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DESCHALL Press Release (fwd)
by Jeff Simmons 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: >From owner-deschall-announce(a)gatekeeper.megasoft.com Wed Jun 18 13:43:46 1997 Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:09:11 -0600 From: Rocke Verser <rcv(a)dopey.verser.frii.com> Message-Id: <199706182009.OAA06697(a)dopey.verser.frii.com> To: deschall(a)gatekeeper.megasoft.com Subject: DESCHALL Press Release Sender: owner-deschall(a)gatekeeper.megasoft.com Precedence: bulk INTERNET-LINKED COMPUTERS CHALLENGE DATA ENCRYPTION STANDARD LOVELAND, COLORADO (June 18, 1997). Tens of thousands of computers, all across the U.S. and Canada, linked together via the Internet in an unprecedented cooperative supercomputing effort to decrypt a message encoded with the government-endorsed Data Encryption Standard (DES). Responding to a challenge, including a prize of $10,000, offered by RSA Data Security, Inc, the DESCHALL effort successfully decoded RSADSI's secret message. According to Rocke Verser, a contract programmer and consultant who developed the specialized software in his spare time, "Tens of thousands of computers worked cooperatively on the challenge in what is believed to be one of the largest supercomputing efforts ever undertaken outside of government." Using a technique called "brute-force", computers participating in the challenge simply began trying every possible decryption key. There are over 72 quadrillion keys (72,057,594,037,927,936). At the time the winning key was reported to RSADSI, the DESCHALL effort had searched almost 25% of the total. At its peak over the recent weekend, the DESCHALL effort was testing 7 billion keys per second. Verser considers this project to be remarkable in two ways: One. This is the first time anyone has publicly shown that they can read a message encrypted with DES. And this was done with "spare" CPU time, mostly from ordinary PCs, by thousands of users who have never even met each other. U.S. government and industry will have to take a hard look at their cryptographic policies. "DES can no longer be considered secure against a determined adversary", Verser said. Two. This project demonstrates the kind of supercomputing power that can be harnessed on the Internet using nothing but "spare" CPU time. "Imagine what might be possible using millions of computers connected to the Internet!" Aside from cryptography and other obvious mathematical uses, supercomputers are used in many fields of science. "Perhaps a cure for cancer is lurking on the Internet?", said Verser, "Or perhaps the Internet will become Everyman's supercomputer." Under current U.S. government export regulations, and underscoring a problem faced by the U.S. software industry, the program that searched the keys could not be exported, except to Canada. A competitive effort, based in Sweden, sprang up well after the DESCHALL effort began. Able to "market" their keysearch software around the world, the Swedish effort caught up quickly, and had searched nearly 10 quadrillion keys by the end of the contest. ------------------------------------ Verser agrees with the sentiment voiced in RSADSI's secret message: "Strong cryptography makes the world a safer place." Use of strong cryptography, both domestically and internationally, is essential in today's electronic world. "But not at the expense of a citizen's right to privacy." Verser adds, "Recent proposals for 'key-recovery' and for criminalization of the use of cryptography have no place in a free society." Information about the DESCHALL effort is available from the official DESCHALL Web site at: <http://www.frii.com/~rcv/deschall.htm> MEDIA CONTACTS: Matt Curtin, (908) 431-5300 x 295, <cmcurtin(a)research.megasoft.com> ALTERNATE: Rocke Verser, (970) 663-5629, <rcv(a)dopey.verser.frii.com> ALTERNATE: Justin Dolske, (614) 459-5194, <dolske.1(a)osu.edu> - 30 - INTERNET LINKED COMPUTERS CHALLENGE DATA ENCRYPTION STANDARD Background / Sidebar, for Release dated June 18, 1997 The Data Encryption Standard, DES, is a national standard, adopted in 1977. Use of DES is mandatory in most Federal agencies, except the military. DES is very widely used in the private sector, as well. Interbank wire transfers, Visa transactions, your medical and financial records, and your employer's financial data are some of the many things secured against prying eyes or against modification by DES. When the Data Encryption Standard was adopted in 1977, there was some question as to whether or not the Standard was adequate to protect confidential data. Matt Curtin, Chief Scientist for Megasoft, Inc. says, "This is proving by example, not by mathematical calculation, that DES can be broken with little or no cost." Curtin added, "Others could just as easily be attempting to gain access to multibillion dollar wire transfers." MEDIA CONTACTS: Matt Curtin, (908) 431-5300 x 295, <cmcurtin(a)research.megasoft.com> ALTERNATE: Rocke Verser, (970) 663-5629, <rcv(a)dopey.verser.frii.com> ALTERNATE: Justin Dolske, (614) 459-5194, <dolske.1(a)osu.edu> - 30 - INTERNET LINKED COMPUTERS