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Response to PFF's O'Donnell on the CDA and moralists
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 3 Nov 1996 07:58:58 -0800 (PST) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Response to PFF's O'Donnell on the CDA and moralists Richard O'Donnell from the Progress and Freedom Foundation writes in an essay attached below: > The strategic error of civil libertarians in the fight over the >censorship act was to lump together the statist moralists and the >anti-statist moralists. The latter are natural allies of the free >speechers (for the same reason the Christian Coalition and >Libertarians call the Republican party home). The ACLU crowd was >unable to create a free speech alliance with Christians because they >failed to acknowledge that attempts to limit the availability of >pornography is very American. O'Donnell makes some good points elsewhere, but the above fails to convince me. Trying to impose your moral code on others through the power of law has a long history in America: Prohibition and sodomy laws. We also have a long history of discrimination against gays, blacks, and jews. But that doesn't make it right, or justified. Gutting the First Amendment though state action, which the religious right did in passing the CDA, is indeed "unAmerican." It goes against the very principles of free expression and tolerance for political dissent upon which this country was founded. There is a difference between arguing that people should decline to purchase erotica or read "indecent" materials -- and calling for criminal laws to ban it. I agree with O'Donnell that advocates of freedom need to work with advocates of a reduced central government. One protection against future threats like the CDA is to make the Federal government less subsceptible to special interest lobbying. And certainly, House Republicans have emerged this year as the staunchest defenders of civil liberties. But I disagree with his assertion that "a small group of statist moralists" supported the CDA. My question is: what major theocratic right group publicly opposed it? Even PFF senior fellow Arianna Huffington debated Esther Dyson and John Perry Barlow and defended the CDA. The Christian Coalition certainly supported the act. Enough is Enough! supported the CDA, with its leader Dee Jepsen testifing in favor of Net-censorship. (Jepsen is on the board of regents of Pat Robertson's Regents University and has impeccable religious right credentials.) Bruce Taylor's group did -- and though Taylor isn't exactly a religious moralist, he rarely crosses swords with them. The ACLJ -- the religious right's response to the ACLU -- supported the CDA and even cited Rimm's study this year as support for its constitutionality. The organizations in the umbrella group National Coalition Against Pornography supported the CDA. The Family Research Council and Focus on the Family continue to argue in favor of the CDA. Longtime Christian Coalition ally Sen. Charles Grassley introduced a bill worse than the CDA. We all know what Rep. Henry Hyde did with the final legislation. Now, this is from memory. Perhaps some groups have changed their position after the June ruling. But I'd be interested in hearing the answer to my question above. -Declan ---------- Freedom to Pray and Sin The Internet is driving the ACLU and Christian Coalition Together Richard F. O'Donnell Prohibition became law because bootleggers, who stood to gain economically from outlawing alcohol, quietly supported the "religious" crusade against evil liquor. Today, the forces of state control who want the government to regulate Cyberspace quietly support the moral crusade against pornography on the Internet. This modern day "Bootleggers and Baptists" coalition has driven a stake through the traditional civil libertarian constituency and left the ACLU crowd completely bewildered. The Communications Decency Act, passed by Congress earlier this year and now being challenged in court, criminalizes the transmission and posting of indecent material on line. In the year of the Republican Congressional Revolution a Democrat (James Exon of Nebraska) was the prime sponsor of the censorship act. Opponents were never able to label it purely a move by "Newt Gingrich's radical freshmen" because so many Democrats supported it (and Gingrich did not). For instance, a recent WIRED magazine article entitled "The Rogues Gallery" that profiled "the legislators who helped make government censorship a reality on the Internet" didn't profile even one Republican. Liberal legislators and President Clinton, who normally have few problems with the ACLU and abhor the "radical Christian right," went right along with them in attempt to increase state control. How is it legislators who voted against efforts to ban flag burning on the grounds of free speech suddenly voted to ban dirty pictures? Simply put, the Democrats saw in the censorship act a way to assert government regulation of the Internet, the first step in letting Washington bureaucrats regulate Cyberspace in the "public