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Ruritania Discovers Motor Transport
by Antonomasia 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ruritania Discovers Motor Transport ----------------------------------- Once upon a time in the land of Ruritania (known for its transparent trees, but that's not today's story) the population were discovering motor transport. All kinds of good things became possible then, including faster and safer deliveries, new kinds of business carried out over distances (and with that opportunies for foreign trade) there was a lot of interest in the subject from far-sighted people. But the government of Ruritania concentrated on the problems they imagined plaguing the acceptance of this technology. (The government was a democratic one, that is to say a loosely-related band of popularity-seekers.) There were cries of how the added speed and load capacity of these newfangled cars would assist crime. A few wise men pointed out that though cars probably would be used in some crimes, the advantages were still clear. For one thing criminals might still be in the minority, while the people standing to gain would be practically everybody. Also the cars would prevent much crime. For example, people would be harder to attack than when walking home from the the supermarket carrying 6 heavy bags of food. They'd load up with other people nearby and be home sooner and more safely. The government agreed there were advantages, and certainly didn't wish to appear backward or oppressive, by prohibiting mere members of the public from driving. So a plan was made to permit driving, but with restrictions to suit the government's wishes. There was to be a police officer in every petrol station to record who went where, when and what they were doing. Only that didn't suit the public spending figures (nor probably the chief constables) so instead distribution of petrol was banned. Except, of course, for the petrol vendors who enrolled in the new branch of the Police force - the Traffic Tracking Police (or TTP). Members of this force had a bunch of qualifications; mainly to do with ensuring that they could be counted on to report on any traffic they'd observed - within an hour - to the great guardians of the common good. Surely nobody could fail to trust the government or any related body ? Weren't these the very people who had defended our health at the risk of their own reputations by stating that beef was certainly safe before any of the research was in ? [1] Or guided us to a right decision in a promised referendum (on our association with nearby countries) by not holding it. This petrol distribution network announced by the government (though not strictly a government body) was trumpeted as progress and encouragement, bringing the benefits of the technology to the public, business, and anywhere else benefits belong in a democracy. Sceptics viewed it as a costly restriction. People disinclined to join the TTP, or indeed who failed the in the recruitment process, were prohibited from supplying petrol (even free of charge). Criminals, so it was said, would be tracked as they bought petrol because they would not be able to run a black market in the petrol they needed for their crimes. This looked decidedly doubtful. The use of the petrol was also ignored - fixed security lighting by petrol lamps (hiding nothing, but rather the opposite) was also restricted by the new progressive legislation. Nor was that all. Not content with banning the provision of petrol, the ban also covered offering it. The wording of the act was so vague, causing concerned citizens to wonder whether answering the telephone would be viewed as supplying petrol (after all, it could save somebody a journey). And what about the scope for crime by people with access (legitimate or not) to the records of the TTP ? The legislation had a few things to say about that, but wouldn't it be safer not to have the records ? (Like the Ruritanian government had done with records of polluted sites - look no pollution!) So it was that Ruritania remained in the 1940's well into the 21st century. [1] See 'Health & Safety at Work' April 1997 for a grim view of this. ISSN: 0141 8246 HSW(a)tolley.co.uk -- ########################################################## # Antonomasia # # ant(a)notatla.demon.co.uk # ##########################################################

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Hey Baby! XOXOXOXO
by Resources International, Inc. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Secure checksums
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy May the self-admitted child molester possesses a rudimentary dick less than one inch long, half the size of his mother's clitoris, that barely makes a fistful. Thereby hangs the root of this Jew-hating sissy's sick fixation on little boys and Usenet forgeries. o-:^>___? Timmy May `~~c--^c'

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Re: AP Revisited
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike Duvos wrote: > In a world with an indestructible Net, anonymous digital cash, > and strong privacy tools, AP will ultimately evolve, first in a > relatively benign form and then, once it becomes ubiquitous, in > the form envisioned by Bell. {excerpt from WebWorld 24} "Assassination Politics," originated by Jim Bell, had been just a theoretical exercise during his lifetime, dismissed by most who read it as a thinly veiled joke, at best. Bell, however, had developed a workable autobot which instituted his system, albeit in a very rudimentary way. Basically, his procedure was analogous to a lottery system where the players were contributing to a prize that could be collected, not by chance, but by anyone who fulfilled the preconditions of those contributing. And the precondition was that, in order to pocket the 'prize', one had to assassinate the person targeted by the contributors. Since Bell's system used anonymous remailers, his system would allow individuals and groups to anonymously defend themselves from all types of aggression. Eventually someone modified Bell's 'Assassination Bot' to serve as a useful tool for political polling. Someone else took it a step further, and it became a valid electoral tool. Then, inevitably, just before the Channel Revolution broke out, it's newly refined features were once again modified to serve Bell's original purpose, and all hell broke loose when established geo-political figures began dropping like flies, or resigning in terror when they realized that the people were indeed speaking, and doing so by putting a price on the heads of their oppressors.

