- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Money Laundering thru Roulette
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There was a more interesting case in, I believe, Australia. Someone who wanted to bribe a politician instead libeled him. The politician sued, and they ``settled'' out of court.

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Re: Black Net
by Graham Toal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

: Does anyone actually believe Blacknet exists this is about the umpteenth time : I have heard about some kind of Blackmarket internet traders that are very had : to find. It sounds like something out of that Gibson book "Virtual Light" : Reuben Halper I guess there's a lot of new people on this list :-) Why don't you post something here with this key then... [wasabi.io.com] -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.3a mQCPAixusCEAAAEEAJ4/hpAPevOuFDXWJ0joh/y6zAwklEPige7N9WQMYSaWrmbi XJ0/MQXCABNXOj9sR3GOlSF8JLOPInKWbo4iHunNnUczU7pQUKnmuVpkY014M5Cl DPnzkKPk2mlSDOqRanJZCkyBe2jjHXQMhasUngReGxNDMjW1IBzuUFqioZRpABEB AAG0IEJsYWNrTmV0PG5vd2hlcmVAY3liZXJzcGFjZS5uaWw+ =Vmmy -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Type bits/keyID Date User ID pub 1024/A19469 1993/08/15 BlackNet<nowhere(a)cyberspace.nil> 1 key(s) examined. See what sort of reply you get. Heh heh heh. G (Tim, don't go to bed early tonight, you might be getting some mail...)

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Stego paper
by Adam Shostack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There is a paper on stegonography "Minimum Protocols for the Insertion of Messages into Random or Pseudorandom Data" posted to sci.crypt.research. From: klockstone(a)cix.compulink.co.uk (Keith Lockstone) Message-ID: <3benes$pbh(a)net.auckland.ac.nz> Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume

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TIS/PEM
by forsythe＠fiji.oc.nps.navy.mil 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Our site is preparing to implement the PEM package from Trusted Information systems. The package is available to US/Canadian users from ftp.tis.com Any comments on this package would be appreciated. It appears to use a licensed version of RSAREF. But I just got the docs, so I can't say much else about it. "Sometimes we get lost in the darkness, The dreamers learn how to steer by the stars" ******************************************************************** ** Carl R. Forsythe ** Naval Postgraduate School ** ** forsythe(a)oc.nps.navy.mil ** Monterey, California ** ** crforsyt(a)nps.navy.mil ** Office Phone (408)-656-2836 ** ******************************************************************** Any view presented in this text is purely my own and not that of the United States Government, The Department of Defense, The Department of the Navy or The Naval Postgraduate School. PGP Key available by finger.

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Re: S Milgram & Authority Response
by lefty＠apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > >>This shows that, in real situations, people will follow herd instincts >>and obey orders. > >>rgds-- TA (tallard(a)frb.gov) > >Milgram had 66% go to the end of the board with the subjects believing >they had killed a person with electric shock. I saw him present the paper. >I asked him at the end, placing ethical questions aside, what he felt the >most important finding of this research was. He paused thoughtfully, and >said: > > We better be DAMN careful who we put in authority in this country. Really? When was this, precisely? -- Lefty (lefty(a)apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.