interest." These liberal paternalists intuitively favor state control in the mode of Senator Bob Kerry, who thinks that, because the FCC regulates telephone and television transmission, it is a natural extension of its powers to regulate the Internet. These are members of an elite who believe that government is in a better position than parents to determine the programming content of television networks or in a better position than the market and to determine the standards for emerging technology. Defenders of free speech lost their battle over the censorship act because, when their traditional Democratic allies abandoned them, they were unable to get over their distaste for moralism and recognize their new natural allies. The key to victory for civil libertarians is understanding that moralists (e.g. "the Christian right") are not a unified, monolithic front. There is a small group of statist moralists who are seeking government power in order to impose their views on the rest of America. They may pose a threat to free speech. Yet most "Christian activists" are not interested in imposing anything on others. Instead, they are actively opposing a government that is abridging their rights to freedom of faith. Statist moralists advocate not just a silent moment in school but a school led prayer. Anti-statist moralists just want schools to stop distributing condoms because it undermines the lessons they are trying to teach their children about abstinence until marriage. The strategic error of civil libertarians in the fight over the censorship act was to lump together the statist moralists and the anti-statist moralists. The latter are natural allies of the free speechers (for the same reason the Christian Coalition and Libertarians call the Republican party home). The ACLU crowd was unable to create a free speech alliance with Christians because they failed to acknowledge that attempts to limit the availability of pornography is very American. The legacy of the Puritans remains strong in our nation. Throughout our history Americans have been ready to demand conformity and to impose through law moral standards (recall abolition - for which America went to war). Foes of the Internet censorship lost their battle by labeling their opponents "unAmerican." Steve Guest, a network consultant who is party to a class action suit against attempts to shut down on-line adult sites, summed up the civil libertarian attitude when he said such actions were "violating the basic principles on which this country was founded." Calling attempts to regulate pornography "unAmerican" does not sway many people - especially Congressmen. Moral crusades against sinful material are as quintessentially American as individual liberty. Civil libertarians need to acknowledge the natural place of moralism in American life. Otherwise, they blind themselves from recognizing their true enemy. Freedom isn't threatened by moralism - we are free precisely because we are moral beings. Freedom is threatened by the advocates of state control. Civil libertarians need to reach out to anti-statist moralists and show them that it is no better to let the government in our computers than our churches. The way to fight pornography is on individual computer screens, with technology that empowers parents to determine what their children see - not what some invisible bureaucrat or court decides is appropriate. ----------- Richard F. O'Donnell Richard F. O'Donnell is Director of Communications at The Progress & Freedom Foundation. He serves as editor of all Foundation policy reports, books and articles. In addition, he is responsible for media relations and public outreach. His editorials have appeared in Investor's Business Daily, The Washington Times and Commonsense. Mr. O'Donnell is currently assisting former Congressman Vin Weber on his book about the new political majority emerging in American politics. He has also worked with columnist Arianna Huffington, author Marvin Olasky, and numerous policy and Congressional leaders in the telecommunications, health care, energy, environment and welfare reform fields. Mr. O'Donnell is a recognized authority on the nature and political ramifications of the transition from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age. Writing and speaking on the survivability of the American Idea in the 21st Century, he is a columnist for the cyberspace magazine Upside Online. He was managing producer of a weekly television show, The Progress Report , co-hosted by Heather Higgins and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and editor of the American Civilization. Mr. O'Donnell has also worked at the National Policy Forum: A republican Center of the Exchange of Ideas and at the Archer Daniels Midland Company. A native of Colorado, Mr. O'Donnell is a graduate of the Colorado College, and has studied at Boston College and The London School of Economics and Political Science. ###

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Re: Telling quote from Bernstein hearing
