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Re: ACM/IEEE Letter on Cryp
by Dave Banisar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The draft bill which currently exists only takes the export controls on crpyto. The provisions on key escrow, criminal penalities and other problems are not in there and Burns staff have no intention of letting them in. The actual bill will be introduced in about 2 weeks. -dave -------------------------------------- Date: 4/2/96 2:46 PM To: Dave Banisar From: jim bell At 04:24 PM 4/1/96 -0500, Dave Banisar wrote: > Association For Computing Machinery [address deleted] > Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers [address deleted] >April 2, 1996 [thank heavens it wasn't April 1!] >Honorable Conrad Burns >Chairman, Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space [etc] >Dear Chairman Burns: > > On behalf of the nation's two leading computing and engineering >associations, we are writing to support your efforts, and the efforts of >the other cosponsors of the Encrypted Communications Privacy Act, to >remove unnecessarily restrictive controls on the export of encryption >technology. The Encrypted Communications Privacy Act sets out the >minimum changes that are necessary to the current export controls on >encryption technology. However, we believe that the inclusion of issues >that are tangential to export, such as key escrow and encryption in >domestic criminal activities, is not necessary. The relaxation of >export controls is of great economic importance to industry and users, >and should not become entangled in more controversial matters. As far as it goes, and considering that it's from an industry group, this sounds like an excellent response to this Burns bill proposal. (Not "Bill," because it's still not available, apparently.) This response is probably as close as we can expect to a repudiation of the Leahy bill. It still isn't clear, though, whether the Burns bill is intended to be just an elimination of export controls on encryption, or whether it will contain other provisions. My question, which still hasn't been answered, is: "Does this bill exist yet?" The answer is really not inconsequential, because if it _isn't_ at least sketched out yet, then that either should give us the opportunity to add provisions we want, or alert us that there is still the risk from Denning-types of including provisions we don't want. Either way, action is called for, if only action to keep somebody else from taking action. I don't have any objection to a bill which merely eliminates export requirements on encryption; that would be a substantial step in the proper direction. If that's the best we can do for this session of Congress, I hope we can achieve this as a stepping-stone. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com ------------------ RFC822 Header Follows ------------------ Received: by epic.org with SMTP;2 Apr 1996 14:44:17 -0500 Received: from ip17.van1.pacifier.com by pacifier.com (Smail3.1.29.1 #6) with smtp for <banisar(a)epic.org> id m0u4Bhn-0008xuC; Tue, 2 Apr 96 11:25 PST Message-Id: <m0u4Bhn-0008xuC(a)pacifier.com> X-Sender: jimbell(a)pacifier.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 02 Apr 1996 11:24:08 -0800 To: "Dave Banisar" <banisar(a)epic.org>, "Cypherpunks List" <cypherpunks(a)toad.com> From: jim bell <jimbell(a)pacifier.com> Subject: Re: ACM/IEEE Letter on Crypto _________________________________________________________________________ Subject: RE>>ACM/IEEE Letter on Crypto _________________________________________________________________________ David Banisar (Banisar(a)epic.org) * 202-544-9240 (tel) Electronic Privacy Information Center * 202-547-5482 (fax) 666 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Suite 301 * HTTP://www.epic.org Washington, DC 20003 * ftp/gopher/wais cpsr.org

