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2600 (the magazine)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, The current issue of 2600 is out. I bought mine at Barnes & Nobles. It has a couple of articles on cryptography as well as a port scanner program for Linux. Jim Choate

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[off-topic] Locating cell phones with power off?
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I seem to remember that somebody once mentioned that cell phones transmit signal even with the power switch off. Supposedly, you have to take out the batteries to cut the signal. The more I am thinking about it, the less sense it makes. Can somebody here please confirm (or deny) this rumor? TIA, -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November. Vote Harry Browne for President.

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new type2.list/pubring.mix
by John Perry 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hello Everyone, There is an updated type2.list/pubring.mix combination available for the mixmaster remailer software. You can get it via WWW from www.jpunix.com or by anonymous FTP from ftp.jpunix.com. Of note is the addition of the squirrel remailer. Welcome aboard! - -- John Perry - 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 iQCVAwUBMhGxS1OTpEThrthvAQERXgP9FQJK5byJ2bXPIy1jwzZSBt6qNgMRCXph rqDRijUxehiSpmis5mq3gTtH/CcA7wAqkxLfO9izE3sC4HqWCd7B5D7KLZx9VPNG kZvUfQrZjzubLtz4ly0DtEDtnbKTEFLZ1tJL1ZUnZgsKTLEmeEIsXDc6r5zaGC0F E/U+SBe2oOg= =gYJD -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re- PGP
by Bjorn E. Andersson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sorry for the noise, I did a Cc by mistake. Bjorn A.

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Re: National Socio-Economic Security Need for Encr
by Bart Croughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Chris Adams wrote: >On 12 Aug 96 19:17:00 -0800, bart.croughs(a)tip.nl wrote: >Now I will explain why the austrian economists are right. Imagine Robinson Crusoe. In the beginning, he catches fish with his bare hands. He has no capital investment, and consequently he is not very productive. His wage will be low (he will not catch much fish). If there is more capital investment - if, for example, he has a fishing rod - he will catch more fish in less time. His productivity is higher. His wage is higher (more fish). If there is still more capital investment - if, for example, he has a boat and fishing nets - he will catch even more fish. His productivity is higher. His wage is higher. Etcetera. So, it's really not difficult to see that the Robin's standard of living depends on the amount of capital available on his island. The same goes for the rest of humanity.< To a limited extent, that holds water. However, how would you explain, say, some of the construction work around here where a huge, expensive piece of equipment is being run by some guy making less than the Cal Trans worker with the flags? Or guys I know who are making low-middle class wages working on a $10,000 computer hooked up to a $1,500,000+ molding machine? Also: lawyers - You're getting charged $200 a billing hour by someone who probably doesn't even use a typewriter (After all, secretaries aren't just for oggling). Although legal references might be somewhat expensive, it doesn't compare to the money gained. Also: computers. I know people who are making an incredible amount on old machines. They might be using a few dollars in software (probably 2-3 hours worth at most) and are working on a cheesy old machine. However, because some of these $6.25/hr typists have been putting useful information into it, it is worth the trouble to pay someone $50/hr to fix it. Neither of them has invested much compared to what they're getting in return.< When economists say that wages depend on the amount of capital invested, they mean on a regional/national level, not on the level of individuals. >Your argument only works with 2 givens: 1) A larger investment will return at least a corresponding increase in productivity.< This tends to be the case. If a larger investment doesn't return a corresponding increase in productivity, the investment will generally not be made. Happily, no one wants to waste his money on investments that are not productive. >and 2) the worker is self-employed - otherwise there are too many factors involved. If #1 is true, *someone* will be making more money, but not necessarily the worker.< Yes, it's the worker who will make more money. Why? As I explained in another post on this subject: "Increased productivity of workers leads to higher wages for workers because of competition between employers. If a worker produces the worth of $3000 per month for his employer, and his employer is only willing to give him a wage of $2000 , then there are other employers who would be happy to give this man a job at a higher wage. They still profit if they give him a wage of $2100 instead of $2000. This process goes on until the salary of the worker equals his marginal productivity." Bart Croughs

