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RANT: When hi-tech is a hinderance (freedom w/in limits)
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A short 'rant' on techno-dinosaurism... Saw a blurb on CNN last night about computerized missiles that would defeat jamming devices and analyze the type of target and configure their warheads appropriately. All that I could think of is what an expensive waste of computing machinery... is the cost of a "genius bomb" (assuming it does actually work, unlike the Patriots in Gulf War) worth while? Wouldn't it be better to use a lot of dumb bombs that launch several millions of dollars apiece at a tank or bit of artillery? I'm reminded of the tech they used to detect guerrillas in Vietnam... sensors that went off when uric acid (?) was present so the VC would pis in buckets and walk away, making the sensors go wild... the US put a lot of effort into bombing pis buckets. Or look back to the 13th century when European soldiers were high-tech wearing tons of armor and used cross bows. it was imposing high-tech for the time, but they couldn't move fast or fire arrows quickly... and they were skagmeat for Mongols who were comparatively low-tech. Cypherpunks or crypto relevance? Sometimes high-tech can be a weakness. I've heard that the Soviets, not having the luxury of sexy Crays and whatnot, were adept and using hundreds of PCs to do their cryptanalysis... and so may have a lot of interesting parallel processing algorithms. To paraphrase Miles Davis, creativity is "freedom within limitations".

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Re: RANT: When hi-tech is a hinderance (freedom w/in limits)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:48 AM 1/28/96, Anonymous wrote: >A short 'rant' on techno-dinosaurism... ... >Cypherpunks or crypto relevance? Sometimes high-tech can be >a weakness. The canonical story being Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority," said at one time to have been required reading at MIT. >I've heard that the Soviets, not having the luxury of sexy >Crays and whatnot, were adept and using hundreds of PCs to >do their cryptanalysis... and so may have a lot of interesting >parallel processing algorithms. I'm skeptical. Sun Microsystems did indeed buy up a bunch of Russian programmers, a couple of years ago. Haven't heard anything come out of this. And loosely-coupling PCs, for a task such as Anonymous describes, does not sound like terribly good preparation for other tasks. No point in speculating further, as the speculations and counter-speculations are underdetermined. --Tim Boycott espionage-enabled software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: This post is rated LTC for `Low Technical Content'
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:55 PM 1/27/96 -0500, JMKELSEY(a)delphi.com wrote: >The best solution has always seemed to me to be one of these three: > >a. Tags appended to notes/posts, from various reviewers, digitally >signed and otherwise coded to allow intelligent filtering, or > >b. Electronic distributions of reviewers' evaluations tagged to >notes in some simple way. (I.e. give each note or post a unique ID >which appears in the message.) Then, a smart newsreader/mail >program sorts the notes accordingly, or > >c. The reviewer reads the group/list, and rates posts according to >some useful criteria. He then resends it out to his users, filtered >as desired. (CP-LITE seems like a very early version of this.) d. The "V-Chip" device makes a network query to the selected rating service to ask for a rating. What happen when the rating service is unreachable is just one of the many parameters that the parent needs to set. (If designed right, no parent could use it, but its availability would still stop the adult censorship croud in congress.) This approach as the advantage that the communications costs accrue to those using the feature and not to everyone else. A disadvantage is that each content item needs some ID. Bill

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Re: Possible Java hack.
by Steve Gibbons 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rich, [I've CCed this to cypherpunks, as well, I hope that you don't mind.] In Article: <Pine.ULT.3.91.960127010243.19154N-100000(a)Networking.Stanford.EDU>, Rich Graves <llurch(a)networking.stanford.edu> wrote: # On Sat, 27 Jan 1996, Stephen P. Gibbons wrote: # > If this is the case (and I don't have a source license at this point, or # > even a system that will run Java) there is the possiblility that a sytem # > with control of a web server and a DNS server could coerce a Java client # > into initiating TCP connections to clients other than the system that # > provided the applet (which should be a prohibited behavior, as I read the # > specs.) # If I understand you correctly, this is only true if neither your stack nor # your client caches DNS queries. One or the other almost always does, at # least for a minute, no matter how low you set TTL. Yes, a client that cache's DNS queries can get in the way somewhat. I've already considered this, and the "devious applet" would take advantage of Java's capability to use multiple threads (one of which would sleep() for whatever period of time was necessary to invalidate the cache, and _then_ initiate the attack.) Yes, there are are various other specific cases that need to be considered in order to make the attacking app (if it's even feasable) work all of (or a good percentage of) the time. It would be very easy to conceal the "devious" portion of the applet inside of trojan horse that ran for a length of time greater than the minimum TTL for DNS caching. -- Steve(a)AZTech.Net

