- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re:Edited Edupage, 18 Aug 1996 [SATELLITES]
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:35 AM 8/21/96 -0800, mccoy(a)communities.com (Jim McCoy) wrote: >You want to avoid moving parts like the plague in orbit. They eventually >wear out or fail and once that happens you have a very expensive piece of >junk in orbit. Solid-state storage is the _only_ way to go if you want to >avoid things like neding to pressurize the drive (eliminating any cost >advantage over solid-state.) Why do you need to pressurize the drive? Most hard disk drives for the last N years have been airtight sealed containers, haven't they? (Removables are different, of course.) I'd worry far more about the stresses of launch bothering the drives. > Its not like you can go up to swap a dead drive > out you know... You do obviously want RAID and/or mirrored drives. > Solid-state Most government space computer equipment has expensive RAD-hardended RAM; it's much cheaper and probably more effective to just use conventional RAM with ECC and shield it a bit. At least at one time, the most powerful computer on the Space Shuttle was the Compaq 386/25 laptop that one of the astronauts brought along for some non-mission-critical work; most of the built-in computers were 1 MIPS or less. >The big problem is that no one has data that is worth protecting enough to >make such a venture pay off. Yup. Ego would be a good motivation, if you know somebody with enough spare cash :-) While it would be nice to have satellites around all the time, even one or two smallsats could provide services on a several-times-daily basis which would be enough to do private email. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> Reassign Authority!

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Re: [noise]Re: The grey lady puts on some boots and rides a horseman or two...
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Another interesting connection is that John Aristotle Phillips is the former Princeton student who designed an atom bomb as his junior physics project. (He wasn't a brilliant physicist - he was trying to save his grade point average by doing a good paper :-) Senator Feinstein, of course, is a leader in the "Bomb Info Off Lists" movement.... At 07:45 AM 8/22/96 -0700, Declan wrote: ... >I met Polly's father at the "Kids off Lists" press conference in front of >the Capitol in June. He's an irascable fellow, and there's more to the >story than you might think at first. ... >http://www.muckraker.com/muckraker/96/24/index3a.html .... >The report drove Representative Bob Franks (R-New Jersey) and Senator >Dianne Feinstein (D-California) to introduce the "Children's Privacy >Protection and Parental Empowerment Act." The idea is to keep kids' >names off direct marketing lists. It's a good concept, but it's short >on focus and long on fear - the fear that gathering such information >can lead to child abuse or worse. ...... >But there's a subplot here. The actual driving force and financial >backer of KOL is John Phillips, who runs Aristotle Publishing, a >political software company in Washington, DC. Phillips, as it turns >out, has been in a kind of run-and-shoot legal battle with Donnelley >for the past five years, according to an article in the Washington City >Paper, an alternative weekly published in DC. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> Reassign Authority!

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MUD anyone?
by Rev. Mark Grant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Would anyone out there be interested in helping set up a crypto-anarcho-capitalist MUD to play around with some of the social aspects of crypto-anarchy and anarcho-capitalism? I can probably hack together a basic lpmud in a month or two if someone has a machine which it could run on and which could run a mailing list for those involved. On the software front, there's a demo of version 0.86 of Privtool on utopia.hacktic.nl in /pub/replay/pub/PGP/unix (or something like that), and my mailbot is also on there somewhere. Amongst other things that allows you to remotely maintain Web pages by sending PGP-signed email (actually, PGP-encrypted would probably also work if you don't mind leaving a secret key on the system with no passphrase). Doesn't yet protect against replay attacks and there are a few known bugs but it's only an Alpha. If anyone wants to use it for real I can mail you a patch for the worst problems. Finally, does anyone outside the US have the last few months of the list available for ftp? I'd like to catch up on what I've missed since I unsubscribed and using the Web archive is far too slow and expensive. Please send replies to me directly as I'm travelling and consequently off the list. Looks like I'll be on a mad bus trip round New Zealand for most of next month so Net access will be erratic. Mark |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| |Reverend Mark Grant M.A., U.L.C. EMAIL: mark(a)unicorn.com | |WWW: http://www.c2.org/~mark MAILBOT: bot(a)unicorn.com | |Approximate Current Location: Melbourne, Australia | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