CHALLENGE DATA ENCRYPTION STANDARD Background for Release dated June 18, 1997 DESCHALL DATA SHEET DESCHALL Web site: <http://www.frii.com/~rcv/deschall.htm> Principal Organizer: Rocke Verser, self-employed contract programmer, Loveland, Colorado Team Leaders - Did "everything" Rocke didn't have time to do Matt Curtin, Chief Scientist, Megasoft Online Justin Dolske, Graduate Fellow / Research Associate, Ohio State Universtiy Team Contributors: Guy Albertelli, several "ports" Kelly Campbell, original Mac port Darrell Kindred, blazing fast bitslice clients Andrew Meggs, blazing fast Mac client Karl Runge, statistics and rankings Team Members: Dozens of people who contributed "shareware". Thousands of ordinary folks, who contributed "spare" CPU cycles. Project statistics: Start of contest: January 29, 1997 Announcement of DESCHALL project: February 18, 1997 End of contest: June 17, 1997 Size of keyspace: 72,057,594,037,927,936 Keys searched: 17,731,502,968,143,872 Peak keys/day: 601,296,394,518,528 Peak keys/second: 7,000,000,000 (approx) Peak clients/day: 14,000 (approx, based on IP address) Total clients, since start: 78,000 (approx, based on IP address) The computer that found the key: CPU: Pentium 90 RAM: 16 megabytes Operating System: FreeBSD 2.2.1 Speed (keys/second): 250,000 (approx) Client: FreeBSD v0.214, built March 12, 1997 Owner: iNetZ Corporation, Salt Lake City, Utah Operator: Michael K. Sanders MEDIA CONTACTS: Matt Curtin, (908) 431-5300 x 295, <cmcurtin(a)research.megasoft.com> ALTERNATE: Rocke Verser, (970) 663-5629, <rcv(a)dopey.verser.frii.com> ALTERNATE: Justin Dolske, (614) 459-5194, <dolske.1(a)osu.edu> -- Jeff Simmons jsimmons(a)goblin.punk.net Hey, man, got any spare CPU cycles? Help crack DES. http://www.frii.com/~rcv/deschall.htm

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Re: Award from Computer Press Ass'n (shameless self-congratulation)
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Congrats Declan, and Brock. The best blow-by was that "colorfully written and packed with details." Too bad, that ass-kiss o'death "high-profile follow-up with mainstream media."

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List of reliable remailers
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I operate a remailer pinging service which collects detailed information about remailer features and reliability. To use it, just finger remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu There is also a Web version of the same information, plus lots of interesting links to remailer-related resources, at: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html This information is used by premail, a remailer chaining and PGP encrypting client for outgoing mail. For more information, see: http://www.c2.org/~raph/premail.html For the PGP public keys of the remailers, finger pgpkeys(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu This is the current info: REMAILER LIST This is an automatically generated listing of remailers. The first part of the listing shows the remailers along with configuration options and special features for each of the remailers. The second part shows the 12-day history, and average latency and uptime for each remailer. You can also get this list by fingering remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu. $remailer{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"mix"} = "<mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord ?"; $remailer{"replay"} = "<remailer(a)replay.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek"; $remailer{"jam"} = "<remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek"; $remailer{"winsock"} = "<winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub reord ?"; $remailer{'nym'} = '<config(a)nym.alias.net> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{"cracker"} = "<remailer(a)anon.efga.org> cpunk mix remix pgp hash esub latent cut ek reord"; $remailer{'redneck'} = '<config(a)anon.efga.org> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"bureau42"} = "<remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"neva"} = "<remailer(a)neva.org> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub ?"; $remailer{"lcs"} = "<mix(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu> mix"; $remailer{"medusa"} = "<medusa(a)weasel.owl.de> mix middle" $remailer{"McCain"} = "<mccain(a)notatla.demon.co.uk> mix middle"; $remailer{"valdeez"} = "<valdeez(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"arrid"} = "<arrid(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"hera"} = "<goddesshera(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"htuttle"} = "<h_tuttle(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp hash latent cut post ek"; catalyst(a)netcom.com is _not_ a remailer. lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu is _not_ a remailer. usura(a)replay.com is _not_ a remailer. remailer(a)crynwr.com is _not_ a remailer. There is no remailer at relay.com. Groups of remailers sharing a machine or operator: (cyber mix reno winsock) (weasel squirrel medusa) (cracker redneck) (nym lcs) (valdeez arrid hera) The remailer