agents.com for info on their non-anonymous (I >think) cash-like system. I wonder whether they have worried about these >issues or whether they are trying out the strategy above. They're asking forgiveness, not permission. They're "sooners". They're not quite the starting gun on the land rush, but they're close. I have seen their stuff. I expect that a lawyer has told them that the worst thing that can happen is that they'll get a nasty letter from the feds and have to shut down, and they might win if they decide to fight it. I expect that with a little reading, a legal mind might say the same thing about a legitimate digital cash system like Digicash(tm), for instance. Please note that I am not trying to make anyone angry here, or in the previous post, and I hope that my tone in the above doesn't appear angry, because it isn't. I just think that the concept of digital cash is farther along than most people think it is, and for the life of me, I can't see any reason for not doing it, except fear, or frustration from previous efforts, maybe. It's not FUD, because it's not deliberate, but it has the same effects. Cheers, Robert Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

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No Subject
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 16 Jul 1997 frissell(a)panix.com wrote: > What ever happened to "de minimus non curat lex." The social damage from a > misrated website is too trivial to be believed. Punishing it is like > executing you for farting. In some cases that may not be a bad idea :). But getting back to the original point, if I'm going to be subject to jail for mislabeling my pages (and how do you tell, given that some systems use a numeric rating? count the nipples and add the size of any erections?) then that would seem to be a good reason to move my Web site out of America. Idependent rating systems are a good thing, and we've talked about them here many times in the past (e.g. 'repuation markets'). A mandatory requirement for web authors to rate their own pages is a hideous idea which will simply move more of the Web overseas, helping to destroy the US economy. WebMonger

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Jim Bell Docket 2
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We've put the latest court docket for Jim Bell at: http://jya.com/jimbell-dock2.htm As noted earlier, it shows that the case has been assigned to a new judge and the last entry is dated July 9 for filing "felony information" by the US Attorney. No listing of the alleged plea bargain.

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Jim Bell on Seattle TV
by Mike Duvos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

KING-TV, channel 5, here in Seattle just had a blurb about James Dalton Bell. 8 years was mentioned, as were obstruction and the use of false social security numbers. I didn't hear the whole thing clearly as I was doing something else at the time. Sentencing to follow at a later date. They showed a picture of a very rotund individual while the story was rolling. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ enoch(a)zipcon.com $ via Finger $ {Free Cypherpunk Political Prisoner Jim Bell}

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