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Re: What backs up digital money?
by FRank O. Trotter, III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 08:11:21 -0800 > From: Hal <hfinney(a)shell.portal.com> > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: Re: What backs up digital money? > From: "Frank O. Trotter, III" <fotiii(a)crl.com> > > Ecash is a means of transferring value, currently USD at Mark Twain, > > betweeen parties. Ecash, however denominated, is not a currency in > > itself. > > I am curious to know why you say that ecash is not a currency. One of > the main points of my original posting was to challenge this view. > > Do you simply mean that this is a matter of definitions, that ecash isn't > a currency because it lacks some property X that, by definition, a > currency must have (such as, it must be issued by a national government)? ===== I think I tried to cover too many bases at once. Ecash _is_ currency, it is not _a_ currency. This means that outside of the formal definition acording to BSA which says that currency is the stuff we carry around and nothing else, that ecash generated coins function as a currency in that one can make purchases on a peer to peer basis, and appears to have the migration path necessary to exist in an offline world as well. To me this makes it currency. It is not a currency. One sees many articles and posts (not yours) that refer to ecash as though it were not USD or some other store of value. In this case I mean that ecash is the software that moves and stores money like a check, or more precisely like a money order, but is not in itself _a_ currency. > > Or are you saying that there is an important functional difference, that > ecash cannot be used as we normally use currency (that is, the dollar > bills and coins in our pockets) because of reason X? If so I would like > to hear what you think that reason is. The one I have seen mentioned > previously is transferrability, so I discussed this in my original > message. > > > The value unit or currency has value because people agree it has > > value. CyberBucks were (and still are) somewhat convertable to > > tangible goods - they are for sure convertable to intrinsic goods as > > demonstrated by the CyberBucks trial. USD and DEM have value only > > because we all accept them as payment - as fiat currencies there is no > > formal backing. Gold has value because ... > > The whole issue of why dollars have value is one which is poorly > understood, IMO. There are several reasons, which are inter-related. > One of the big ones is that they are legal tender. This term does not > mean what a lot of people think it does, but at least it means that > your dollars carry certain legal weight if you have a debt that you > need to pay off. Another reason dollars are accepted is because you > know you can pay your taxes with them. This is something that most > people have to do, and dollars are something they can do it with. > > Another factor is that there are long term contracts, such as > mortgages, which are denominated in dollars. You can use your dollars > to pay off your debt at the bank, and the bank is contractually bound > to accept them (even apart from legal tender considerations), and grant > you title to tangible property in return. Interestingly, the volume of > outstanding mortgages is of the same order of magnitude as the > circulating money supply. I know someone who claims that this is the > most important factor in giving dollars value. > > And finally, the reason that most people think of, the fact that > everyone around them accepts dollars, and presumably will do so in the > future. I don't actually think this is as strong as the others, since > there is no guarantee that people won't change their minds, and in fact > there have been historical situations where due to hyper inflation > merchants have come to view government money as almost worthless. So > since these people haven't committed to accept the money, this > grounding is not that strong. I think the earlier examples are more > important as an ultimate grounding, although they are not cited as > frequently. Exactly - I agree. Take a look at contracts like loans until Roosevelt closed the gold window in the early thirties. They said things like "you owe $100 or the equivalent of X.xx ounces of gold. With the revaluation of the US currency in terms of gold in the 30s there was a specific potion of the bill that disallowed these terms in contracts since the devaluation could not effectively take place otherwise (ref - Jim Grant). > > > Ecash puts banks back into the business of being banks - acting as a > > storehouse of value, and as a means to transfer this value, all for a > > fee. The early bank models were exclusively along these lines, with > > the various lending and investing functions added later. > > I would expect that an ecash issuing bank would make ecash loans just as > it makes other forms of loans. So I don't see ecash as making this > kind of difference in a bank. Just because a bank issues ecash it's > not going to roll back the clock to the 18th century. No quarrel here - but I think it is easier to build a competing lending institution where the business gives you money and you promise toi give it back, than it is to build confidence in a deposit institution where you give money and hope to get it back. I take my original commnet as a positive. > > One of the big advantages of multiple ecash currencies is that it turns > out that there is automatic control of inflation. A bank which issues > too much currency (relative to its reserves) will find it becoming worth > less because it is trusted less. There is an automatic balancing act. > Sure, this is like free banking in the 1800 - Fed KC traded at a discount to Fed NY or vice versa depending on attitude at the time. > We see the same thing in the international currency markets with > government currencies. In the olden days, when international trade was > less important, a government could inflate without feeling much pain. > But today its currency will lose value, which will hurt its balance of > trade and make it hard to acquire foreign goods. So this puts a brake on > the ability of governments to play games with the money supply. The same > factor would be expected to occur with private currencies. In the old days there was an automatic balance when a government inflated - the metal standard attached. If inflation got out of hand people would show up at the window with bills asking for the gold or silver equivalent - when the government gave out too much metal it had to behave. I would like to note that I am a big supported of private currencies. We have had many discussions on the topic and I have had the academic side covered by folks who wrote papers as far back as the 50s on how to do it. As ecash is accepted in the mainstream by multi-issuing interoperable banks I expect to spend more time on this topic - for now I need to get on with the conventional version. Great ideas! Frank > > Hal > > Frank O. Trotter, III - fotiii(a)crl.com www.marktwain.com - Fax: +1 314 569-4906 --------------------------------------------