list here has been out of date for some time, but should be up to date now. I'm still working on updating the web page. Last update: Mon 4 Aug 97 6:47:45 PDT remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- redneck config(a)anon.efga.org *##-+##**#** 4:41 99.98% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de -++-+------ 2:40:53 99.96% cracker remailer(a)anon.efga.org +++-++++++** 21:28 99.96% weasel config(a)weasel.owl.de +++-+-+-+-- 1:48:16 99.95% cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net **-++*****+* 11:47 99.88% nym config(a)nym.alias.net *-+###*####+ 20:38 99.88% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net ------------ 5:48:23 99.83% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com -*-++***+*+* 46:32 99.80% arrid arrid(a)juno.com *++++-+- + 1:06:16 98.51% replay remailer(a)replay.com * ** ***- 15:25 97.91% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net +*+ + +++- 55:18 93.85% neva remailer(a)neva.org + +*-- ++* 2:52:22 92.55% jam remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca +*-- +** 2:25:28 88.85% hera goddesshera(a)juno.com -------- - 3:36:00 83.26% valdeez valdeez(a)juno.com --- 4:14:27 14.58% History key * # response in less than 5 minutes. * * response in less than 1 hour. * + response in less than 4 hours. * - response in less than 24 hours. * . response in more than 1 day. * _ response came back too late (more than 2 days). cpunk A major class of remailers. Supports Request-Remailing-To: field. eric A variant of the cpunk style. Uses Anon-Send-To: instead. penet The third class of remailers (at least for right now). Uses X-Anon-To: in the header. pgp Remailer supports encryption with PGP. A period after the keyword means that the short name, rather than the full email address, should be used as the encryption key ID. hash Supports ## pasting, so anything can be put into the headers of outgoing messages. ksub Remailer always kills subject header, even in non-pgp mode. nsub Remailer always preserves subject header, even in pgp mode. latent Supports Matt Ghio's Latent-Time: option. cut Supports Matt Ghio's Cutmarks: option. post Post to Usenet using Post-To: or Anon-Post-To: header. ek Encrypt responses in reply blocks using Encrypt-Key: header. special Accepts only pgp encrypted messages. mix Can accept messages in Mixmaster format. reord Attempts to foil traffic analysis by reordering messages. Note: I'm relying on the word of the remailer operator here, and haven't verified the reord info myself. mon Remailer has been known to monitor contents of private email. filter Remailer has been known to filter messages based on content. If not listed in conjunction with mon, then only messages destined for public forums are subject to filtering. Raph Levien

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Third Eternity Server Operational
by Mike Duvos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There is a third eternity server at http://moloko.insync.net/eternity Enjoy! -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ enoch(a)zipcon.com $ via Finger $ {Free Cypherpunk Political Prisoner Jim Bell}

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"The Big Sellout," on self-labeling, from Time
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Netly is running Josh Quittner's column in this week's Time Magazine as our story today. It's about the perils of self-labeling systems for the Net, especially for news organizations. Stop by and check it out. Also, on p48-49 of this week's magazine is a look at censorware programs and public libraries. It's called "Censor's Sensibility: Are Web filters valuable watchdogs or just new online thought police?" Bruce van Voorst and I worked on the story from the Washington bureau. (It's not on pathfinder.com yet, so you'll have to pick up a physical copy.) Also, stop by our Netpolitics chat area where we're discussing self-labeling and censorware: http://cgi.pathfinder.com:80/cgi-bin/boards/read/206/9 -Declan --- http://pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1247,00.html The Netly News Network (http://netlynews.com/) August 4, 1997 The Big Sellout by Joshua Quittner (quittner(a)pathfinder.com) The greatest threat to free speech these days is coming from the most unlikely quarter: journalists. It's happening - where else? - on the Net. A self-appointed council of "industry representatives," including people from the Wall Street Journal, the Newspaper Association of America, CNET, Wired and - no surprise! - Microsoft, is debating whether the online world might be a safer, happier place if a subcommittee of the council decides what's news and what's not. Anything deemed "not news" would be forced to submit to a rating system or risk being blocked by software browsers. And being blocked on the Web could mean extinction for small, independent-minded online publishers - the very folks who have benefited most from the Internet revolution. The whole thing reeks of the powerful beating up on the weak. The roots of the betrayal go back to June 1996, when the notion of rating Web content first took off. That was when