- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Fantasy quotes & libel
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:30 AM 1/27/97 -0600, Jim Choate wrote: >Hi, > >After review of the material I forwarded by request it is clear that >'fantasy' quotes are libel provided: [gibberish deleted] You're mixing up elements of a prima facie case for libel, defenses, and standards for liability and damages. You're missing some elements, and adding some extra (contradictory) elements. You're also ignoring at least two other potential causes of action where a quote is misattributed, as well as trying to simultaneously discuss criminal and civil actions. Your summary of defamation law is not an accurate one. Your original message suggested that misattribution could be criminal. While this may be true in some jurisdictions (modulo the First Amendment), no prosecutor is going to waste his or her time with this sort of silliness. Also, go watch _The People v. Larry Flynt_ and meditate on the reason why Jerry Falwell lost his libel claim in the trial court. -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles(a)netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |

1 0

Fantasy quotes & libel
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, After review of the material I forwarded by request it is clear that 'fantasy' quotes are libel provided: * the person being quoted is not a public figure. On a 'private' mailing list like the cypherpunks this is a given unless similar statements can be found in the public records. * the section added to the original quote is not clearly seperated or otherwise dilineated such that a reader will be able to tell what the original quote was and the extrapolation by the 'editor' is. * there is clear intent to effect the perception of the original authors reputation in a negative or otherwise harmful manner. * the 'fantasy' quote is not clearly marked as the opinion of the editor. While quoting persons with editing is allowed under the 1st Amendment as understood by the courts the attributation of extrapolations by a third party (meaning a party other than the original author and the reader) as 'true' quotes of the original author is not. 'Truth' is usually ascribed as protection against libel, however, opinions are not 'true', they are opinions not facts as accepted by a court. With the current 'editorial control' as provided by the cypherpunks mailing list the mailing list operator/censor may also be held in some situations accountable as well. This occurs because the relationship between list operator and the quoter is similar to that of editor and reporter in a newspaper. For the quoter to get his quote distributed the list operator must ok it. The reasoning used is that the editor 'should have known' the boundaries and applied them. Not only is ignorance not an excuse but neither is negligence. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

2 1

Re: libsln.htm -- Is Libel a Crime?
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Cc: to Dr. John Martin Grubor, Law Systems Institute, Medical-Cannabis Assn] Jim Choate wrote: > > > Landskroner, LTD. [INLINE] > > Libel / Slander I am not sure if you posted this information in response to my request to cite a statute that would prove that libel is a crime. Me> Jim Choate wrote: Me> > Me> > Me> > Me> > Are you aware that attributing statements in print to a party when that Me> > party did not write them is a crime? Me> Me> cite the statute These postings do not prove that libel is a crime. It is because libel is not a crime. Libel is a tort, and unlike with crime, the government cannot initiate a legal action against someone for libel. Only injured (libeled) individuals and not the government can sue in a libel case. I would appreciate if someone more knowledgeable about the law could comment on this. I may be mistaken. igor > Libel / Slander is an area that involves defamatory oral or written > statements containing false and misleading material which causes > damage or injury to reputation and/or monetary loss. > > We provide a quick review of their success stories , some media and > newspaper articles about what they've been able to do for their > clients, and published articles about this topic. > > Please e-mail us with questions about our service! Landskroner and > Phillips > [INLINE] > > Nationally Recognized Consumer Trial Advocates. > Over 100 Years combined experience in both State and Federal Courts. > > 55 Public Square, Tenth Floor, Cleveland Ohio 44113-1904 > Phone: (216) 241-7000 > Fax: (216) 241-3135 > Toll Free: (888) 241-7001 > [INLINE] > - Igor.

1 0

Re: New Netscape bug (in version 1.12)
by Jeff Weinstein 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Oct 4, 11:00am, sameer wrote: > Subject: Re: New Netscape bug (in version 1.12) > Isn't there a resolver #define or something in limits.h called > MAXHOSTNAMELEN ? Something like that? (Perhaps not, but that's what I > recall..) We are using MAXHOSTNAMELEN if it exists, both in 2.0, and in the security patch that we shipped. If it doesn't exist we just assume 64. As a quick sample, on sunos and irix it is 64, and on solaris it is 256. On sunos and irix it is defined in sys/param.h, and on solaris it is defined in netdb.h. I wasn't able to find any mention of it or any other limits on the host names passed in to gethostbyname() in the man pages on any of these systems. --Jeff Jeff Weinstein - Electronic Munitions Specialist Netscape Communication Corporation jsw(a)netscape.com - http://home.netscape.com/people/jsw Any opinions expressed above are mine.