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BAA_bab
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail"
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 04:22 PM 1/26/96 +0100, Asgaard wrote: >Jim Bell wrote: > >> While this may be based on the "classic" view of the start of the direct >> involvement in WWII, I agree with the opinion of an old college professor >> that the US KNEW that the Japanese were going to attack, SOMEWHERE and >> SOMEWHEN (but not exactly), and in fact WANTED the attack to occur to >> justify getting into a war that we "should" have entered. > >Alan Horowitz added: > >>I've read that FDR had a humint source warning of a Japanese strike on >>Pearl Harbor. I also recall reading that J Edgar Hoover received a report >>of a diplomatic conversation detailing the planned attack, but sat on it. > >And this is from a post I sent to the list last summer: >*************************************************************** >I just read 'Infamy' by John Toland (1982), containing 'proof' >- very convincing, in my opinion - of the Pearl Harbour cover-up. >The US president, selected members of his cabinette and a >few admirals and generals knew - from Magic and the 'winds' >execute, radio traffic analysis, diplomatic sources, double >agents - exactly when and where the Japaneese were going to >attack, but didn't warn Hawaii, fearing that too efficient >counter-measures by the Oahu military might make the attack >abort and so not convince the isolationists. The unexpected >tactical capabilities of the Japaneese armada then made a >cover-up all the more important. >***************************************************************** >The unfortunate cipher expert Captain Safford spent most of >his post-war life trying to uphold the honour of his fellow >cryptanalysts, putting the blame on generals and politicians, >but in vain. It's interesting that we even HEARD about Coventry, but of course that was a British decision, a civilian target in an attack during an era where there were already plenty of attacks on civilian targets, and the British UNDERSTOOD why Coventry had to die. (But I don't know WHEN "we" (the general public) first heard about Coventry. Anybody know? (For the historically-impaired: Coventry was/is an English town (small city?) perhaps most famous from the Lady Godiva legend...but I digress... British found out, I guess through Ultra, that it was going to be bombed. Telling the inhabitants would have saved many lives, but (possibly) alerted the Germans that Enigma had been broken. British made the correct choice: Let the city get bombed without (much?) warning. The value of keeping the broken-ness of Ultra a secret far outweighed the value of Coventry.) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMQlC2fqHVDBboB2dAQGfpgP+NloVapAgqC3NxGg7TcVMnx+Q1Cmu2B/w Alp8q6uFvWsRqutFZ2+oDElHFxnZiMwZ0sgJkP0xG57TGoRob/DHY1h3+/NN9sYi KApzJHaElMrPFzwgMRLHNOBU/SQ3GsYDA2i4hWZM5ojsqXJQ7H7ov5FFJLGdV1u1 cOb/mUN8q9Y= =SRGU -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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PIDAHO and EUDORA PRO 2.2
by jdoe-0007＠alpha.c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In response to the "what has John Doe got that PIDAHO doesn't" messages I tried to PIDAHO v2.6b. I am unable to make it work. Messages from PIDAHO can not be sent to the selected and OnLine EUDORA PRO application. I also suspect that it has something to do with the fact PIDAHO is a 16bit app and EUDORA PRO v2.2 is 32bit. I am running it on a WIN95 internal tcp/ip stack to a dial up ppp connection. Any help and or advice would be sincerely appreciated. John Doe -0007