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Re: So, what crypto legislation (if any) is necessary?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:25 AM 3/29/96 -0800, Jim Bell wrote: >At 05:49 AM 3/29/96 -0500, Black Unicorn wrote: >>I thought I would take the time to let everyone know that this is >>baseless as well. Most jurisdictions forbid third parties to reveal >>prosecution inquries to the principal for which they are holding >>documents or other information. A VERY few have laws on the books that >>require this disclosure. Switzerland is no longer one of them. > >As usual, Unicorn is FOS. Not entirely in his facts, but in his >conclusions. To "forbit third parties to reveal prosecution inquiries" is >an obvious violation of freedom of speech, and in fact is PRIOR RESTRAINT. >Maybe Unicorn can't see what's wrong with that, but I can. It is unclear >whether this has ever been tested in court, or whether that test occurred >recently. Black Unicorn is absolutely correct that this is generally the law. Jim Bell is absolutely correct that laws like this are offensive and outrageous. Unfortunately, Jim then rants at Unicorn for suggesting that this would be the case; you'd think he'd be the first to realize that there are laws out there that are offensive and outrageous and enforced. >For example, if I ask my ISP to send me an anonymous, encrypted message with >the word, "Rosebud" in it to me if he receives any requests to tap my >connection, he can do so with no fear of being discovered, because no third >party can decrypt the message, know who is is from, or know the real meaning >of the word, "Rosebud" in the context of an encrypted, anonymized message. >Further, since the whole thing is by pre-arrangement, even I cannot prove >(to the satisfaction of a third party) that the message really meant what I >would interpret it to mean. The message is useful to me, as a warning, but >it could never turn around and "bite" the ISP. Now that's an interesting wrinkle to the problem. I suspect that, as you suggest, there will be ISPs, especially in non-US jurisdictions, that are willing to send out "Rosebud" messages to anonymous remailers, or to fail to send "Remarque" messages, or to debit anonymous accounts for data retrieval services rendered while also supporting billing-status checking by anonymous remailers. From a crypto-anarchist dogmatic perspective, it'll definitely happen, though there may be a rough transition until there's enough critical mass to make it undetectable (and note that "undetectable" is a tougher standard than "untraceable"...) # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 fax-2527 # # Spam. It's what's for dinner.

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e$ Signorage
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:50 PM 4/3/96, Hal wrote: > Or do you mean that people who receive > ecash will not want to deposit in their bank accounts, but just turn > around and spend it? Yes. Or maybe even invest it there. I was just finished a little 800 word blurb for Wired's Idees Fortes section on, (guess what?) "Geodesic Capital", which talked about just such a scenario. I believe money which is never redeemed back at the bank is called signorage in the currency biz. Whatever signorage *actually* is, Kawika Daquio of the ABA (B for "Banking"), the Fed makes $20 billion a year on it. Not much against a trillion dollar federal budget, but, hey, every little bit helps... Stuff that doesn't get returned also useful for other stuff, like the reputation of the currency. When was the last time someone went in and cashed in their dollars for gold, or silver, at the Fed? It's legally impossible now, but the French did it until Nixon stopped it by floating the dollar, in the early seventies, if you remember, and it used to be done by normal people all the time. Pierpont Morgan had to bail out Presedent Garfield?, Cleveland? with a European treasury bond flotation because there was a run on the treasury at the turn of the century. > I will point out that with regular currency, most merchants who receive > it just deposit it at the bank, save for a bit passed out as change. Unless, of course, they're in Russia (remember the money plane?), and other places. That's where that $20MMM comes from, I think, but I'm not sure. > Supermarkets don't actually take the cash their customers give them and > hand it to their suppliers. They deposit it and pay with checks. So > the "life cycle" of a $20 bill is pretty much from the bank, to the > customer, to the merchant, and back to the bank, only to repeat the > cycle. Maybe I'm talking about net balances on the net. e$ in circulation overall. I'm really starting to stretch here, you can tell. My guess is in the old days before book-entry stuff like credit cards, and even pervasive checking accounts, cash had to be more physically robust, because it probably stayed out longer. Remember those old double-eagles? Gold is certainly durable. More probably people just exchanged worn-out bills for cleaner ones, but that meant that the money stayed in cash. > Ecash, it seems to me, is already able to circulate to this > extent, although of course it is not yet widely used. Indeed. On both counts. :-). If my WAG about digital cash certificates eventually replacing demand deposits comes about (my claim is that they'll eventually be cheaper, and maybe more secure someday), then money would tend to stay on the net. That's when I figure we'll have actual e$-currency. On the other hand, one of the best deterrents against someone cracking or stealing the bank's key is to "expire" your currency issues, so there might be some "rolling over" of the the money on the net, expecially if it's anonymous. Just like they traded in worn-out bills in the old days. Hmmm. As usual, I seem to be loosing my wiggle room here. Welcome to quibble-punks. ;-). (Me! Not you, Hal!) Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell The e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/