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Imprisoned Capital
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:12 PM 8/14/96 +-200, Bart Croughs wrote: >If investors use their capital to invest abroad, this capital cannot at the same > time be used to invest at home. Only after the investors decide not to invest > abroad any more, they can invest it at home. But I was not talking about > investors who decide to stop investing abroad and start investing at home. I > was talking about investors who decide to invest abroad instead of at home, > and the effect of such a decision on the wages in the US. There is no straightforward link between amount of capital invested and productivity or wages. If there were, some steel plants in the Soviet Union would have had the best paid and most productive workers on earth. Additionally, countries which prevent capital outflows don't receive capital inflows and thus become poorer. DCF

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Schlafly on crypto
by Brad Dolan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Subject: Clinton Is Trying to be Big Brother -- Phyllis Schlafly Column 8/8/96 Clinton Is Trying to be Big Brother August 8, 1996 by Phyllis Schlafly We hope the appropriate government agencies will soon solve the recent terrorist crimes and punish the criminals. But all Americans who care about civil liberties should vigorously resist President Clinton's attempt to use the terrorist attacks as an excuse to carry on his all-out war against the personal privacy of law-abiding Americans. This mind-set was first revealed in the Clinton health care bill, which would have given the government computer access to the medical records of all Americans. Fortunately, that totalitarian takeover of the health care industry was rejected. The Clinton Administration's education legislation now pending in Congress would put personal information about all schoolchildren -- academic, medical, attitudinal, behavioral, and family -- into an expanded Labor Market Information database available to the government, as well as to prospective employers. Now the Clinton Administration is trying to make it illegal for individual Americans to have private conversations with one another. That's the real meaning of its effort to control encryption technology, and it's a direct assault on the First Amendment. It would be downright ridiculous to assert that the First Amendment guarantees our right to speak in public but not in private. It would be just as ridiculous to say that we have freedom to speak in words that the government can understand, but not in words the government can't decipher. Americans have the right to speak to one another in private, behind closed doors, and we should likewise have the right to speak to one another in code and to put our coded messages on computer in a process called encryption. Americans would not tolerate the government opening and reading the letters we send through the mails, and we should not tolerate the government opening and reading our encrypted, or coded, messages sent via computer. Yet, Attorney General Janet Reno, FBI Director Louis Freeh, and Vice President Al Gore are all demanding the authority to read our encrypted messages. In a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California, Reno bluntly stated her demand for "ensuring law enforcement access to encrypted data.'' Reno boasted that there is "a consensus'' that the government should create a system known as "Key Escrow'' (i.e., a supposedly "neutral third party''), to which all Americans should be forced to "entrust'' the keys to their encrypted messages, and to which the government would have access. On the contrary, there is no such consensus. Do you trust Janet Reno with access to your private messages? Do you trust the FBI to keep your files confidential? The Clinton Administration is already doing 30 to 40 percent more federal telephone wiretaps and other electronic surveillance than the last year of the Bush Administration. Those figures don't even include national security wiretaps or the hundreds of extensions granting more time for wiretap orders already issued. FBI Director Freeh wrote the New York Times last November that "There is no intention to expand the number of wiretaps or the extent of wiretapping." Four months later, FBI documents revealed that the FBI does, in fact, plan to increase electronic surveillance 54 percent by 1998 and 130 percent by 2004. On July 12, Al Gore announced that the Administration will continue to push for the adoption of a massive public key infrastructure to give the government access to all encrypted communications. In a blatant bid for a police-state surveillance society, Gore warned about "the dangers of unregulated encryption technology." A neutral panel of the National Research Council was set up to make policy recommendations about encryption. The panel called on the government to abandon its efforts to restrict encryption. The NSC panel concluded that increased use of encryption would enhance our national security, not diminish it. Thirteen out of its 16 members had security clearances with access to secret information, and they saw no national security reason to justify the Clinton policy. The Clinton Administration bases its campaign to control private encryption on the alleged need to fight crime through wiretapping. However, the NSC panel concluded that the ability of the private sector to transfer confidential financial and other data over the information highway without interception is far more important. New technologies have given government awesome power to spy on individuals. The Filegate investigation accidentally uncovered the shocking news that, as soon as Bill Clinton entered the White House in 1993, he secretly spent $400,000 on software to create a highly sophisticated computer database to track detailed political, financial, attitudinal, and personal biographical information on 200,000 people, including members of Congress and the media. Known as WHODB for White House Office Data Base, the system was nicknamed Big Brother. Encryption is a First Amendment issue, not a crime issue. If the Clinton Administration is allowed to control encryption, it would be the biggest expansion of federal power since the passage of the Income Tax Amendment in 1913. EAGLE FORUM -- eagle(a)eagleforum.org PO Box 618 Alton, IL 62002 Phone: 618-462-5415 ---------------------------------------------- Are you on our E-mail list? Tell a friend about us! http://www.eagleforum.org

