- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: e$: The Book-Entry/Certificate Distinction
by stevenw＠iglou.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>At 2:30 AM 8/22/95, Timothy C. May wrote: >> (An important point is that >>in a cash economy, identity is almost irrelevant. It's only in non-cash, or >>"account-based," economy that True Names are demanded. Lots of interesting >>issues to discuss here, which I won't now.) [Lots of interesting discussion deleted] >Everyone trusts their transactions because of the difficulty of forging >certificates. That means that once again, a certificate has it's own >inherent worth. It speaks for itself, and when it changes hands, the trade >is, as Eric Hughes says, "immediately and finally" cleared and settled. >The overhead of keeping books is gone, at least for the trading parties, >and especially for the clearing houses, who, like exchanges, just kind of >disappear, along with any way to regulate them. Somewhere, Joe Kennedy, >the first Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Comission, is probably >either crying his eyes out or laughing his head off, depending on your >interpretation of his role in regulatory history. In such a system, where does credit come in? If I have a certificate that is worth X, then does the recipient know that it's from my "credit card"? How do I obtain credit, and in what form does it exist? Furthermore, how do we assess the value of real physical things in a system like this? -- Steven Weller <Windsor Consulting Group> +1 502 454 0054 (voice) OS-9 Consultancy and Software +1 502 451 5935 (fax) Finger for public key 00 02 3C 2F 83 76 D3 77 2A 95 E8 90 94 9A 9D 74 http://iglou.com/windsorgrp stevenw(a)iglou.com or realtime(a)well.sf.ca.us

2 1

Denning questions/reverses her position?
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I'm too old for this! I never thought I would see the day that Dorothy Denning would terminate her star role as a shill for the Clinton/LEA encryption ban! from: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C13000%2C00.html?nd Two supporters of Clinton administration's stance on encryption released a report today finding that encryption has not inhibited law enforcement efforts, with at least one author questioning her belief in the administration's position. The authors--Dorothy Denning, a Georgetown University computer science professor, and William Baugh Jr., vice president of Science Application International Corporation-- ______________________________________________________________________ "attila" 1024/C20B6905/23 D0 FA 7F 6A 8F 60 66 BC AF AE 56 98 C0 D7 B0 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQCVAwUBM+Eh5L04kQrCC2kFAQF9wwP+INGEAnc+1akKc+dP7re8fleX4PJrmsYU UKzxgBZAsWcZC7L5WkaOygckHznOc+a37iHzDFtt3sr86DP0D/4j675qJdt/O4B+ jbxXumJ8EXmTN9bOvXK8x9JRGjR9aWzjeaJKN3X+fH4Bjbw76FR9xIFkhhNvZqnM ahBzZyL2cZ4= =MlQZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

PGPfone Release is coming soon!
by jis＠mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- As you may have seen, the news media has picked up on the upcoming PGPfone release. This note is to let you know that we at MIT are working with Phil Zimmermann and the PGPfone team to distribute PGPfone from MIT. We expect to have a *BETA* test version (Macintosh Only) of PGPfone available shortly. We will distribute PGPfone via anonymous FTP from net-dist.mit.edu. Look in the /pub/PGPfone directory (which doesn't yet exist). We will also be distributing PGP via the World Wide Web from: http://web.mit.edu/network/pgpfone This "Home" page already exists, but doens't have the distribution yet. Feel free to check it periodically, as it will be changed as soon as the distribution is ready. -Jeff -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMDv4lMUtR20Nv5BtAQEyFAP+J3oFHuwKiOu56CtYSvA7WJUGgZg37zRj QPmMfnOD5/9nGUXGsQjs3NTMwV4Y+de4mM3Qxi/O/G0ID1aGod8pPbDkyh6wG594 FVWLu6c1E7pZcge1/Iv9nwBKbHAhOzh368YYMTIsiIlE3hjRB37/iVmIcQsOhleQ 4Qp8aJSEim8= =Mskz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Shared secrets and corporations in Cyberspace.
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