Microsoft forced its myriad web sites to adopt a system that analyzes content according to the degree to which it contains sex, nudity, violence or obscene language. The official reason for this was to make the Net a "safe place" without government censorship - which made sense, I guess, given that the Supreme Court had not yet ruled the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional. It also made good business sense for Microsoft to adopt an idea that adds value to one of its key products, the Internet Explorer. Explorer is the second-most popular browser on the Web; a software component that gives parents the option to filter out the naughty bits is a big selling point. But what's good business for the software industry is nonsense for journalism - as the folks who run Microsoft's news web site quickly realized. [...] ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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http:--www.cnn.com-TECH-9708-04-internet.spam.reut-
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CNN logo Navigation Infoseek/Big Yellow Pathfinder/Warner Bros Tech banner IBM Reinventing Education rule SPAMMING LEADS TO UUNET 'DEATH PENALTY' Spam graphic August 4, 1997 Web posted at: 9:34 p.m. EDT (0134 GMT) SAN FRANCISCO (Reuter) -- A loose coalition of system administrators Friday began issuing a "Usenet Death Penalty" against UUNET, a major Internet service provider, for its alleged failure to curb "spam" emanating from its dialup accounts. The penalty took effect 5 p.m. (PDT) Friday, and according to a release from the coalition, "all traffic coming from these sources is to be canceled until further notice." The penalty entails the use of a program called a cancelbot that travels from site to site, looking for newsgroup messages that originate from a particular person or ISP. When it finds one of the messages, it issues a cancel order, which effectively erases the message. Spamming is the bulk delivery of unwanted electronic messages via e-mail or newsgroups. The action marks the first time a large-scale ISP has been the target of a cancelbot. The penalty's purpose, said Dennis McClain-Furmansky, is to "mobilize the user base and get them to insist on their ISP to give them a clean feed. Right now they are paying $20 a month for trash." McClain-Furmansky, speaking on behalf of the Usenet death penalty issuers, explains that, unlike other ISPs such as EarthLink and Bell Atlantic, UUNET has done little or nothing to curb spammers using its service. "The few responses they've made to our complaints have been excuses," he said. After Bell Atlantic was informed by site administrators several weeks ago that it had been targeted for the Usenet death penalty, the service took immediate action to halt spam, McClain-Furmansky said. "We told them what was being planned, and they are making a clear effort." McClain-Furmansky said that the action was drastic, but it was a last resort to close off a flood of spam that was "knocking servers offline." On Friday, one of the administrators involved said his system processed 1 million messages for the first time ever. Forty percent of that was spam, 40 percent cancel messages, 20 percent legitimate traffic." About half the cancel messages issued are for spam originating from UUNET dialups, said McClain-Furmansky. "In my opinion, this is by far the worst censorship action the Net has seen to date," said Dave Hayes, who represents a group called the Freedom Knights, dedicated to "true free speech" on Usenet. Hayes said those pushing the death decree should be "summarily condemned by all those who are in support of free speech, which unfortunately includes unsolicited advertising." Brian Moore, a system administrator in Britain who oversees the Usenet feed for his site, said he is not surprised that the action was taken against UUNET. "Amongst the 50-some complaints I have sent them in the past week, I have received nothing but form letters back. The spamming customers continue spamming and there is no indication UUNET has acted in any way at all." Moore said he has canceled hundreds of porn spams appearing in alt.sexual.abuse.recovery. "Quite frankly, UUNET is irresponsible in their inability to control their own customers," he said. UUNET declined comment Friday. Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. rule Related sites: Note: Pages will open in a new browser window * UUNET Global Homepage * The Anti-Spam Project * Internet Spam Haiku Contest * Internet Spam Control Center External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive. Search for related CNN stories: ________________________________________ ______ [Help] Tip: You can restrict your search to the title of a document. Infoseek grfk Example: title:New Year's Resolutions rule Watch these shows on CNN for more sci-tech stories: CNN Computer Connection | Future Watch | Science & Technology Week rule Message Boards Sound off on our message boards Tell us what you think! You said it... [INLINE] IBM Reinventing Education rule To the top © 1997 Cable News Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you.

