- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Securing data in memory (was "Locking physical memory (fwd)
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate misses the point, as usual: > Wrong, since the ENTIRE OS is run under this it's not nearly that simple. > The OS's internal swap page as well as by extension the contexts they point > to are going to be sitting in there. The app should also encrypt the address > spaces of the system structures. The original message said: > From: "Jim Adler" <jadler(a)soundcode.com> > The SCNSM driver supports allocation of non-swappable memory on Windows > 3.x/95/98. The principal design goal of SCNSM is to provide memory that will > not be swapped to disk, under any circumstances. Typically, security > applications require such memory to store private keys, passwords, and > sensitive intermediate results of cryptographic calculations. What is Choate thinking when he says the ENTIRE OS is run under this? This is a driver which is used by the application to allocate specific memory buffers in non-swappable memory. It allows the app to lock down those buffers so that they won't swap to disk. These buffers can then be used to hold sensitive data. It is neither possible nor desirable to run the ENTIRE OS out of such buffers. It is not possible because the OS is already written. It is Windows 3.x/95/98 (see above). That OS does not make the special driver calls which would be necessary to allocate non-swappable memory. You would have to rewrite Windows to use the special calls, which isn't possible for a luser like Choate. And it's not even desirable. There is no reason to make the ENTIRE OS use non-swappable memory. Most memory is simply not that sensitive. It holds public data, or data which is already on the disk in some form. Putting the ENTIRE OS into non-swappable memory gives up much of the advantage of having virtual memory in the first place. It would be a giant step backwards in OS architecture. Here's what Choate had to say when Bill Stewart tried to politely help him out: > You don't know this but you're willing to try to rake me.... > Talk about unprepared. > Your guess is pretty much worthless. It's bad enough to have to endure more of Choate's idiocy, but it is especially offensive to see him hassling Bill Stewart, one of the most consistently informative and valuable list members. Bill's a thick- skinned guy and it's probably no big deal to him, but it further illustrates what a negative contribution Choate makes here.

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PipeNet 1.1 and b-money
by Steve Moyzis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I don't know if this was supposed to have gone to Bugtraq, or it came to me because I 'visited' their "snoop server" acoupla times. If you already rec'd the original, then "Never Mind". >Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 15:33:49 -0800 >From: Wei Dai <weidai(a)eskimo.com> >To: cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net >Cc: onions(a)itd.nrl.navy.mil >Subject: PipeNet 1.1 and b-money >Sender: owner-onions(a)itd.nrl.navy.mil > >I've discovered some attacks against the original PipeNet design. The new >protocol, PipeNet 1.1, should fix the weaknesses. PipeNet 1.1 uses layered >sequence numbers and MACs. This prevents a collusion between a receiver >and a subset of switches from tracing the caller by modifying or swaping >packets and then watching for garbage. > >A description of PipeNet 1.1 is available at >http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai. > >Also available there is a description of b-money, a new protocol for >monetary exchange and contract enforcement for pseudonyms. > >Please direct all follow-up discussion of these protocols to cypherpunks. >

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salon article reply
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

dear Mr. Lasica: your article is mostly fair and accurate but fails to delve into some obvious and basic issues. 1st, check out david brin's recent book on privacy.. you cover only a tiny facet of the issues, of people that argue privacy should be protected. consider a very interesting alternative view.. 2nd: it is easy to take any digital image of a naked woman and paste the head of any other person on top of it, to the point that it is indistiguishable from a real picture. tell this to the mother of the daughter who's naked pictures were posted. 3rd: you fail to mention anonymity/pseudonymity, the starkly obvious solution to all the pseudo-problems you raise. your article is fairly mild but reflects the constant refrain of journalists to phrase every news story as some kind of looming or scary crisis. the issues you speak of have been debated among cpunks for years with more insight. not expecting you to know abut cpunks, but you coulda done a teeny better on that article. a decent article nonetheless on important issues.. please purchase a few clues from the nearest cpunks and try,try again. take care

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Maturity Is Needed
by Mixmaster 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In response to: ein >Jim Choate is so stupid that even when he accidentally gets something >right, he quickly "corrects" himself so that he is wrong again: > >> I had typed x/ln(x) as the asymptotic limit for the number of primes less >> than x. >> >> This is incorrect. It should be, >> >> x/log(x) >>Wrong, doofus. x/ln(x) is the correct asymptotic limit. What role could >>logs to the base 10 possibly play? Do you think God favors the number 10? >>What a fool you are!Your observations over the years usually seemed >>thoughtful, and intelligent, and therefore helpful. What an human waste this guy is. It reminds me of the old days of Reputation. A boorish attack reflects more poorly on the attacker than the victim, if it is an inappropriate attack. Even if stupid, or just mistkaen, a comment here is intended toward a larger, instructive purpose. This idiot just wastes bandwidth. Life's too short for this crap. Perhaps it's worth trying to reason with people a bit: Victorian times, like ours today, were a period of huge changes, which meant behavioral changes. It cannot be an accident that manners, good form, and respectable society merged into the legendary image of modern social graces. It was done of efficiency, and, so, of necessity. Inefficient entities decay in capitalism. Manners were needed for efficiency. Only today do they seem quaint, or insulting of class or social station. They were where the action was, among professionals trying to forge new economic relationships. This immature jerk is gonna lose. An Educated Observer