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Re: Crypto Dongel
by Dave Emery 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hal Finney wrote : > However if the system is designed to make it easy when it does become > necessary, it will probably be easy to at least occasionally activate the > feature accidentally. The result will be the loss of your keys. For what little it is worth, key zeroization is built into almost all US government crypto gear, usually with prominent switches on the front panel marked "zeroize" for emergencies. And most all of this gear has tamper switches that activate the zeroizing logic when any of the covers of the equipment are removed - and often there is more than one zeroize circuit in a system in case the primary one fails to work. My understanding is that the NSA has rather specific and detailed requirements for this feature in gear being designed for them, and one can certainly see why it would be a requirement in military systems that might have to be quickly rendered useless to an enemy in the moments before capture. So it is hardly a new idea. Dave Emery die(a)die.com

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Re: Another Article on Jim Bell from the Oregano
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rich Graves wrote: > On Sat, 5 Apr 1997, Alan Olsen wrote: > >>On Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency agents were at Bell's home with > >>a hazardous waste removal contractor analyzing chemicals found by the IRS > >>raiders. One of the chemicals reportedly was cyanide. Since the article doesn't mention the quantity, or other details, one has to wonder if it was a type of rodent or roach poison that many people commonly keep around the house. Did Ma and Pa Bell purchase a little something to take care of a mouse problem? Does this make them co-conspirators? Did the local hardware man suggest the product? Is he part of the plot against the government? I am reminded of the Campaign Against Marijuana Production in Northern California, where TV's and chainsaws were regularly seized as "articles used in marijuana production." At least in Northern California the small town newpapers were honest enough to poke fun at the federal bullshit rather than using it as an opportunity to overblow every minor aspect of the situation. > >They seemed to be unable to nail Jim on free speech issues, so they nailed > >him on "other things". > > No, they never tried to nail him on free speech issues. Read the Friendly > Affidavits at http://www.parrhesia.com/jimbell/ > > The government wasn't even aware of the AP essays until seven months after > they began legal proceedings on "other things." You have it backwards. The > government is using his speech in an attempt to nail him for tax evasion > and conspiracy. It's hard to get an all-encompassing search & seizure > warrant merely to fish for evidence of tax evasion and conspiracy to > harass IRS agents, but throw in an alleged Internet-based murder racket > and the judge will happily bend over and allow you to seize everything of > value. There was so much bullshit in the application for the search warrant that it had to be done by a real fisherman, practiced in the art of enlargening the size of the one that got away, in an attempt to justify asking the judge to let him use a net, instead of trolling. -- Toto "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html

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Re: Another Article on Jim Bell from the Oregano
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rich Graves wrote: > > On Mon, 7 Apr 1997, Timothy C. May wrote: > > > At 11:45 PM -0700 4/6/97, Rich Graves wrote: > > > > >I think there is a censorship issue in the way the government is using the > > >issue. I think AP is protected speech, just as the Unabomber Manifesto is. > > >I don't want to see such speech chilled. But I think you've got the > > >instrumentality wrong. > > > > I don't see any evidence either Bell's AP or Kacynski's Unabomber > > manifestos are being chilled. Tim's eyesight is getting worse in his old age. > There's plenty of evidence right here in this thread. See especially the > "Feds Reading This List" branch and Lucky's "First they came for..." > comments. Just because you don't feel chilled doesn't mean others don't. > Whether this paranoia is justified is, of course, another issue: Paranoia is always justified. We live in a predatorial universe, where you have to eat to survive. > > I've written elsewhere why I think Bell was raided. Tim sounded like an IRS aplogetist in that post. I'm beginning to think that the same people who got the dirt on Gilmore and forced him to bend over for C2Net's censors also have some pictures of Tim tucked away somewhere. Contrary to Tim's flimsy reasoning, the IRS did not confine themselves to seeking a search warrant based on the evidence they had regarding possible SSN violations, or even a stretching of logic on that evidence. Instead, they used a blatant misinterpretation of Bell's AP system and developed a train of conspiracy which was even more theoretical than Bell's writing, with absolutely no reference to any hard evidence of Bell having engaged in any illegal speech, despite having read hundreds of Bell's posts. It seems that Tim May despises those on the cypherpunks list who develop conspiracy theories in regard to those who are attempting to censor and ridicule list members, but has no shortage of support for large, powerful government organizations who wish to develop conspiracy theories, using obvious misrepresentations of a persons ideas to subject them to search and seizure on a fishing expedition. > what Inspector Gordon says about AP being in and > of itself evidence of an anti-government conspiracy really bothers me. > That's the kind of thing that does create a chilling effect. Exactly as it is meant to do. At least Rich Graves, snow, and others still have the ability to recognize suppression of speech when they see it. For all of Tim's blustering about Bell's other sins being the source of his problems, Tim could easily find himself in the same position as Jim, if a large government agency should ever decide to use Tim's words to add to his woes in a civil or criminal case. How many on the cypherpunks list are co-conspirators with Jim Bell in his evil plan to murder government officials? Those who replied to his posts? All who received them? I would like to see one of the legal eagles on the list write up an application for a search warrant on the cypherpunks list servers and various individuals (written from the perspective of a government agent/prosecutor), using the same stretch of logic used in Bell's case. TruthMonger