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Re: Spamming
by John Deters 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:27 PM 8/26/96 -0800, Adamsc wrote: >On Mon, 26 Aug 1996 13:26:04 -0500, John Deters wrote: > >>>What do cypherpunks think about the following practice or law (I realize >>>that it may be impossible to implement): each email message should carry >>>a little digicash check for, say, 20 cents. Mail reading programs should >>>reject (send back unread) all messages not carrying these digital >>>checks, unless the senders are in the "friends list". The MUAs should >>>ask users whether they want to "cash" the digital check or not. >> >>I do not believe it is possible to have a secure executable that exists on >>an uncontrolled user's machine. "Tamperproof" encryption chips still >>require communications in and out from the user's program. A determined >>attacker could continue to use the pieces of their code that talk to the >>encryption chip. > >>Never underestimate the allure of "free money" when you're planning to >give >>it away. > >Methinks you don't understand e-cash. It's not executable, and uses public key >crypto to prevent "minting". It uses records to prevent replays. In other >words, it'd be like Ed McMahon including a quarter in the envelope. You'd only >be able to use it once.... Maybe I misspoke; I wasn't referring to minting e-cash. I was referring to the fact that if you can get spammers to enclose a 20e coin for every junk e-mail advertisement you agree to read, then you can write a mail reader that will read their spam and collect all their 20e coins. To me, that's better than "minting" e-cash. Totally legal, and the net effect transfers funds from the spammers to me. The rest of my letter was in regards to writing that mail reader. And no, even if they were to succeed at getting stupid users to install their own special mail reader just for the privilege of reading their advertisements, without secure hardware in the users' machines, their mail server would not be secure against a spoofing attack. John -- J. Deters "Captain's log, stardate 25970-point-5. I am nailed to the hull." +-------------------------------------------------------+ | NET: jad(a)dsddhc.com (work) jad(a)pclink.com (home) | | PSTN: 1 612 375 3116 (work) 1 612 894 8507 (home) | | ICBM: 44^58'36"N by 93^16'27"W Elev. ~=290m (work) | | PGP Key ID: 768 / 15FFA875 | +-------------------------------------------------------+

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A _REALLY_ Interesting Bet
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Betting on football is one thing, but some of us would be very interested in the odds on US presidential election outcomes as November approaches. This kind of betting is illegal here, and I haven't looked lately for a "Ladbroke's" type site, but it is interesting because the betting odds from across the Atlantic more closely match eventual election results than the annoying calls from Gallup & Roper during suppertime. I have posted here, anonymously, on this topic before, but some of you are aware of who I am. I'll thank you to keep that a secret. ;}

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Re: (fwd) Email Robot draws fire from CypherPunkz
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Fri, 13 Sep 1996 09:02:19 -0700 (PDT), Declan McCullagh wrote: >The Cypherpunks gang has apparently attacked a San Francisco artist's ^^^^ No wonder the Feds want to close us down. Look at all the dangerous things we've done this week: 1. Shot the bull 2. (see #1) 3. (see #1) et cetra # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell

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Re: 56 kbps modems
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>On Mon, 16 Sep 1996, Jay Gairson wrote: >> Speaking of ISDN, how many people, can afford to have a personal ISDN >> line in there house? And then afford to connect to something/someone >> else on a next to permanent basis monthly? It's Phone Company Dependent. Here in Pac Bell territory, an ISDN phone line costs about 2.5 analog phone lines, and gets you two phone lines plus some signalling. Connection costs are free at night, and 1 cent/minute daytime. That may change - the phone company is appalled that all these computer people interpret the phrase "free at night" as meaning "it's _free_ at night", so their holding time predictions were bogus :-) Night is defined as 7pm-7am for ISDN. ISDN-equipped ISPs start at about $30/month; don't know if that's unlimited connect time or not. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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Re: J'accuse!: Whitehouse and NSA vs. Panix and VTW
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Fri, 13 Sep 1996 11:33:09 -0700, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com wrote: >Anybody for an Internet Driver's License? *Surfer's* license. The newsies love to refer to "net surfing", because to the highly unknowledgable reader it makes it sound as if they have a clue about what they're writing on. # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell

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Re: SPL -- Suspicious Persons List
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sat, 14 Sep 96 17:36:49 EDT, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: >> unjust if the company was bought out and the new owner decided to sack >> all black people and people called "Perry". You were the one who brought >> up the issue of fairness. >The owner should be able to do that without interference from any gubment. Yes. If they manage to survive economically while snubbing a productive chunk of the general population in addition to a loon, good for them. If their product still sells, inspite of negative publicity it's probably the market leader. OTOH, I think there should be some basic safeguards against the formation of 'company towns' or similar constructs. A free market is rarely a given. # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell

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Electronic cash, not letter boxes, stupid (darkside) hackers
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

9/16/96 HAMBURG, Germany (Reuter) - A German student who used the Internet for long-distance theft of computer data from a U.S. company was arrested and charged with extortion for demanding ransom for the return of the data, police said Monday. The student, from the city of Muenster in northern Germany, sent the ransom letter through electronic mail (e-mail), demanding that the firm pay $30,000 to a letter box in a Hamburg post office. Police declined to identify the company. A police spokesman said the student and two accomplices had illegally logged into its computers and stolen the data. Police said they were waiting at the letter box and detained a 19-year-old, who later led them to the 26-year-old ringleader.

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