by Rich Burroughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:39 PM 11/3/96 -0800, Declan wrote: >Tony Coppolino was also the Justice Department's lead attorney in the CDA >case in Philadelphia. The Feds are grooming lawyers who have a clue about >the Net. Actually, Coppolino mentioned the CDA in the Bernstaein hearing. I haven't gone through the transcript, but the gist of his point was that, while the Judges in Philly had found that the CDA was prior restraint, ITAR was not (or something similar). I did not find his arguments very persuasive -- he seemed stuck on the idea that crypto is not speech, when that had already been ruled against by Judge Patel. He may have been trying to make the record clear, for possible appeal. Rich

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Re: Discrete logs 1 [non-cryptography related annecdote]
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Thu, 31 Oct 1996 09:16:26 -0800, Hal Finney wrote: >properties than regular logarithms, but I thought this bit of history >would spark some memories in old-timers and give a new perspective for >younger people. It's kind of funny how quickly they dropped out of usage. I'm probably one of the estimated 7 people under the age of 30 who actually know how to use one. (Long story - it involves a couple months in a math class w/o a decent calculator) I was in an Algebra class taught by 'Father Time' - interesting facial expression when he first noticed my 'calculator' (similar to the one he got when I blurted out the [correct] answer to a problem he'd been explaining while I was reading a book and ignoring him - in retrospect, RAH was more educational). We had to take some sort of state math test and I had just gotten my new programable graphing calculator a week or two before (more lost sleep - with a little creativity and a boring class you can get some interesting code on those thingies) but for some reason I decided to bring both calculator (the allowability of which was highly suspect) and sliderule. The proctor saw me and had a major fit -- over the sliderule! Yeap, in the state of California they don't let algebra students use a sliderule to 'cheat' on the assessment test. They do, however, allow you to use a modern graphing calculator with programs and an equation solver (Did I mention the optional IR link?). The same thing goes on with SATs and especially SAT-IIs. Some higher-end calculators, esp. HPs, have plugin cartridges which automate much of the basic work in chemistry, physics, etc. I never saw anyone who used such things even get asked about it. Do we even need social engineering with people this stupid? # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # <cadams(a)acucobol.com> | send mail with subject "send PGPKEY" "That's our advantage at Microsoft; we set the standards and we can change them." --- Karen Hargrove, Microsoft (quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review editorial)

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Re: 'what cypherpunks is about' [RANT]
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:26 PM 11/2/96 -0800, Dale Thorn wrote: >Following similar logic was Teddy Roosevelt, then the mad fire-bombers of World War 2, >capped by the ultimate terrorist fire-bombing of all at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then >by immense fire-bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, etc., followed by prodigious fire- >bombing of Iraq and a deliberate fire-bombing and massacre of retreating troops at the >end of the "Gulf War". Fighting the U.S. can be literal Hell! Terror bombing of civilians was a European not an American invention, though. >Quick, how many times have you heard this pro-interference argument? The pro- people >will even show "proof" that the "savages" (it actually says this in the United States >Declaration of Independence) were as mean to each other as the invaders were to them. >What they fail to say, however, is that the "meanness" in such things as human sacrifice >and so forth were imported to native cultures by "god-like" superiors who descended on >the locals to "help" them to the next level of technology and hero-worship. Fooey! The death rate among civilians in many pre civilized wars was as high as civilian death rates in many of our 20th Century wars. We have the piles of bones to prove it. In addition to peonage, serfdom, chattel slavery and the treatment of women as chattels, pre civilized people were considerably more xenophobic than the worst US redneck. Many had problems accepting the denizens of the next village a few miles away. They tended to be racists as well. And did I forget to mention infanticide and royalism. DCF

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Re: hashcash spam prevention & firewalls