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More futures trading analysis...
by pcw＠access.digex.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here is a paper analysis based on my phone calls to a few brokerage firms and a forage through the stack of old newspapers. If anyone has the time to read through the rest of it, I would appreciate it if you could alert me to any errors in either judgement or execution. Here are the prices for the June S&P 500 Index Futures. These contracts have a value of $500 times the cost of the index when they expire in June. That means the person who bought the contract gets $500 times the index value.The person who sold a contract would have to pay that amount. The clearing house is responsible for making sure the money gets from one place to another. If the contract expired on April 6, for instance, then it would be worth $224,025. Here are some prices gathered from a stack of newspapers waiting to be recycled. They show the S+P 500 date open high low close open-close range March 25 1994 464.70 466.50 459.80 459.95 -4.75 (+1.80 - 4.80) March 29 1994 461.35 461.35 451.00 451.65 -9.70 (+0.00 -10.35) March 31 1994 451.85 453.60.445.60 446.15 -5.70 (+1.75 - 6.25) April 4 1994 435.80 441.75 434.75 439.25 +3.45 (+5.95 - 1.05) April 6 1994 448.45 451.00 440.80 447.25 -1.20 (+2.55 - 8.35) April 7 1994 447.10 452.00 445.90 450.50 +3.40 (+4.90 - 1.20) April 8 1994 450.60 450.95 444.95 447.25 -3.35 (+0.35 -5.65) April 11 1994 447.25 450.90 446.30 450.45 +3.20 (+2.65 -0.95) April 14 1994 446.05 448.00 442.90 445.95 -0.10 (+1.95 -3.15) April 18 1994 446.05 447.80 440.70 442.40 -3.65 (+1.75 -5.35) {There are other days out there, but the newspapers were thrown away or whatever.} In practice, you can usually buy futures contracts by only putting up 5% of the current value of the contract. You can (and usually want to) put up more because the banks and brokerage houses want that amount available to cover losses. You need to maintain 5% of the current value. That means that if the price goes the wrong way and you have less than 5% on hand you have to add more money to your account. This is known as a margin call. Let's assume: Assume that the market will move at least +/- 3 points in a day. Assume that the market isn't moving too fast so you're able to close out a position moving the wrong direction at 3 points off. (There is not as much need to really worry about this because the money isn't disappearing. It's just moving in the wrong way too fast to stop it.) If you want to move $50,000 in _one_ day by opening the transaction in the morning and closing it in the evening, then you would need to move 34 contracts. The 10% margin requirements for these 34 contracts would mean that you must have about $800,000 on hand to cover losses. The cost of borrowing $800,000 for a day at a 10% annual rate is about $220 in interest. Let's assume that the market inefficiencies are about .10 to open the position and .10 to close the position. That means that the difference between the price you buy the futures and the price you sell them is different by .10 in the morning and .10 in the evening. (.10 in the wrong way.) That means you could lose $3400 in trading costs if you can't execute the 34 contract trades successfully at the same price. This gives me the following approximate transaction costs: Day 1 Commissions $200 x 2 on 34 Contr. (guess) Interest Costs $220 x 2 on $800,000 Market Inefficiencies $1700 x 2 --------- 4240 Chance of Succeeding: 50%. So if things go wrong: Day 2 Commissions $400 x 2 on 68 Contr. (guess) Interest Costs $420 x 2 on $1,600,000 Market Inefficiencies $3400 x 2 --------- $8480 Assume you guess that the market will move correctly: 50%. That means you will have moved the $50,000 by now in 75% of the cases. But if things still go wrong: Day 3 Commissions $800 x 2 on 136 Contr. (guess) Interest Costs $840 x 2 on $3,200,000 Market Inefficiencies $6800 x 2 --------- $16920 Assume you guess that the market will move correctly: 50%. That means you will have moved the $50,000 by now in 87.5% of the cases. If these conservative calculations are correct, then it is possible to move $50,000 for $4240n in all but 2^{-n} of the cases. Note, there were about 60,000 S&P 500 contracts traded in the average day. I would guess that even 544 contracts wouldn't make a too much of a difference. Especially since half would be buying and the other half would be selling. There are many places where these numbers may be off, but I believe that I've erred on the side of extreme conservatism by putting up 10% of the contracts' value. Many people who do day trading have low margin requirements. As you can see, the net profits or loss in the day was never more than 3% in the days I included. And the list included a big trading day when the market lost plenty. I've also assumed that the market inefficiences would always move against me. In one sense, this is probably fair because brokers are known to buy a contract and then resell it to a customer for a fraction more. This leads me to the following conclusions: *) It is not cheap to do this well. You could do it for less with some more risk. *) It may take very good timing to execute the straddle effectively. The market inefficiencies are the biggest cost. Being a floor broker may be essential. *) If you can open the position at the same price i.e buy and sell the contracts at the same price, then you've got a good deal. I would appreciate any questions or comments about the details in this very approximate estimate. -Peter Wayner

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re; intolerance on the list
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Well, now that the issue of Marines on the list is settled, perhaps the good SGT could share some non classified knowledge of the USMC's extensive use of Banyan Vines. For those who didn't know, during Desert storm every Marine tank was a Banyan server, the self healing nature of this network proved very effective, in fact "Stormin Norman" gave it credit as one of the three key assets we had. Brian Williams Extropian Cypherpatriot Ex-Marine Current NRA/ILA and other nasty stuff "Cryptocosmology: Sufficently advanced comunication is indistinguishable from noise." --Steve Witham "Have you ever had your phones tapped by the government? YOU WILL and the company that'll bring it to you.... AT&T" --James Speth "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" - Dr Hunter S Thompson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLbRJztCcBnAsu2t1AQGAEAQAg9z4ddgWqHz6EWQjCGj6dA8o6gFV3YVp q7UhK6EFzqYhhaIxXoI0z/Bvhdw+r4ZRYySXC4y0tcAYFns5mbj1Z3SB5BAytN4l FySoWWjylIRYShwLBO8pmbxF1m/SqZJWkAn9bu17uLAHSlJHxZxbhhqi1q1HtOnW ZFoaWBjs8nU= =Viyp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Black Net
by killbarny＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Has anyone heard of BlackNet? BlackNet is in the business of buying, selling, trading, and otherwise dealing with information in all its many forms. Through PGP and anonymous remailers, the folks at BlackNet plan to create a huge black market in data: trade secrets, processes, production methods, nanotechnology, privacy databases, and chemical manufacturing. The only way to get in is to find a BlackNet-oriented message (one with the BlackNet PGP key), then respond to it, using anonymous remailers and PGP. It might be found in <alt.extropians> or <alt.fan.davidsternlight>. If anyone knows about this [or their address/key], please send.

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re: Sgt Russell
by Phil G. Fraering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just wondering, but if Sgt. Russell is kicked off the list, how will we ever convert the military? Don't we want them on our side in the coup? Smiley to taste, Phil

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Banyan vine use by US Marine Corps...
by Phil G. Fraering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is a reply to Sgt. Harlow's message about Banyan Vines: Of all the methods the military uses, they are all jammable by one means or another given enough effort, right? There's no totally non-blockable means of communication available to the military or civilian sectors, is there? Trying to get back on topic, Phil

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