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Re: RANT: When hi-tech is a hinderance (freedom w/in limits)
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:48 AM 1/28/96 +0100, Anonymous wrote: > > A short 'rant' on techno-dinosaurism... > > Or look back to the 13th century when European soldiers were > high-tech wearing tons of armor and used cross bows. it was > imposing high-tech for the time, but they couldn't move fast or > fire arrows quickly... and they were skagmeat for Mongols > who were comparatively low-tech. This is incorrect: The Mongols had superior technology to the people they conquered. In particular Mongol arrows could penetrate armor more effectively than anybody else's arrows, and Mongol siege engines could level city walls far more effectively than anybody else's siege engine. It might well seem strange that nomads had higher technology, but urban civilization of that era was in a twilight era and suffered great technological stagnation and regression. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Netscape, CAs, and Verisign
by Alex Strasheim 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm a big fan of Netscape and their products, and I think they do a good job of addressing the interests of their customers and the public at large with respect to crypto issues. But it's starting to become apparent that there's a fairly serious problem with Certification Authorities and SSL. The problem is simple enough: sites with certificates from one of the CAs that are preconfigured in Netscape have a tremendous advantage over sites with certs from other CAs, and it's expensive and difficult to get a cert if you're running an alternative server like ApacheSSL. This problem is going to get a lot worse when X509 client authentication becomes more popular. Netscape needs to address the situation. It's just not practical or desireable for one company (Verisign) to have a stranglehold on certificates. I'd like to see a less centralized CA that's tied into the existing system of notaries. The idea is to make it necessary to spoof a notary in order to spoof the CA. That won't make spoofing the CA impossible (nothing will), but it will make spoofing the CA illegal. A notary could apply to the CA for the right to work as an agent, for a nominal fee (<$100/year). Only notaries could be agents. If a person wants a certificate, they'd come in and present ID and a key to the notary/agent. The person would have to present a form document stating that he's requesting the cert. The notary would stamp the form and affix a signature to the key which would enable it to be processed automatically by the CA. Fees for the whole procedure ought to be less than $30. The CA ought to operate off of the fees from the agents as a non-profit organization, and the agents ought to keep the fees paid by the people requesting the certificates. Would any of the lawyers on the list be willing to comment on whether or not it's possible or practical to tie a CA into the notary system? Does anyone have any thoughts as to how difficult/risky spoofing my CA is compared to spoofing Netscape or Verisign? I could put up a server and I think I know a laywer who would help me set up a non-profit organiation on a shoestring, but I don't want to do it if the plan is impractical. Morevover, although I don't think it's reasonable to expect Netscape to agree to include a non-existent CA in their browsers sight unseen, at the same time it doesn't seem smart to sink money into setting up the CA without some indication from Netscape that they're willing to give the idea good faith consideration.

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Re: German service cuts Net access
by Damaged Justice 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To momentarily flog a dead horse, banning content only makes it more desirable. Fortunately, the economic aspect doesn't seem to hold true for now; i.e., when real world objects are banned, they become more expensive to access (cf. the artificially inflated prices of heroin, cocaine, LSD, etc). Information, OTOH, so far does not seem subject to this cause-and-effect rule. Italics: So Far. The less regulated and more diverse the net becomes, the more the relative prices for commodities (disk space, CPU cycles, bandwidth) will accurately reflect their "true" value at any given moment. Anyway, my original point was just to remind everyone of what they should already know: namely, that people may not care about not doing something until they are told that they cannot, at which point they will move heaven and earth to Do the Deed. Statists (and a lot of child psychologists) call it "obstinate" or "defiant". ObAside: If you haven't yet, read the latest DSM (the holy writ of the so-called "mental health" profession). Ugly stuff. Who is allowed to define "normal"? Who profits from the creation of such definitions and labelling of individuals? -- http://yakko.cs.wmich.edu/~frogfarm ...for the best in unapproved information Tell your friends 'n neighbors you read this on the evil pornographic Internet "Where one burns books, one will also burn people eventually." -Heinrich Heine People and books aren't for burning. No more Alexandrias, Auschwitzs or Wacos.

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