by Antonomasia 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk>: > How about this alternative which achieves the same functionality and > removes the juicy supeona target: > Turn on hashash database for all mails. That means hashcash gets put > in the database to prevent double spending. .... > So now when you reply to a message, on it's way out via the mail hub, > you remove that hashcash token from the double spending database. > This means that the sender can cache sent hashcash tokens, and re-use > them when after he gets a reply. Doesn't this invite the spammer to Bcc an accomplice with the target ISP ? The accomplice replies; thereby freeing the coin for reuse. > I am told by one subscriber to look at TIS firewall toolkits imap > program. You may have meant "smap". -- ############################################################## # Antonomasia ant(a)notatla.demon.co.uk # # See http://www.notatla.demon.co.uk/ # ##############################################################

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The closed Nym list
by Daniel J. Boone 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May wrote: > Declan decided that rebroadcasting articles out of Nym would not be > allowed, but he said nothing about not mentioning its existence. (Nor would > I have agreed to be on a list whose very existence I could not disclose.) > Anyway, tonight when I mentioned its existence as I was posting an article > here that I wrote for the Nym list, I half-expected some comments from > Dimitri. > > But I didn't expect someone to post the subscription instructions > (anonymously, of course). Hint: it wasn't I. > > Anyway, I suppose that by mid-morning tomorrow Declan is going to have to > decide how to deal with subscriptions by Vulis, Human Gus-Peter, Toto, and > all the others. The Nym list appears to be closed. (The web page says so -- so I didn't try.) This state of affairs may even be my fault. The history, for those who care, is appended. It's a shame -- if David Brin really is posting there as one of Tim's recent messages suggested I'd be very interested in seeing his posts. (Thanks, Tim, for reposting yours here.) I still don't think it makes much sense to have a conversation about the use of nyms and then try to protect the posters' words from public view. If posters are concerned about public scrutiny, why not use a nym? Not to mention the fact that one would have to keep the list closed to have a prayer of enforcing the no-repost rule. --Daniel Boone History: Robert Hettinga was briefly forwarding "nym" posts to e$pam, where I saw them. Declan publically requested that posts not be forwarded. I sent Robert a message asking if he was going to comply -- and expressed (to Robert) my lack of respect for a no-forwarding policy. Robert (that notorious cross-pollinizer that he is) forwarded my message to Declan, which was unfortunate -- as Declan no doubt considered my message insulting. (Addressed to Declan, it would have been.) I got a very chilly "response" from Declan about how he had no duty to entertain me with his list traffic. I took the opportunity to ask him how his no-repost rule would fare when someone using a nym started reposting the traffic publicly. He responded with "the list is now closed" or words to that effect. I realized too late he may have thought _I_ was threating to do the evil reposting deed.

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Re: Radio Free Cypherpunks... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 01:28:43 -0500 > From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> > Subject: Re: Radio Free Cypherpunks... > > At 08:13 -0600 12/13/97, Jim Choate wrote: > >With the recent changes in the law regarding Pirate Radio is anyone looking > > What changes? At the Cato Institute holiday party last night, I was > speaking to a lawyer from the Institute for Justice about pirate radio > lawsuits. The changes you mention didn't come up. What are they? Recently a pirate radio was charged by the FCC for operating without a license. The judge in the case heard the arguments and said their was merit in the question of constitutionality of the FCC regulations. The radio was allowed to stay on the air while both sides prepared their cases. Apparently the judge said something about this being the first time such constitutional questions had been raised. There is also at least one piece of cpunks traffic in this about 2 weeks old when the judge made the ruling. I believe there might be something at one of the ARRL sites. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | | | We built your fort. We will not have it used against us. | | | | John Wayne - Allegheny Uprising | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Pitney Bowes Sponsors World's Only Center for AppliedCryptographic Research