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Not-News Gorilla NutWork Rocket-Launched
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Not-News NetWork-- Mohave Desert] Aug 4/97 WHAT DOES A FIVE HUNDRED POUND GORILLA READ AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE? ------------------------------------------------------------------- - sog The "Not-News Gorilla NutWork" was rocket-launched in the Mohave Desert early yesterday morning by a rag-tag bunch of paramilitarist computer gurus who unveiled an InterNet Bill of Bytes that included the words, "MicroSoft shall make no laws..." Angered by a self-appointed council of computer industry magnates who have announced their intention to seize fascist control of the quickly burdgeoning Information Highway by controlling the definition of all information, the rebels set up a shooting range which contained a wide variety of targets ranging from copies of the Wall Street Journal to life-sized cardboard cut-outs of a hooded figure referred to only as, "a billionaire to be named later." A Che Guerva look-alike named Lefty (a nickname changed from "Lucky" after a laboratory accident took three of the fingers on his right hand) spoke openly about the group's loose-knit plans to impose their own ratings system on corporations who have "taken it upon themselves to decide what is news and what is not--what is information and what is obscenity." "We have decided on two classes of ratings." explained a tassle- haired young woman as she slid shells into a Winchester Defender sitting on her lap. "On..." she said, lifting the shotgun with one hand, then liberating the hooded head from a nearby cardboard cut-out, before turning back to say, with a Cheshire grin, "...and _off_." The wide array of luxury automobiles and high-end computer gear on display at the gathering lent credence to the claim of a quiet older man whose only comment during my presence was, "The people here probably have a combined access to more soft targets than the NSA." He turned to punctuate his statement, as many others did that day, with a volley of fire that penetrated targets carrying the corporate logos of a variety of big-name players in the computer industry. Surprisingly, the conversation consisted almost totally of issues surrounding privacy, self-determination and freedom from censorship, with hardly a word being spoken about potential plans of action of individuals or the group. As the quiet man's equally quiet wife spoke in what seemed to be a deathly whisper, telling me, "Everyone here knows what they have to do.", a man with a crude, homemade rocket-launcher sent a flaming projectile into the side of a small propane tank several hundred feet away, as if punctuating the last and most meaningful statement of the day. After quietly dispersing a few minutes later, the group packed up their weapons and climbed into their vehicles without a word between them, each seemingly going their own separate ways. I stayed on after the last of the others had left, reflecting on the fact that I had arrived at this gathering by virtue of a late-night phone call to my unlisted number, and found that I knew none of the participants in the activities. I had the strangest feeling that the others there had arrived by the same anonymous process as I had, and I wondered if they were equally mystified as to who had arranged this impromptu assembly of apparent strangers joined in a common cause. Immediately, one of the pickup trucks driving away backfired, and I thought of synchronicity, knowing that the truck would backfire once again, which it immediately did, before disappearing quietly out of sight. Climbing into my own vehicle, I took a last look at the site, which had been cleaned and left exactly the way it was when I had first arrived on the scene. I experienced a moment of deja-vue, as if I had just arrived and none of what I had experienced that day had truly transpired. Somewhere in the distance, a vehicle backfired... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Disclaimer - I am not a reporter, I am not a paramilitarist, and I am not a computer expert. I have no idea what I was doing there and I am not even certain that I should be speaking about the event...but I am. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Hi
by Sumanth 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi there, Is there anyway a mail from mix(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu can be tracked? If so how..? Awaiting a reply sumanth

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Re: corvette.bxa.doc.gov followup
by csvcjld＠nomvs.lsumc.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

192.239.70.124 hit my ftp site on 4/13/98, the day after I announced a program to crack simple substitution ciphers on this list. When I announced the program, I accidently gave it an .exe extension (when it actually had a .zip extension). 192.239.70.124 tried to get the .exe extension and then gave up. Is it possible that 192.239.70.124 is driven by http://infinity.nus.sg/cypherpunks? I've since purchased a $10 article from the ACM and extended my program to implement G.W.Hart's algorithm; the result is archived as ftp://colbleep.ocs.lsumc.edu/pub/crypto/simplsub/win95/gwhart.zip. C source code is included; it should compile under Unix as well as Windows 95/NT.