1 0

Re: libsln.htm -- Is Libel a Crime?
by aga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

drgrubor is now at the pgh.org instead of aol.com On Mon, 27 Jan 1997, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: > [Cc: to Dr. John Martin Grubor, Law Systems Institute, Medical-Cannabis Assn] > > Jim Choate wrote: > > > > > > Landskroner, LTD. [INLINE] > > > > Libel / Slander > > I am not sure if you posted this information in response to my request > to cite a statute that would prove that libel is a crime. > > Me> Jim Choate wrote: > Me> > > Me> > > Me> > > Me> > Are you aware that attributing statements in print to a party when that > Me> > party did not write them is a crime? > Me> > Me> cite the statute > > > These postings do not prove that libel is a crime. It is because libel > is not a crime. Libel is a tort, and unlike with crime, the government > cannot initiate a legal action against someone for libel. Only injured > (libeled) individuals and not the government can sue in a libel case. > That is correct. Libel is a tort and not a crime. > I would appreciate if someone more knowledgeable about the law could > comment on this. I may be mistaken. > > igor No, you are correct Igor. Libel is written defamation, and defamation is NEVER a crime in the USA. It may be in other countries, but not the good old USA. > > > Libel / Slander is an area that involves defamatory oral or written > > statements containing false and misleading material which causes > > damage or injury to reputation and/or monetary loss. > > And it is tough to prove. Just where was this article posted at? > > We provide a quick review of their success stories , some media and > > newspaper articles about what they've been able to do for their > > clients, and published articles about this topic. > > > > Please e-mail us with questions about our service! Landskroner and > > Phillips > > [INLINE] > > > > Nationally Recognized Consumer Trial Advocates. > > Over 100 Years combined experience in both State and Federal Courts. > > These guys do not know what they are talking about. > > 55 Public Square, Tenth Floor, Cleveland Ohio 44113-1904 > > Phone: (216) 241-7000 > > Fax: (216) 241-3135 > > Toll Free: (888) 241-7001 > > [INLINE] > > > > > > - Igor. > The assholes are not Criminal Lawyers, and I will give them a call to check them out... I left a mesage with them. and told the InterNet lawyer to call be back. This is just a Civil Law firm looking for business. -aga

1 0

OTP security
by Rick Osborne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was thinking about the thread we had a week or so ago about OTPs. Say I'm going to burn a CD of what I think are cryptographically random bits, but somehow I end up with part of my stream being predictable (say every 16th bit). What does this do to the security of my CD? _________ o s b o r n e @ g a t e w a y . g r u m m a n . c o m _________ Sam Jones <samjones(a)leo.unm.edu> on the Nine Types of User: Shaman - "Last week, when the moon was full, the clouds were thick, and formahaut was above the horizon, I typed f77, and lo, it did compile." Advantages: Gives insight into primative mythology. Disadvantages: Few scons are anthropology majors. Symptoms: Frequent questions about irrelavent objects. Real Case: One user complained that all information on one of their disks got erased (as Norton Utilities showed nothing but empty sectors, I suspect nothing had ever been on it). Reasoning that the deleted information went *somewhere*, they wouldn't shut up until the scon checked four different disks for the missing information.

1 0

Re: THE NEW YORKER on the V-Chip
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:48 AM 1/24/97 -0800, Greg Broiles wrote: ... >While I think it's always useful to consider unintended (or otherwise >unexpected) consequences, Gladwell's argument sent a shiver down my spine >with its shameless paternalism. This bit (from roughly the middle of his >piece) is what I found creepiest: > >"According to one recent study, somewhere between twenty and twenty-seven >per cent of the parents of four-to six-year-olds never restrict their >children's viewing hours, never decide what programs they can watch, never >change the channel when something objectionable comes on, and never forbid >the watching of certain programs. It has apparently never occurred to these >parents that television can be a bad influence, and it strains credulity to >think that the advent of the V-chip is going to wake them up. Yet their >families - mainly lower-income, ill-educated - are the very ones most in >need of protection from television violence. Here is a rearranging effect >with a vengeance: not only does the V-chip make television worse, it makes >television worse precisely for those already most vulnerable to its excesses." > >I understood Gladwell's point to be, in essence, that the V-chip will allow >TV producers to generate higher levels of morally impure content which he >fears will pollute the minds of poor children because their parents are too >stupid to protect them from the harmful content and too poor to buy new >televisions which will include V-chips. ... What this means is, subsidized v-chip upgrades, and v-chips turned on by default. Now to watch the really good stuff you have to subscribe to "tv-un v-chipped" Sorry, I couldn't resist the pot shot.