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Re: 2600 (the magazine)
by John Deters 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:27 AM 8/14/96 -0500, Jim Choate <ravage(a)einstein.ssz.com> wrote: >The current issue of 2600 is out. I bought mine at Barnes & Nobles. > >It has a couple of articles on cryptography as well as a port scanner >program for Linux. I browsed the article on "cryptography" briefly on Monday. I think using the term "cryptography" to describe it is a bit strong. The author is encouraging people to basically XOR data with a repeating key (a modified Vigniere) and then proclaims it forever unbreakable. I was somewhat unimpressed. "Why the hell doesn't Janet Reno outlaw this kind of irresponsible magazine? They're showing KIDS how to encrypt data, for God's sake!" Actually, one of us (he says, ducking the responsibility personally) should probably write an article for them on how to use PGP. (Maybe something that doesn't use words bigger than "warez".) I got it! A one pager. Paragraph one gives the URL to Joel's PGP QuickStart (a description and a link is on Joel's tools page at http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/tools.html and the executable itself is at ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/j/joelm/Install.exe [plug plug]) and says, "run this program to install PGP." The rest of the page can be devoted to "how to hide your kewl viruses from your clueless teachurz". Hmm. Maybe I will write that article. After all, they give out a free subscription to authors (and since I buy the rag anyway) it might be worth it. But if someone wants to beat me to it, go for it. I feel my ambition slipping steadily away, and I haven't even got out of the e-mail phase yet... :-) John -- J. Deters "Captain's log, stardate 25970-point-5. I am nailed to the hull." +-------------------------------------------------------+ | NET: jad(a)dsddhc.com (work) jad(a)pclink.com (home) | | PSTN: 1 612 375 3116 (work) 1 612 894 8507 (home) | | ICBM: 44^58'33"N by 93^16'42"W Elev. ~=290m (work) | | PGP Key ID: 768 / 15FFA875 | +-------------------------------------------------------+

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Re: Capital and Taxes
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:01 AM 8/14/96 -0400, Brad Dolan wrote: >On Tue, 13 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote: >> Yes, taxes will _someday_ have to be paid...but many of us are hoping, >> praying, and pleading for a cut in the capital gains tax rate...at least a >> rollback to the 22% rate of yesteryear (and 4% or less in states). This >> huge "backlog" of unrealized capital gains (aka gains on paper, but not yet >> taxable) is what is being spoken of when people like Jack Kemp and Steve >> Forbes speak of "unleashing" the capital gains now tied up due to the high >> tax rates. > > >Now imagine that I want to make that $100K investment or, more >realistically, that I want to invest $100K in my kid's college education. >I'm going to have to earn wages of $160K and pay $60K in tax. It would >make me cranky if the guy next door could just clip $100K of coupons, tax >free, to pay for his kid's education. > >While I'm sure Steve Forbes could, I can't think of a moral argument why >income from selling stock should be taxed at a rate lower (or higher) than >than income from wages. Perhaps you've forgotten double-taxation. When a company makes a profit, it is taxed at the full corporate tax rate. Paid to a stockholder, it is AGAIN taxed at the citizen's rate. It's a ripoff, and the strange thing is a lot of citizen-dolts don't understand this or understand its implications. It would be fairer to tax either once the corporation, or the individual, but not both. Now, capital gains is merely the effect of increased value that hasn't yet been paid in dividend. It would make sense, therefore, to simply not tax "income from selling stock" since the taxes have already been paid. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Stopped Clock. Was: Schlafly on Crypto
by Marc J. Wohler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:59 AM 8/14/96 -0400, you wrote: >Subject: Clinton Is Trying to be Big Brother -- Phyllis Schlafly Column 8/8/96 It makes me ill to agree with Schlafly on any issue, but 'Even a stopped clock....... Unrepentant Liberial

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