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Re: National id already here?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:35 PM 4/3/96 -0800, Yap Remailer <remailer(a)yap.pactitle.com> wrote: >http://www.aamva.net/AAMVAnet_New_Systems.html says: > Coman said [police] officers can use "CDLISCheck" to access commercial > driver license status, history and AKA information. She noted that > the new service was developed in response to a Congressional mandate > that requires access to commercial carrier and driver information by > at least 100 roadside sites by 1996 and at least 200 locations by 1997. > >There's a congressional mandate for nationwide online id??? There are a lot more regulations on interstate truckers than on most people; it's somewhat within the Constitutional guidelines.

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unsubscrive * Peter.Posch@koeln.netsurf.de
by Peter N. Posch 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

unsubscrive * Peter.Posch(a)koeln.netsurf.de

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pgp keys
by jpps＠voicenet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Is there a reliable method for obtaining the pgp public key for an arbitrary email address? elm-2.4pl24pgp3 does a logical join on my local alias and keyring files; what I'm looking for is a way for my mua/mta to obtain keys I do not have. I've caught some of the discussion on key servers, and noted some people's use of their signature, plan, or home page to distribute their keys. Are some combination of these suitable today? Is there a parseable convention in use for extracting keys from mail/finger/html? Is there a "get_keyd" floating about? My goal is to make encryption the default behavior on outgoing mail. I am not concerned about local security. Thanks in advance. jps -- Jack P. Starrantino jpps(a)voicenet.com http://www.voicenet.com/~jpps

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Fascinating troll with forged newgroups
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Looks like the Nazis forged newgroup messages for rec.fag-bashing, rec.org.kkk, and 100 RFD'd groups in order to get their little messages across. How entertaining. What a marvelous new form of net.vandalism they've discovered. Or is this not new? The clearly forged Date: header and the cover newsgroups are pretty transparent, if you ask me. -rich

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Re: Digest Version???????
by in5y113＠public.uni-hamburg.de 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Stewart writes: > www.hks.net and nntp.hks.net let you read the Cypherpunks and Coderpunks > mailing lists with the Web and Newsreader programs (except when they're > down for repairs.) The Web version is typically half a month behind > because it gets summarized and hypertextified monthly, though I suspect > the articles are there and it's just the index that's old. There is another hypermail archive at http://infinity.nus.sg/cypherpunks/ and an unmoderated digest from majordomo(a)abc.gateway.com (subscribe cypherpunks-d). -- "In some ways the online environment in 1996 feels like Hong Kong in the last days of British rule: a very free community wondering what's going to happen as the forces of law and order start moving in." -- Charles Platt Ulf Möller * E-Mail: <um(a)c2.org> * WWW: http://www.c2.org/~um/

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New essay
by Michael Froomkin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Not that it will say much you haven't heard before, but I have an essay on "The Internet as a Source of Regulatory Arbitrage" available at http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/arbitr.htm It's an attempt to be less "legal". Only 93 footnotes! [The above may have been dictated with Dragon Dictate/Win 2.0 voice recognition. Be alert for unintentional strange word substitutions.] A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | U. Miami School of Law | froomkin(a)law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warm here.

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