1 0

BAA_bab
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1-26-96. TWP: "Police Search of AOL Files Divides the On-Line World." Police descended on the company's headquarters Monday to perform the first such search ever of America Online records. Police are enthusiastic about the potentially incriminating information stored in computers. "It's a bit chilling, especially if you consider the idea of police pulling up an instant profile on you with the punch of a couple buttons," Woolie baa-ed to Babe. 1-26-96. WSJ: "Internet Racial Hatred Case Investigated." The Mannheim prosecutor's office is investigating CompuServe Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Online service for inciting racial hatred, a crime in Germany, because they provide access to the Internet, where a Canadian neo-Nazi has set up a home page. Although Mr. Zuendel lives in Toronto, "because it's available over the Internet, it also can be called up in Germany," the official said. "Then the scene of the crime is all of Germany." BAA_bab

1 0

Re: Crypto Exports, Europe, and Conspiracy Theories
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:06 PM 1/26/96, Alex Strasheim wrote: >Why aren't foreign companies flooding America with strong crypto? Well, >there are clearly pressures of the sort Tim described at work. But there >are other factors as well: Let me emphasize that I was raising the issue as food for thought, as an obvious question. Put another way, there are a lot of non-U.S. cryptographers, Cypherpunks, and programmers. They should be looking at the (putative) $60 billion a year cost of the ITARS as evidence that a market for strong crypto probably exists. (I will be interested to see what non-U.S. code gets developed over the next year or two, and how the U.S. government reacts to its importation into the U.S. The main RSA patents will soon be expiring, those that don't get thrown out in the wake of the RSA-Cylink-MIT-Stanford-PKP-Schlafly-etc. brouhaha, that is.) >o Crypto isn't at the top of the list of factors when people pick > software. Do most of use use 40-bit downloadable Netscape's ... Maybe not important for casual users, but there's that $60 billion a year figure again, so somebody cares. And digital commerce is front page news almost every day, with security a major hot topic. >o Most foreign countries aren't wired as well as we in the US are. > Most people in Switzerland don't have cheap easy access to the net, Though of course many countries are extremely well-wired. The Scandinavian countries, for example. And the U.K. (e.g., demon, one of the earliest full-service ISPs). But I don't want to get into a debate about numbers of subscribers, etc. My main point was that crypto tool development has traditionally been possible with fairly small teams...so I wonder why more development has not happened in Europe and Asia, given the apparently compelling advantages of not having to worry about the U.S. ITARs! (That this "apparently" may not actually be so real is of course my main "food for thought.") > for example. That's one reason that the web, a good Swiss idea, has > been developed primarily in this country. America has more people > thinking about the net than other countries do, and it's not > surprising that we're out in front in net software. A minor correction. Tim Berners-Lee is British, and was only working at CERN, which effectively straddles the French-Swiss border, near Geneva. And he is now, or was recently, working in New York. I would have a hard time calling his work "a Swiss idea." Obviously many of the ideas that go into the Web (hypertext, a la Bush and Nelson, connectivity, ISPs, etc.) are heavily American-based or -influenced. >Digicash is probably the first significant crypto product to be exported >to America. It's not very popular yet, but I think that most of us here >agree that it is, in potential at least, as significant as >Mosaic/Netscape. It's important to note that this extremely important >product couldn't have been produced here, patents aside. Transaction >systems need to be international, and our rules make America an unsuitable >place from which to launch tranaction software. I agree about Digicash (and I cited it as an example in my first article). However, the lack of available crypto for export, and the cloudy situation about Chaum's patents (*) has made Digicash almost a footnote in the race for digital commerce, with a dozen other more visible product announcements in the news. (* I wrote up my views on the problems with software patents, having to do with the inability to "meter usage," in contrast with physical objects such as microprocessors.) --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."

2 1

Re: Rejection policy of the Cypherpunks mailing list
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk > To: "Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM" <dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com> > Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 19:12:05 +0000 > Subject: Re: Rejection policy of the Cypherpunks mailing list > Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Priority: normal Can anyone tell me if my previous message with the above headers (end of message quoted in below) was sent to the censored list or to cypherpunks-flames? - I subscribe to the unmoderated version of the list so do not get to see what goes where.... > I do not have the resources to run such an unmoderated list but I > hope someone on this list does and is good enough to start such a > list, cypherpunks is a shell of what it once was. > > Also, please note this message will be junked onto cypherpunks-flames > even though it contains no flames or flame bait because it dares to > criticise the censorship of the list (once again Sandy, I give you an > opportunity to prove me wrong). Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

1 0