- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Golbal Econ.
by p.v.mcmahon.rea0803＠oasis.icl.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > All payment mechanisms require a basis of trust - so > > that the seller knows s/he will get paid . > The above bank/vendor/customer/mix scenario seems the > simplest to start out with on the Internet at this time. Indeed. But what I have still not seen in this thread is an articulation of a business case for existing financial institutions to support the putative [on|off]-line payment mechanisms - in particular as an alternative to charge/credit cards for one-off transactions. - pvm

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RE: Golbal Econ.
by p.v.mcmahon.rea0803＠oasis.icl.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I would like to help get an internet economny going! For the internet > to become a source of greater revenue I'd like to see a system that > can securely make business transactions that we are all happy with. > The amounts should be small transactions compaired with selling a car, All payment mechanisms require a basis of trust - so that the seller knows s/he will get paid - and hence rely on trusted third parties (governments, banks, charge card company etc), and/or need to be supported by specific explicit seller-buyer contracts. Current (commercial) electronic business transactions are underpinned by contracts, and security mechanisms appropriate to the risks associated with the carrier of the transaction. An "internet economy" needs a basis of trust, as well as security mechanisms appropriate for the current level of IP security. What basis of trust do you envisage? - pvm

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Not me PGP-tweaking
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) on Sun, 28 Aug 12:58 PM >My ire at John Young came from his apparently malicious >"tweak" at me in which he sent me PGP-encrypted mail Warn't me, Tim. Still too crypto-knobbie without the skill for PGP mail or post. I got lumped with other tweakers while trying say a humorous word on your behalf. Ah well, so much for humor in the midst of a spat. I'll duck next time. John

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Re: PGP fanatacism
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

An anonymous (why?--afraid to use your own name?) person wrote: >Earlier, Tim May wrote: > >> Not only do many of us not do all this stuff (have you seen Eric >> Hughes signing his messages? How about John Gilmore?), but some people >> have decided to stop reading e-mail altogether. Donald Knuth, for >> example. A wise man. >> I'm happy that you PGP fans are thoroughly infatuated with using PGP >> for everything. Just knock off the clucking and sighing about those >> who don't see it as the end-all and be-all of today's communications. >> It reeks of fanaticism. > >Interesting. I wonder what this says though... cypherpunks promote >encryption, digital cash, dc nets, data havens... > >but wouldn't ever be caught actually using any of the above. > >Hell, that stuff is way too plebian. I'd rather advocate it that >actually be in the uncomfortable position of following my own advice. Anonymous flames are one thing, but incorrectly characterizing points of view is another. I and other Cypherpunks clearly use PGP at times. I just don't like having to jump throught the hoops of downloading my mail to my home machine and then decrypting it....I do most of my casual mail reading in "elm," on Netcom, as I am online for several hours a day, and downloading is an interruption. (There's also the issue of "on-line" or immediate clearing vs. "off-line" or delayed clearing....I see an encrypted message to me while I'm reading my mail in elm....I have two main choices: log-off, fire up Eudora, download my mail, decrypt the PGP message, or, defer the reading until the next time I download my accumulated mail. I often forget about PGP-encrypted mail until I happen to see it again, which may be never.) "All crypto is economics." And too often the effort of reading encrypted messages turns out to be not warranted. My ire at John Young came from his apparently malicious "tweak" at me in which he sent me PGP-encrypted mail immediately after my post explaining why PGP-encrypted mail takes me longer to read. That his message was utterly banal and was not worth decrypting was the proximate cause of my anger. (He claims it was an "accident." Maybe. But seeing that it was the first PGP message to me ever, and it came shortly after my comments, and was banal, I have to conclude he thought he was jabbing me in some way, making some meta-point.) Many Cypherpunks are running shell scripts and the like to make running PGP easier. Mostly on machines outside their control, where the secret key and the passphrase can be captured any number of ways (as others have also explained). This is illusory security. OK for playing around, but to lecture people like me that we should not be bothering with using PGP only on our secure machines is folly. PGP and mail both have a long way to go. In the meantime, I prefer to concentrate on the things I do pretty well, like writing and thinking. I'm not a Unix jock like many of you college students or C programmers, and I like it that way. To each their own. I don't have a Unix box at home, only a Unix account on Netcom's machines (and this is a 14.4 dial-up account, not a SLIP or PPP connection). That's life. Anonymity is OK, but I encourage critics to come out from behind their wall of anonymity and give their actual names, or at least use a digitally-signed pseudonym, so we can know we're talking to the same person. (I suppose Mr. Nobody will use this to claim that "Cypherpunks are against anonymity.") --Tim May .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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New Cypher ListServ (part 2) **REVISED** (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: "David Downey" <digital_matrix(a)hotmail.com> > Subject: New Cypher ListServ (part 2) **REVISED** > Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 06:16:19 PDT > The Cryptography-Politics-PGP-L ListServ is in operation.(We just > finished up with the majordomo scripts and the like). Here is what you > need to do to join. BTW, this list is a digested list. Please do not > freak if things do not go right straight from the get go. I hope to have > this as painless as possible, yet we all know that Murphy wrote Murphy's > Law just for this instance. Please bear with me. Once again, ANY > suggestions, short of flames, will be listened to 100%! > Now for the nitty gritty. Is this a new CDR node or is this a new indipendant mailing list? ____________________________________________________________________ | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Problems with anonymous escrow 2
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Besides the question of trustworthiness, another problem I see with anonymous escrow agents applies more generally to any form of anonymous business. Anonymity makes sense to me for the individual. Each person manages his own affairs and he can keep secret or reveal what he wants. But at the business level it is going to be much harder to keep the same level of secrecy. It is hard for me to see how a business larger than two or three people can really expect to operate with the kind of anonymity we are talking about here. These escrow agents will need significant assets to be useful, and probably staffs of at least dozens or hundreds of actuaries and other professionals who will judge the safety and appropriateness of the various deals the agency is offered. How can you expect to keep the location and true identities of the business principals secret? It is said that no more than three people can keep a secret; can we really expect a staff of hundreds not to reveal that they actually work for the mysterious XYZ escrow agency, accessible only through Blacknet? Even with the Mafia, everyone knows who works there (judging from the newspapers). Can we really expect more secrecy for these anonymous businesses? I think that it is really impossible for a business of any significant size to be anonymous in the same way that an individual can. The idea of an escrow agency that retains its anonymity seems impractical to me. Hal