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Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 08 Nov 1998 00:18:26 -0500 > From: Michael Hohensee <mah248(a)nyu.edu> > Subject: Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd) > You missed my point. What I'm trying to point out is that no government > (or any other body, for that matter) can prevent someone from doing > something. Of that we agree. Which is why I will continue to believe the issues we deal with are not government problems but people problems. > All the state can do (and does, if you look closely) is > offer to punish anyone who disobeys it. It doesn't matter whether that > state is protecting individual rights or not --it can only punish, not > prevent. Well to be even more exact, they offer a guarantee of retribution if they can catch or prove somebody broke a law. Of course we could posit a government that pairs everyone up in groups of two (a perpetual no-lone zone), the ultimate police state. > I'm explaining why it is impossible for the state to protect individual > rights. I suspect we're playing word games here with 'protect'. I am not refering to what my neighbor does to me when he gets pissed off that my stereo is too loud. That obviously the government (local, state, or federal) can do nothing about a priori. Where the governemnt (at all levels) *CAN* in fact protect individual rights is the way they create the laws they enforce on all citizens (eg tax laws or dope-smoking laws). Those most certainly can be crafted to prevent abuse of civil liberties. Our own Constitution is a perfect example. The problem is the *people* who we elect believe they are above it and instead of asking "Do the laws we pass conform to the letter and intent of the Constitution?" instead state "It's a flexible document that is hard to interpet because of wording and changes in society". They want an out to not have to play by the rules. Nothing more and nothing less. > I offer two mechanisms by which the state *could* _protect_ > individual rights, and then point out why they are impossible. It is > something of a strawman argument, but if you disagree, I'm willing to > tear down any mechanism you might propose. :) See above. It isn't the rules that matter, it's the respect the arbiters of the rules have *for* the rules that matter. With that clearly in mind *any* mechanism is doomed to fail from the beginning. > > > All any state can do is threaten to "retaliate" against (why not just > > > say "attack") people who disobey its edicts. In order for this threat > > > to be credible, the state must wield sufficient power to kill any > > > individual (or group of individuals) who would stand against it. If it > > > does not have this power, it cannot govern. > > > > This is a quaint and completely artificial distinction. > > Is it really? Then could you please explain to me exactly why I would > have to pay taxes (or otherwise make submission) to a state which did > *not* have the power to kill me? So you wouldn't have to stand there and watch your house burn to the slab. So you would have help finding the perpetrator who raped your daughter last night. So when you drive down the street it isn't a whole filled muddy tract through a economicaly impoverished wasteland. So when you write a check you know there is something behind it that is trustworthy. So when you have that wrech late some rainy night there is an ambulance and a hospital to take you to. As to your (and others) particular focus on taxes, all it would take to resolve that issue is a single law: No citizen may have their home, personal property, or their liberty infringed or removed because of tardy taxes. Of course I'd add a section in there that would direct the tax accessor of the appropriate local to send a note to all relevant services to refuse to provide services to you. I'd even them impound vehicles that were operated on public streets without the appropriate licenses. Don't want to let your house burn down, fine. Let the fucker burn to the slab. Your daughter gets raped, fine. You figure out who did it on your own. Don't want to pay vehicle and related taxes, fine don't drive your vehicle on public streets. Just face it. It isn't the threat of violence that pisses you off. It's that you have social responsibilities to those around you. Taxes represent a responsibility that you don't want and to hell with the consequences. > this in a physical sense, not a legal one-- then what is to stop me or > anyone else from telling it to fuck off? Such a state cannot govern > those who do not wish to be governed, and so would not be a government. No state can govern those who don't wish to be governed, violence or no. [I've deleted a great gob of this since it's the same just rehashed in different sentences.] And to answer a specific question, I'm familiar with Dawkins work. > When two bears approach the same berry bush, they do not immediately > start fighting over it. What time of year is it? If we're talking in the spring when they're just out of hibernation they will begin to attack immediately. If it is two males in rut in the fall they will attack immediately. If you examine the way Alaskan Browns share the Salmon runs in the spring you will find ample evidence why Dawkins example isn't worth the paper it's writ on. > Instead, they each stick to one side of the > bush, and do not disturb one another. Malarcky. I'm familiar with the way bears and other mammals work and this is gibberish. Unless the bears are related one of them will be finding another bush pronto. > pretty good at attacking things. It would be pretty easy for a > exceptional bear to break this rule, and become dominant over the other > bears, if what you say is true. Except your forgetting the nature of bears. Except in heat bears are solitary animals. They don't like groups and avoid them. They defend their territory to whatever level of force is required. In most cases (Alaskan Brown are a well studied example you can find tons of literature on) they will not even approach each other closer than several hundred feet. So the question of them sharing a berry bush is a contrived example that is irrelevant and doesn't occur in nature outside of family groups that are transient and only last 1-2 years depending on the type of bear and the food supply. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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