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Re: AP Revisited
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin wrote: > > If we had anonymous betting pools which ABSOLUTELY shielded the > > identity of the people transferring money to and from them, > > There are many other weak points in the security of a system besides > the cryptographic techniques. The major problem with the scheme is that rat-choice is a theoretical abstraction and not graven on tablets of stone by the supreme being. Its a bit like Marxism, discover one small aspect of the way that economies work then assert that it is the _only_ effect. Unfortunately for Bell he underestimated the scope for state intervention. He's lucky he lives in the US, in France he would have been silenced long ago. > Suppose there was an international treaty banning such betting > pools, with penalty of death for running one? I think its more likely that the states involved would start using covert operations using their own personel rather than contracting out the job. Recently a bunch of UK entepreneurs with significant political backing (brown envelopes?) attempted to start a private lottery. They managed to continue for a few months until the government was forced to close them down. But for their ex-cabinet minister on the board the directors would probably have gone to jail. > Anonymous betting pools are an extremely contrived way of funding any > positive social good. Indeed they were merely one in a long line of schemes each of which had three things in common, cryptography, anti-government sentiments and murdering people. I think that people are giving Jim too much credit. I seem to recall that Tim May or Perry Metzeger took Bell's original scheme apart, made it into something like a coherent argument and then dissmissed the strengthened scheme. The problem with AP is that to make it work you have to assume that the public at large accept some particular normative ethical standard. If this were true you wouldn't need AP. > The political implications are far from obvious. Don't forget that > Hitler didn't kill 6 million jews by himself. Civil forfeiture laws > have supporters. Clinton did win an election. I seem to recall that the War on Drugs was a Bush proposal originally. Dole supported it and as with the CDA I would not expect a single member of congress to stand up against charges of "drug dealers friend". I think its quite wrong to see Clinton as someone who believes in the authoritarian position, the real problem is he cuts his cloth according to the popular whim. In fact Clinton demonstrates precisely the type of outcome AP would produce but without the murders. Basically AP is mob law or lynch law at best. > This is purely wishful thinking on your part. People from all sides > of issues could end up contributing money to all kinds of bets. Hitlers supporters would probably have set up a bounty for killing Jews, Communists and homosexuals. The British Government spent considerable amounts of effort attempting to assasinate Hitler. It proved impossible. The CIA offers considerable rewards for "information" on certain individuals but the takeup rate is much lower than rat-choice would indicate. If anyone wants to make a quick couple of million I can give them the names of a number of people the CIA would like to see "out of the game". If the sum on offer is insufficient a higher one can almost certainly be agreed. I doubt that there will be many takers however. > > Nuclear weapons would go away, the hole in the ozone > > layer would close up, and whales would be safe and happy again. > > All hogwash, of course. If these problems could be solved through > the application of volunteer money they would have been solved long > ago. I think the author might have been being sarcastic. > *No* government will support them. Since AP only works if > you have a sizable fraction of the population participating, some > participants will get caught. If the penalties are stiff there will > be very little incentive to play -- should I risk 10 years in jail so > I can donate $10 to get some dictator killed? Not likely. Interestingly enough the politics of Iran demonstrate why no government could afford to allow an AP type scheme to be enacted. The Iranian government is actually a composite of several power centers. As well as the government proper there are a number of "independent" theocratic organisations that are built on the former state industrial combines. The various groups that formed an alliance to topple the Shah each got a payoff in the form of "guardianship" of one or more of the combines. These combines have the resources to create what is effectively a state within a state. The government would like to move towards a more accomadating situation with the West but it cannot because of the threat from the private states within the state. The infamous fatwah against Salman Rushdie was issued by one of the combines. Similarly the Lebanese crisis involved multiple often opposed "Iranian" supported groups funded by different state factions. Eliminating the leadership of the combines is futile. Death is not a usefull deterent against suicide bombers. Assasination would at best spark off a civil war. Attempting to apply a US constitutional analysis based on the cult of the individual to other cultures is futile. > Of course, it is much easier to aviod getting caught, and the > probability of success is much greater, if the victim is a relative > unknown. So the prize hits would actually be small ones -- someone > might offer $10000 to kill you or me, for example, or a local > political rival, and that would be a good deal for a professional > assassin -- no bodyguards, police protection, or other safeguards to > worry about; and the pursuit will be a small effort. $10,000 is about the market rate for a hit man at present. In places like Columbia the price is considerably lower - $1000 perhaps. Phill