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Re: 10 minute delay considered inconsequential
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 11 Sep 1996 22:50:22 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >>I've always wondered if the makers of mailer software couldn't include a delay >>option, so that, say, a message might be held for 10 minutes and then sent. >>Imagine how many of the "Sorry about x; I meant y" posts we'd never see. > >I expect there would be little effect. I suspect most of us write articles, >send them out, and only notice the mistakes, typos, whatever when they are >pointed out. True. I guess what we need is an AI mailer that would do something like "Message #324 is rather confusing - did you really mean x?". Oh well. . . # 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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Child pornography -- Expert witness for Federal jury trial
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Folks, I just got a call from two Federal Public Defenders whose client is charged with possession of child pornography stored in the /tmp directory of a Unix system, in a zip'd file. (These lawyers seem to be reasonably cyber-savvy, and told me they're following what I've been writing about cyber-liberties.) There's evidence saying that other people were using the account at that time, and the attorneys have the relevant wtmp/utmp files. There's also no evidence saying an actual child was exploited -- given the nature of the images, they may have been morphed. I don't think the defendant is accused of *making* them; he's only accused of *possessing* them. The case goes to jury trial soon in a Federal District Court. If anyone is interested in testifying as an expert witness in this case about Unix tech foo (and is qualified to do so), please let me know and I'll pass along your info. I believe at least your expenses would be paid. Here's an opportunity to ensure justice is done and not just rant in cyberspace... :) -Declan (Note I have no idea if the guy is indeed guilty of possessing JPGs the government has banned. What I do know is that any defendant deserves a fair trial and the government must prove that he's guilty of the crimes for which he's charged. And if anyone does molest a child, I say lock 'em up for a good long time.)

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Re: common sense
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Thu, 12 Sep 1996 16:04:14 -0700, HipCrime wrote: >> And rather than "dispensing drugs in clinics," why not simply >> scrap the drug laws entirely? People have a *right* to do as >> they please with their bodies. >Let's hear it for common sense. It's the first decent posting I've >seen to this list. Tell me, how do you walk with that huge chip on your shoulder? # 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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CONF/ORG: EXTRO-3 date
by Alexander 'Sasha' Chislenko 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We are trying to plan the time for the EXTRO-3 - the Third in the infinite series of Extropian conferences. The tentative dates for EXTRO-3 are now weekends of August 2-3 and August 9-10 of 1997, with a backup plan of July 26-27 weekend. We would like to select the date so that it would not interfere with other conferences, and be convenient for everybody. If you know of any other events of extropian/transhumanist/libertarian/ life-extension/cypherpunk interest planned for one of those weekends, or if you would like to attend and have have personal preferences for one of these days, please send me _private_ mail at sasha1(a)netcom.com (You can find general info on Extropianism at http://www.primenet.com/~maxmore/extropy.htm ) On behalf of the of Extropian Action Team, ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Chislenko <sasha1(a)netcom.com> www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html Firefly Network, Inc.: <alexc(a)firefly.net> www.ffly.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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