- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Nuclear Weapons Material
by dance＠cicero.spc.uchicago.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I wonder why the issue of bomb parts is now being given such a >huge push in the press? For one thing, Germany has been going ballistic because of the sheer number of people trying to smuggle Uranium/Plutonium from the ex-Soviet Union across its borders for sale on the world market. The Christian Science Monitor had a good article on this last week sometime. _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ Disobedience is the true _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ foundation of liberty. _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ The obedient must be slaves. _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ "Civil Disobedience" _/ (Thoreau)

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Re: Nuclear Weapons Material
by David K. Merriman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >Occasionally coverage in the press does reflect events in the real >world. >-- >Jim Dixon > Christ, don't let the press find out they screwed up like that - otherwise, we'll *never* hear another bit of Real News (tm) again! Dave "I wish I wasn't joking so much" Merriman - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Finger merriman(a)metronet.com for PGP/RIPEM public keys and fingerprints. Unencrypted Email may be ignored without notice to sender. PGP preferred. Remember: It is not enough to _obey_ Big Brother; you must also learn to *love* Big Brother.

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A couple comments: (1) They are not offering any form of encryption -- seem to feel that the intervening Internet mail spools are secure from would-be blackmailers. (2) Are suicide hotline communications, like psychiatric counseling, privileged communications? In what jurisdictions? ------------------------------ Subject: Support for the Suicidal - Full Launch - jo(a)samaritans.org Press Release August 17, 1994 The Samaritans are a non-religious charity offering emotional support to the suicidal and despairing. A test of "Help By E-mail" launched on July 14, 1994 proved so successful that an Internet domain is now open and is reached by mailing jo(a)samaritans.org. The E-mail service is run from Cheltenham, England, and is reached from anywhere with Internet access. At the launch, Mike Haines, the Director said: "During the test month we received over 200 messages. Many were from well wishers, journalists and academics but there were around 15 very desperate people as well. The need for a full launch of our service with an easier address was amply demonstrated." The Samaritans have been offering support to the suicidal and despairing for over 40 years by phone, visit and letter. Callers are guaranteed absolute confidentiality and retain the right to make their own decisions including the decision to end their life. Samaritans are carefully selected and prepared for this work (for which they are not paid). Those working with E-mail have additional training. Volunteers read and reply to mail every day of the year. A nominal end date of December 31, 1994 has been set but initial results have been so encouraging that it is likely to run indefinitely. The idea of an Internet service was born when a volunteer was exploring the UK based CIX conferencing service. Here, he discovered the "suicidehelp" self help group and Newsnet groups such as "alt.support.depression". After discussions with The Samaritans General Office it was decided to try offering a service from Cheltenham. The kind donation of a modem by US Robotics was a great help as was the assistance of staff at Compulink Information Exchange (CIX). The Samaritans of Cheltenham and District 3 Clarence Road CHELTENHAM Glos England Emergency phone: +44 242 515777 Press enquiries: +44 452 854017 E-mail: jo(a)samaritans.org (samaritans(a)cix.compulink.co.uk retained) Anonymous E-mail: samaritans(a)anon.penet.fi (Extremely Slow!) <end>

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Re: payment & tents
by Hacking In Progress 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 8 Jul 97 at 23:21, Secret Squirrel wrote: > Can you please tell me where tents (for 10+ people) > can be bought/hired in the region of Amsterdam ? > Some of us are eagerly trying to organise this aspect > of the trip, and would welcome pointers. Try for rent: In Purmerend, Netherlands call 02994-20999 They rent army tents. But you'll have to arrange everything with them we can't do that. Expect around 350 guilders rent and about 1000 for deposit. Maurice > Also, I cannot read the [INLINE] phone numbers to call > with my credit card number - can you please publish > both answers on your mailing list ? Call in the Netherlands to 31 20 6263438 cu, Maurice Wessling -- Hacking in Progress 8-9-10 August Tents, TCP/IP, Jolt and politics http://www.hip97.nl/

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Re: Nuclear Weapons Material
by jkbacon＠pacifier.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I was under the impression that the most common techniquoe for >creating armour-piercing munitions was to use shaped-charges. While >depleted uranium has it's uses (being, as someone said, rather dense), >mass alone will not get through everything. A shaped charge will get >through more things more violently :) > Depleted uranium is used in armor piercing rounds for three reasons: 1. High density 2. High hardness - not quite that of tungsten, but its up there. 3. Upon impact it ignites (like magnesium) and burns. The burning uranium melts steel and also produces uranium oxide in the process. If this isn't "violent" enough, try fission. Kirk