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Re: manners....
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:54 AM 11/19/98 +0800, Bernardo B. Terrado wrote: >Well I thought this list was a list of intellectuals, not only good in >hacks and coding and programming and the likes but also well "tailored" >with their manners, I have posted similar mails asking something but I >have never received one like this. At least the less obvious thing to do >is to ignore my message, simply delete it!, is that a hard thing to do? Yo, Bernie - until you started asking for pirated commercial software, I was wondering whether you were trolling by asking newbie questions or just a real newbie who hadn't looked at any of the literature yet. Knapsacks are, after all, broken long ago, and anything written since about 1980 that talks about them will also say that. I'd recommend getting Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" and spending a while with it, then looking for academic stuff beyond that if you want, and also reading the documentation for PGP for practical stuff (in particular, Phil's comments on Snake Oil.) There are also some FAQs out there, such as the sci.crypt FAQ. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart(a)pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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Re: Declan appearing on "Europe's Most Wanted"
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:26 AM 2/1/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote: >The situation with Declan, Sameer, Duncan, and others, is even less clear. >Things are moving much faster now that the Net is the means of >distribution. I was of course half-joking about Declan visiting Europe, but >surely France could decide to throw the book at him, and any EU country he >entered (such as Ireland, judging from his name) could hold him at their >entry point and ship him off to France to "set an example." The "modal time served" in Europe for cypherpunks activities is/will be so low as to be indistinguishable from zero. If only that was my greatest legal risk. Continental legal systems believe in prior restraint so they make a lot of noise but they are pretty weak in the punishment department. DCF

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the economist on cybercash
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

on disappointing/lackluster acceptance of digital cash.. mondex,visa,1st virtual,digicash etc http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/current/index_fn7557.html

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Re: Article V - an analysis (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 15:34:35 -0800 > From: Todd Larason <jtl(a)molehill.org> > Subject: Re: Article V - an analysis (fwd) > On 981125, Jim Choate wrote: > > > > Why is this problematic? > > Whether it's problematic or not depends on your goals. It gives reason to > doubt that your interpretation of the effects of a Convention called under the > current constitution would hold, as (as you now say), such a Convention > has the power to change the rules by definition. How? Explain what part of Article V leaves this hole open. Explain the relevance of the operational proceedures used during the transition from the Articles to the current Constitution to the modification of the Constitution itself within the bounds of its own structure? Congress wasn't even involved in that original process because it didn't technicaly exist until after the ratification. Why would a precedence involving state legislatures be found to hold on a national legislature? There is also the issue that the Constitution once duly implimented is the supreme law of the land and it takes precedence over precedence. This is apples and oranges. Bottem line, if 3/4 of the states ratify there isn't anything that keeps it from being law. The most that Congress can say is whether it's a direct vote in the legislature or a vote by convention. > There was a time period (I don't know how long, but certainly no more than > a few months) where some states were operating underthe Constitution and > others were still under the Acts. Which is relevant how? > I don't think it specifies, but what has always happened is that the *same > resolution* which proposes the amendment specifies which ratification method > will be used. That can't work if the resolution comes from the states. Only Congress has the authority to decide that issue. So the only way a proposed amendment can be placed up for debate and at the same time specify how it is to be voted on at the state level is if it comes from Congress in the first place. A proposal submitted by the states would force the debate of how it was to be decided. Once that was settled it would be passed back to the appropriate state legislature for direct vote or the initiation of a convention if sufficient votes could be found. > There's only a time limit because Congress has started specifying one, in the > same resolution which proposes the amendment and specifies the ratification > method. (Exception: in the case of the ERA, I believe they later extended the > limit). The power to specify a time limit isn't mentioned in the Constitution > as you note, but has also never been tested. I assume your speaking of the prohibition amendments again and their limits (7 years I seem to remember). That raises an interesting point. Suppose that the states submit an amendment proposal, can Congress modify it? I'd say not because of the 10th. If they could then the power of the states to submit amendments would be moot. ____________________________________________________________________ Technology cannot make us other than what we are. James P. Hogan The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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How to reign the federal government in...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Start a political party, but the likes of which has never walked the face of the Earth. The individual states when acting in a clear majority (>=75%) may pass Constitutional amendments without the involvement or interference of federal processes. The IRS, for example, could be shut down tomorrow or significantly modified via this mechanism without involvement at the federal level. What is needed is a political party that has a representative site in each state capital. Their job is to get proposed amendments to the Constitution on the floor of each body for vote. Think nationaly, act by state. There could be no appeal to the Supreme Court for constitutionality because it IS the Constitution. There are no requirements in the Constitution to notify or otherwise register such acts with the federal authorities. In short, it's none of their business if the people acting at the state level change the laws at the federal level. They must either comply or quit their jobs. ____________________________________________________________________ Technology cannot make us other than what we are. James P. Hogan The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Intellectual Property is like a banana (McNealy)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > X-within-URL: http://www.cadence.com/features/vol3No3/mc_nealy > Do We Worry Too Much About Protecting IP? > > --> By Scott McNealy > > It seems as if everyones always worried about intellectual property, > or IP. We worry about its proprietary nature and how to protect it. > But lets take a different angle on IP and also intellectual capital > inside a company, because I think we all worry way too much about > protecting it. > > IP has the shelf life of a banana. It just doesnt last, yet were all > worried about protecting it, hiding it, securing it, storing it in a > vault. As a result, we absolutely prevent our competitors from getting > ahold of it, but we also prevent our employees from getting ahold of > it. We prevent our customers and our suppliers and our partners > from getting access to it. As a result, by the time the people who > need access to it get that access, its so old that it is effectively > a banana we wouldnt want to eat. [text deleted] ____________________________________________________________________ Technology cannot make us other than what we are. James P. Hogan The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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