- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: blocking software & brock meeks
by Erik E. Fair 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Vladimir, I agree with you in general, however, Brock and Declan have a point to make too: these companies need to differentiate themselves based on two things: 1. basic philosophy of filtering (why they filter what they filter). 2. diligence in keeping up their databases. Brock & Declan are right to expose the basic filtering philosophies of the different companies, so that those of us who may wish to avail ourselves their services know exactly what we're getting (or rather, not getting). In the end, the market will choose between the simple "no porn" philosophy (for whatever your definition is of that), and the "christian family values approved by the christian coalition" philosophy (with, one hopes, a whole lot of other points on the spectrum in the middle). However, the consumers cannot make this choice absent the information; Brock & Declan have done everyone a service by shining some light on this. What I'm surprised about is that these companies apparently aren't already trumpeting their philosophies of filtering themselves. The principle differentiator for this market is not the software - there really aren't that many ways to filter this stuff, and these companies ought to share their techniques in that area so that they can all be more effective and thus serve their customers better. The real differentiator is what's in their databases, which (one presumes) is driven by each of their philosophies of what is "harmful" to minors. One wonders if these companies might be embarassed to actually take a public position on this burning issue: just exactly what *is* "harmful" to minors? Personally, I fail to see how they can avoid it - it is the essence of their entire business. Erik Fair <fair(a)apple.com>

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Re: Message pools _are_ in use today!
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:27 PM 7/3/96, Andrew Loewenstern wrote: >Deranged Mutant writes: >> Uploading can be gotten around by using anonymous remailers >> and mail-to-news gateways... although someone can tell if you >> send mail to anonymous mailers. > >Not if you run your own remailer! Agreed. And if a remailer chain is long enough, the "someone can tell if you send mail to anonymous mailers" is meaningless. (In an ideally crypto-anarchic world, millions of messages are being sent to anonymous remailers, and it is worth nothing to know that Subject A sent a message to an anonymous remailer.) --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: Message pools _are_ in use today!
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:25 PM 7/3/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >Someone mentioned the Ku-band dishes that are used by PageSat (or whatever >it is now called....). My DSS system, which is technically a Ku-band >receiver, has a digital i/o connector of some sort on the back, and it is >rumored that this will someday be available for PageSat-like uses. (I have >a feeling this may be years off, for admin reasons if not technical >reasons.) As I understand it, the DSS broadcast (unlike older C-band units) consists of a single digital stream which contains the highly compressed (MPEG?) data representing all channels. Being compressed, the data rate needed per channel varies with the scene and the rate it changes. Even if you add up a large number of these statistically-varying channels, you'll still get a fairly wide variation in the needed bit rate per second. The system must have a substantial amount of headroom to protect against occasional times when many channels need a lot of bits, headroom that is mostly not being used, most of the time. If this is correct, then most of this headroom should be available to piggybacked data traffic on a "space-available" basis. Probably tens of megabits per second. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: The Net and Terrorism
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 3 Jul 96 at 14:48, jim bell wrote: [..] > But as I've pointed out elsewhere, there's a big difference between "We're > gonna do this!" and "Someday we may have to do this." My impression is > that the government has tried to completely erase the dividing line > between these two concepts. As far as the government is concerned, "gonna do this" and "may have to do this" is the same, since the "this" is illegal. There is no dividing line. I suspect that since they (alegedly) had specific targets planned it leaned closer to the "gonna do this". From the minimal discussion in the media I have read, it appeared to be another 'revenge for waco and ruby ridge' action rather than a 'defense of civil liberties from a potential totalitarian government' action. (I'm rather skeptical as to how blowing up a specific IRS office would be effective were the government to change into a totalitarian regime.) Rob. --- No-frills sig. Befriend my mail filter by sending a message with the subject "send help" Key-ID: 5D3F2E99 1996/04/22 wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com (root@magneto) AB1F4831 1993/05/10 Deranged Mutant <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a message with the subject "send pgp-key" for a copy of my key.

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Re: ecash thoughts
by Steve Reid 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> But probabilistic payment should be used to allow the minimum average > payment to go way below this, perhaps to an unlimited extent. I just thought of an obvious problem with "probabilistic payments". Suppose someone is surfing the web or whatever, and various sites are charging, say, 0.1 cents per web page, via probabilistic payments. Suppose there is a 1 in 10 chance that the person will pay 1 cent. The person wanders around the web, acting as though he's perfectly willing to pay, and participating in the fair coin tosses. Except, he really has no intention of paying. He will gain free access to 9 out of 10 sites, and on the ones that he loses the 1/10 gamble, he just backs out of the deal and doesn't pay anything. The end result is that instead of seeing all of the web at 0.1 cents per page, he sees 90% of the web completely for free. If everyone does this, the sites will go broke. It's the equivalent of welshing on a bet. The obvious solution would be to require that the person pay the 1 cent, then if he wins the 9/10 bet, he gets the 1 cent back. But that will just move the problem from the user to the server- the site can welsh on the bet and refuse to pay back the one cent. They will get ten times the payment that they are supposed to get. ===================================================================== | Steve Reid - SysAdmin & Pres, EDM Web (http://www.edmweb.com/) | | Email: steve(a)edmweb.com Home Page: http://www.edmweb.com/steve/ | | PGP (2048/9F317269) Fingerprint: 11C89D1CD67287E68C09EC52443F8830 | | -- Disclaimer: JMHO, YMMV, TANSTAAFL, IANAL. -- | ===================================================================:)