How can collective entities hold keys? Corporations derive their cohesion partly from realspace coercion, and partly by trust based on face to face interactions among the participants, and partly from their brand name. Trusts derive their cohesion primarily from trust, again based on face to face interaction. A cyberspace corporation would derive its cohesion primarily from its name identification and the public key associated with its brand name. Consumers would presumably wish there financial instruments to be signed to the public key of Megacorp life insurance, rather than Megacorp's insurance saleman, for fear that otherwise their funds might go astray, or they might get bad software, etc, and the private key corresponding to that public key will sign the employees paycheques. If a cyberspace corporation does not have a valued brand name it is likely to disintegrate into its components, in the way that some realspace corporations did in the boisterous early days of silicon valley. But this creates a problem of "owning the corporation". If one man knows the corporations secret key, he can pretty much tell the shareholders to go take a hike. If two men know the secret key, it probably will not remain secret much longer. One solution is to use truenames, rather than keys as the "real identity" -- set up financial transaction software so that it considers that any key signed by a proper authority certifying the key to be the key of Megacorp is a valid Megacorp key, that all such keys are equivalent, and that the authority will only issue keys to one entity called Megacorp. Then when folk start fighting over who is the real Megacorp, the authority resolves the dispute by conventional means. Current proposals for transaction software are based on truenames and trees-of-trust. This is not too bad as long as we have a forest, not a single tree, but still, one would like to have some arrangement whereby a large number of people could share a single key, and can buy and sell interests in that key, whereby we can have the mechanisms of shared ownership without the need for an external authority to enforce it. Obviously trusts will work fine in Cyberspace, but trusts are by their nature small and undemocratic. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

1 0

Denning questions/reverses her position?
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I'm too old for this! I never thought I would see the day that Dorothy Denning would terminate her star role as a shill for the Clinton/LEA encryption ban! from: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C13000%2C00.html?nd Two supporters of Clinton administration's stance on encryption released a report today finding that encryption has not inhibited law enforcement efforts, with at least one author questioning her belief in the administration's position. The authors--Dorothy Denning, a Georgetown University computer science professor, and William Baugh Jr., vice president of Science Application International Corporation-- ______________________________________________________________________ "attila" 1024/C20B6905/23 D0 FA 7F 6A 8F 60 66 BC AF AE 56 98 C0 D7 B0 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQCVAwUBM+Eh5L04kQrCC2kFAQF9wwP+INGEAnc+1akKc+dP7re8fleX4PJrmsYU UKzxgBZAsWcZC7L5WkaOygckHznOc+a37iHzDFtt3sr86DP0D/4j675qJdt/O4B+ jbxXumJ8EXmTN9bOvXK8x9JRGjR9aWzjeaJKN3X+fH4Bjbw76FR9xIFkhhNvZqnM ahBzZyL2cZ4= =MlQZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Denning questions/reverses her position?
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I'm too old for this! I never thought I would see the day that Dorothy Denning would terminate her star role as a shill for the Clinton/LEA encryption ban! from: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C13000%2C00.html?nd Two supporters of Clinton administration's stance on encryption released a report today finding that encryption has not inhibited law enforcement efforts, with at least one author questioning her belief in the administration's position. The authors--Dorothy Denning, a Georgetown University computer science professor, and William Baugh Jr., vice president of Science Application International Corporation-- ______________________________________________________________________ "attila" 1024/C20B6905/23 D0 FA 7F 6A 8F 60 66 BC AF AE 56 98 C0 D7 B0 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQCVAwUBM+Eh5L04kQrCC2kFAQF9wwP+INGEAnc+1akKc+dP7re8fleX4PJrmsYU UKzxgBZAsWcZC7L5WkaOygckHznOc+a37iHzDFtt3sr86DP0D/4j675qJdt/O4B+ jbxXumJ8EXmTN9bOvXK8x9JRGjR9aWzjeaJKN3X+fH4Bjbw76FR9xIFkhhNvZqnM ahBzZyL2cZ4= =MlQZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: Random Hiss from Mac mike
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:09 PM 8/23/95 +0100, Andrew Spring wrote: >In the simplest case, where the microphone is not attached, the signal >consists of long runs of '0x80's alternating with '0x7f's. Now, I have no >problem transforming this into uniformly distributed RN's : just hash the >buffer with MD5. If you know that's what the signal looks like, you can improve it a lot by run-length encoding before doing the MD5, e.g. crunch the output down to a series of count1 value1 count2 value2 count3 value3 (if you stick to runs of 255, you can use 1 byte for each.) That gives you a much shorter input to the MD5, and a more realistic view of how much random data you have. (I suppose it may make it harder to do things like Fourier transforms on it...) #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #---