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Cuba and AP
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If people want to see the effect of an AP society have a look at Cuba. Under the Batista regime $50 was sufficient to have someone killed. There was anarchy, the police were corrupt, the mafia ran most of the few parts of the country that worked - even they found the lack of order a problem. The result was Fidel Castro. The Batista regime could neither reform nor survive. Any society that was threatened by AP would likewise collapse. It is important to distinguish liberty and libertines. The libertine recognises no check on individual rights, even when they affect the rights of others. The inevitable result of libertinage is authoritarianism. Phill

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(Fwd) Re: AP Revisited
by Charles Anthony 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Mon, 07 Apr 1997 11:48:48 -0400 From: Hallam-Baker <hallam(a)ai.mit.edu> To: Kent Crispin <kent(a)songbird.com>, cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: AP Revisited I think its quite wrong to see Clinton as someone who believes in the authoritarian position, the real problem is he cuts his cloth according to the popular whim. Think again. Clinton and his administration are rabid when it comes to cryopto policy and the expansion of the FBI and others ability to pry into the lives of innocent citizens.. The draft of the crypto legislation is a good example of how, when given an opportunity to act out of the general public's sight and grasp, he's in there seeking even more ridiculously easy ways to get into everybodies business. I mean the current draft requires only a govt request in order to obtain access to your email. NOT a court ordered/appproved warrant- They may as well ask to be allowed to open and read every letter and pkg at the post office too.(and if this draft becomes law they probably will) All of these 'new' and neccessary' intrusions are Clinton proposals, not hold overs from some other admininstration. If he were opposed in principle he could certainly 'cut his cloth' along less authoratarian lines, following the lead of many of the administrations own committee reports that have come out against key escrow plans, but he will not budge on the issue. In fact, each time it is put back out there it gets worse. Clinton's ability to coopt left energy and appear to be less than he is is- earning appologistic comments like the one above- is what is really frightening. When it comes to US citizens civil liberties, Clinton is more dangerous than Reagan and Bush put together and I wouldn't call either of them friends of the people. Since it has been thrown around so much, remember that Hitler was a most powerful speaker, who connected well with the masses, couching nazi policy in the terms that gave the people what they wanted to hear. They too thought he was a most sincere and earnest fellow, with only the good of the country at heart. A 'Nixon' would never get away with this sort of proposal- but a telegenic, non-enhaling, sax playing, mcdonalds eating, aw shucks, (they lay it on thick you think?) well meaning bubba? --C ********************************************************************** Charles Anthony canthony(a)info-nation.com http://www.info-nation.com -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.3a mQBtAzM63W8AAAEDAMRi15+AIXC0j2R7IrdeNhM7AQXPGAYAd2mCNhKrQa09fICZ 4jEpTd0biV+3nMAL6/6pWUm1AmFPS/FngecmXkrmMPlbgv3O0dapbJ2/FQf3XUtH Z5AEOdKL9xK5Ml7dCQAFE7QIY2FudGhvbnmJAHUDBRAzOt1wi/cSuTJe3QkBAemw AwC1DGxodXVPkA1D6uLdqFvP5H3/98i/gM2x9IvvfZscWszwrJuOhkYyd71TF7K5 gy55OqPp+Rf77On0XhmHoi98Y4HOSTHYPhN9o9zQQ+pn/4HmxQ4Tbtih2sCDNvmG b2g= =0pHR -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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