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Announce: Private Idaho 2.7b
by Joel McNamara 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Since I'm in an especially patriotic mood today, I've just uploaded the 2.7b beta release of Private Idaho (which started out life as a Windows PGP shell, but is turning into the "mother of all privacy tools" shell). Significant new additions include: Automated install application - no more installing and updating new releases of PI by hand (many thanks to Colin Tan for writing the Setup application). The install application comes bundled with PGP QuickStart, a utility for helping new users download and install PGP. Expert and user modes - for new users, user mode provides a limited set of commonly used commands. Expert mode gives you access to all of the commands. Steps - again, another feature for new users. Step-by-step information on how to perform common tasks. Change nym account reply blocks - easy way to change nym reply blocks. Anonymizer support - support for C2's new anonymous Web browsing server. Select a URL from any text within Private Idaho and your browser will anonymously access that Web page. Mixmaster support - support for Mixmaster type 2 remailers. Variable word-wrap length - select window size, 65, 70, or 75 character line length. Revised online help HTML version of help Get it at: http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/pi.html And while you're there, as an added 4th of July bonus, check out: http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/cryptbk.html For the extremely tacky, and offensive to some, "Building a CryptoBook" page. Comments, questions, etc. as usual to: Joel McNamara joelm(a)eskimo.com

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Re: Lack of PGP signatures
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:07 PM 7/3/96 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote: >At 12:15 PM 7/3/96 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote: >>On my Mac I just entered this answer, cut it to the clipboard, launched >>PGP, clearsigned it, and pasted the result back into the Eudora window for >>the new mail. > >But of course the signature doesn't check. (I suspect Eudora line wrapping.) Yep. Been there, done that. Line wrap problems are the bain of PGP sigs. This is the reason that most PGP shells will force a line wrap before generating the signature. The only way around it is to turn off all line wrapping or have a utility do it for you before signing it. I am wondering why there is not a signing option that ignores all non-printing characters. Might fix some of these problems... (Can anyone think of a reason this would be a "Bad Thing(tm)"?) --- |"Computers are Voodoo -- You just have to know where to stick the pins."| |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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Re: CWD -- Jacking in from the "Keys to the Kingdom" Port
by David Rosoff 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 01.30 PM 7/4/96 -0400, CyberEyes wrote: > The child would also be able to use the Anonymizer at >http://www.anonymizer.com. But, is it that easy to redirect? Just type >that little rd command? What others are there? I've seen &lt and &gt in >use, what do they perform? No, but in things like Yahoo and Alta Vista, when they have those ads, look at the URL assigned to the ad. It redirects you through the service you're using rather than send you straight there. I don't know why. I was just using an example.... Since HTML uses the < and > (less-than and greater-than) characters in the code, you use the < and > to print one of these characters and not use it in the code. =============================================================================== David Rosoff (nihongo o sukoshi dekiru) ----------------> drosoff(a)arc.unm.edu For PGP key 0xD37692F9, finger drosoff(a)acoma.arc.unm.edu 0xD37692F9 Key fingerprint = 25 7D AA 01 85 41 43 89 50 5A 33 76 F1 F1 99 67 Do you know who's reading your email? ---> http://www.arc.unm.edu/~drosoff/pgp/ Anonymous ok, PGP ok. If it's not PGP-signed, you know that I didn't write it. === === === === === === === === === === === === === === === === === === === === "Truth is stranger than fiction, especially when truth is being defined by the O.J. Simpson Defense Team." -Dave Barry -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMdxKCxguzHDTdpL5AQFyaQP/VevSEcgSOqZ0I0XB7mFX5tKivwEpHQ4+ 8zEBfUJTI7SZjZVSbo7dCa/4IRuk7NBrvI0bGHCyRqO7TPqOEZn9Po1eBFfg2I08 RZEVrE3EN1gm/rW32pJ/ocNLTH45mRqKEQoO8gZle509ZvkhiBzJuK8aXFn7hJn+ cgJeSUTfBmw= =U3zk -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: ecash thoughts
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:53 PM 7/3/96 -0400, Simon Spero wrote: >2) If ecash is used to create a new currency- i.e. the value of a unit of >the ecash is not tied to any single existing currency, what should the >value of one currency unit be set at? (let's call it a Turing) Low, maybe a tenth of an American cent. But probabilistic payment should be used to allow the minimum average payment to go way below this, perhaps to an unlimited extent. The reason is simple: The cost of providing net transactions, and electronic transactions in general, can be expected to drop exponentially, just like the cost of telecommunications and CPU power do. Any arbitrary limit to how low they can go will act somewhat akin to the minimum wage: It will deter development of any product or service whose perceived value is less than this arbitrary minimum. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Moviepunks
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Not much crypto or any networking in "Independence Day." It does have a code name, however, "ID4." Disabled the mothership with computer viruses (highly unlikely.) Used a Mac Powerbook but no Apple logos showed. Film has mass appeal, however and some good bits. Good for teaching people that if 15-mile-wide spacecraft position themselves above your town--leave. The Net did get me into the film however without waits. Fired up www.777film.com at 1600 hrs, ordered tickets for the 1700 hrs showing, get to the theater, walked past lines into the lobby to use ATM, stuck in card, got tickets, went into theater. Dodged mob scene. Saw a preview of "Ransom" starring Mel Gibson in a remake of the 1956 Glenn Ford film of the same name. First ransom "note" appears to be a multimedia file (delivered by the Net?). DCF "Somehow, I doubt William Jefferson Blythe Clinton would fly an F-15 against a monster alien craft."

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