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text From: clairew(a)mediaone.net Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 21:09:22 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: rah(a)shipwright.com Subject: Pitney Bowes Sponsors World's Only Center for Applied Cryptographic Research X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Pitney Bowes Sponsors World's Only Center for Applied Cryptographic Research STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 15, 1997-- Messaging Leader Teams With The University of Waterloo, Certicom Corp. and The National Science Education and Research Council of Canada In an age of explosive growth of electronic commerce, effective protection of data storage and communications is vital. Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI), is supporting and funding critical research into protection of electronic commerce at one of the most highly acclaimed academic sources of cryptographic knowledge, the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Pitney Bowes is partnering with Certicom Corp. of Toronto, to found the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research at the University of Waterloo. Both companies are joined by the National Science Education and Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Communication and Information Technology Ontario (CITO) in the creation of two Industrial Research Chairs in Cryptography. Cryptographic research delves into the process of coding data for its protection and secure transfer. Cryptography, in all of its applications including data confidentiality, data integrity, and user authentication, is an extremely powerful tool for protecting information. Increasing research and knowledge of cryptography can ultimately increase the efficiency with which businesses operate and open up new business opportunities. Cryptography is one of the keys to doing business in the 21st century according to Dr. Joseph Wall, chief technology officer of Pitney Bowes Inc. "We are proud to help create this research center and anticipate significant advances in the technology and its understanding. We look forward to combining these advances with our understanding of business applications to deliver solutions which enhance confidentiality, security and integrity in the electronic marketplace. "Pitney Bowes has been researching and using cryptographic applications to help customers securely transmit data and funds since the 1960s. Cryptography will continue to be one of our technological cornerstones as we design solutions which help customers manage efficiently in their information-rich environment." Pitney Bowes is one of the largest users of applied cryptography in the world. For example, cryptographic technology is an important component in the system which Pitney Bowes used to securely download over $10 billion in postage revenues worldwide in 1996. Known commercially as Postage by Phone(R), Pitney Bowes developed and patented the system in the 1960s, received U.S. postal approval to introduce it to the marketplace in 1978, and expanded its usage to a variety of applications in 18 countries. The chair at the University of Waterloo will be established in association with the Natural Sciences Engineering Research Council (NSERC). The NSERC/Pitney Bowes chairholder will be Dr. Scott Vanstone, a faculty member at St. Jerome's College, University of Waterloo and Chief Cryptographer of Certicom Corp. Professor Vanstone will take up the chair on Jan. 1, 1998. He is one of the world's leading cryptographers and is co-author of the 1997 book Handbook of Applied Cryptography. The other chair at the University will be sponsored by Certicom Corp., which researches, develops and licenses advanced cryptographic technologies. The Certicom/NSERC chair will be Dr. Douglas Stinson, author of Cryptography: Theory and Practice. With regard to mathematical cryptography and combinatorics, the University of Waterloo is the leading university in Canada and with the establishment of the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research, will be one of the top research and educational facilities in the world. Along with the core research group of Dr. Vanstone and Dr. Stinson, Dr. Leon Pintsov of Pitney Bowes will be a member of the scientific advisory board of the Centre. Pitney Bowes is a $3.9 billion provider of products and services that support the efficient management of messages and packages in physical and digital form. for more information about the company, visit the company's Web site at: http://www.pitneybowes.com . --30--CB/np* JS/np RG/KDB/ny CONTACT: Pitney Bowes, Stamford Sheryl Y. Battles, 203/351-6808 --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>

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17 Dec '03

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Re: Identity, Persistence, Anonymity, and Accountability--Part I of II (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Subject: Re: Identity, Persistence, Anonymity, and Accountability--Part I of II > Date: Mon, 15 Dec 97 23:47:07 -0500 > From: "Brian B. Riley" <brianbr(a)together.net> > >identification. It is constitutional for the police to ask you what your > >name is, under certain circumstances - and you can face criminal charges if > >you lie. Where in the Constitution is the relevant sentence(s)? There is no mention of police rights in the Constitution and therefor they have no more rights than you do. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | | | We built your fort. We will not have it used against us. | | | | John Wayne - Allegheny Uprising | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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