1 0

Dorothy Denning changes Escrow position
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There was an article in today's San Jose Mercury News that Dorothy Denning, the leading academic supporter of the Administration's anti-crypto stance, has backed off from that position. She's put out a paper along with William Baugh of SAIC (!) which among other things includes a survey of law enforcement officers on how much they've encountered crypto and how much difference it's made, and the answer has been that it hasn't made much difference -- of the few criminals who use crypto, some use wimpy algorithms, some are careless with their password handling, some get fingered by stool pigeons, and some mainly use their crypto for information not relevant to the case they're being investigated for. She's now taking a much less certain, more neutral position. Way to go, Dorothy! It's especially important because Dr. Denning was the main independent supporter of encryption limitations, and has a lot of reputation invested in it, so changing her position is a big step. The FBI has a vested interest - without Communists to chase around, Director Freeh is off chasing drug dealers in the name of "national security". And the industrial support for key escrow has primarily been from companies that get to export their products in return for adding it, though there have been a few firms like TIS that have developed it for its own sake. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list or news, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

1 0

Self-imposed censorship
by Damaged Justice 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>There are a great many ironies here, but the greatest >irony is that the censorship will be self-imposed -- >we're doing it for the sake of family, parents, >children. "Arresting Katherine was the government's way of taping our mouths shut. Yet they had to realize that beating heads was the last way to tame minds. Benevolence was always the first choice of rule for our ancient emperors. The goal was to make people obey with their hearts instead of with their mouths." -_Katherine_, by Anchee Min "Ye have locked yerselves up in cages of fear - and behold, do ye now complain that ye lack FREEDOM!" - _Principia Discordia_ It is not enough to fear Big Brother. You must love him. -- "There's no way the federal government could oppress the citizens, because the populace is armed to the teeth, and the officials would just get their heads blown off." - James Madison argues the pro-government position, Federalist Papers #46

1 0

A good war cry is hard to find.
by carolann＠censored.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Brother, can you spare a CPU cycle? Give me your tired, your poor, your spare CPU cycles! I never met a spare CPU cycle I didn't like. Ladies & Gentlemen, start your spare CPU cycles! Love Always, Carol Anne -- Member Internet Society - Certified BETSI Programmer - Webmistress *********************************************************************** Carol Anne Braddock (cab8) carolann(a)censored.org 206.42.112.96 My Homepage The Cyberdoc *********************************************************************** ------------------ PGP.ZIP Part [017/713] ------------------- M8H,),S$8G>&.WP(8IRA`-M['+`Q%&_C"">5-F%LX@<_Q$;*P'',Q$Z/AA[8M MF=O0H+*%(-S%&>S%+FS&<LS%3(Q&#W1"<]2%`H^;,]^1C$'HBN8PX$4SYAU^ MPGD<Q0ZLA0D+,`MCT!LA**4M[-JPAK9F?40!AJ,CW"'%DR#:'9?Q)3[%<DQ` ------------------------------------------------------------- for next chunk to export --> http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/export/

1 0