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Re: Nuclear Weapons Material
by mpd＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Dixon <jdd(a)aiki.demon.co.uk> writes: > I was told by what I considered to be reliable sources that > plutonium was extremely toxic. Upon reflection, I am sure > that this is the word that was used: toxic, not radioactive. Plutonium-239 emits alpha particles, which are helium nuclei, at an energy of approximately 5 MeV. Such particles are bulky and can be stopped by a few centimeters of air, or a thin piece of paper or metal foil. In order to cause damage, alpha emitters like plutonium must come in intimate contact with a material, such as the tissues of your lungs or bones or the inside of your favorite memory chip. A billionth of a gram of plutonium inhaled or swallowed is something to seriously worry about, but you can hold a lump of the stuff in your hand as long as it is covered with a leakproof cladding or vitrified into a ceramic. It is in this sense that plutonium is extremely toxic and hazardous to the environment, while at the same time not being particularly radioactive. Heavy shielding is not required between you and it. Of course once fissionable fuels are irradiated, they become extremely radioactive due to a wide spectrum of short-lived fission byproducts and then require precautions when they are handled. > By "clad", do you mean coated in lead? No - the desired properties of cladding are resistance to corrosion and heat, as well as a low absorption cross section for thermal neutrons. We're talking about materials like zirconium and iridium here, as well as specialized alloys of stainless steel. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd(a)netcom.com $ via Finger. $

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kudos to Hal Finney for his descriptions of Stefan Brand's offline cash. As with other offline cash protocols it contains the following assumption: > Let's call the user Irving, and > the number which encodes his identity (it might just be his bank account > number in this case) we will call I. What happens when we've caught Irving double spending (or million spending?) Is it guaranteed that Irving will have enough in his bank account to cover the fraud? I don't see any way to guarantee that except for absurdly large security deposits. Also, are bank accounts required to be in True Names so that multi spenders can be caught and punished? If so, how do we prevent the use of numbered accounts, Duncan Frissel's nom de guerre accounts, etc. and do we really want to set up that kind of True Name infrastructure? Also, what about stolen coins? If Irving can succeed in stealing a coin from Jane without her knowledge, Irving can spend it untraceably as many times as he can get away with (perhaps thousands or even millions, depending on what security precautions we layer above the offline cash), and Jane gets fingered. On the other hand, Jane might simply give Irving some coins, plausibly claim they were stolen, and split the proceeds from Irving's spending spree. In general, multi spending might occur because of accident, malice, or a combination of those two factors. How do we distinguish between accident and malice to determine liability, reputation loss and/or punishment?

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Re: FCC Regulation (Challenging Majority Whim)
by blancw＠pylon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[more excruciatingly enlightening grandiloquence] Responding to msg by Phil Karn: . . . . how can one create a government that rises above the petty illiberalism of the people it governs to protect the rights of the individual? ................................................... It appears that being given a position in charge of upholding abstract ideals makes some people forget whose interest or which ideal it is that they are supporting, and they take too seriously the opportunity to lord over others. When someone has been given responsibility over others, they seem to suddenly lose their perspective and propose all sorts of things contrary to what they claimed to think prior to assuming that office. I think there will come a time when business enterprises will completely replace 'government' functions. Most people see both society and political systems as means to practical ends. These two organizations have pragmatic functions which individuals see as advantageous to their own comfort and advancement. When neither of these deliver on the promise of the desired benefits, all of those who were depending upon them complain that their expectations were betrayed. It remains to 'overthrow' these organizations or raise hell at least, but still conditions remain largely unsatisfactory. A business enterprise is more precisely a tool for the realization of the kind of benefits which people are looking for from each other. It also has the advantage of flexibility - it can be modified to suit or disbanded altogether without affecting uninvolved parties in the same way as must happen when attempting to "improve" a society or a government. A company does not recognize an individual in the same way that a society or a government does in terms of a comprehensive ideal, but it can better provide the means to achieve personal goals & ambitions, and I think is thus better suited as a tool for providing (read 'creating') what individuals could want from the world while living in co-existence with strangers. Blanc

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The Trouble With Crypto
by blancw＠pylon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by nobody(a)ds1.wu-wien.ac.at: 1 >if [crypto] only >needs to be used once in a while, there will be no >good reason to implement some of the more interesting >protocols, or implement the "maximum strength" >possible. 2 >For the overwhelming majority of >people, the benefits of "digital cash" will not be >worth the time and trouble over "digital cash with >anonimity removed". . . 3 >As for encrypting all email, much like people use >envelopes? Be honest, there isn't sufficient cause to >warrant the time and trouble. 4 >Nor is there sufficient cause to warrant the time and >trouble of signing messages sent to mailing lists or >usenet. . . . 5 >Nor is there sufficient cause to warrant the time and >trouble of communicating via anonymous remailers, >except for say folks like Pr0duct Cypher. 6 >Nor is there sufficient cause to warrant the time and >trouble for banks and stores to offer digital cash. 7 >As for dc-nets, give me a solid example why you ever >need to communicate with one. 8 I see a limited deployment, and almost no >fundamental restructuring of society. 9 >. . . I suppose a discussion about >atomic bombs will likely be of greater impact on our >future than crypto anarchy will. 10 >Cypherpunks write code, but if there is sufficient >cause to warrant the time and trouble! ............................................................... You might be right, having accrued at least 10 reasons why the list discussions do not altogether convince of the importance of using encryption as a matter of course or for the re-structuring of society. The choice to use crypto is a little different from the sense of wanting to use it from desperation; I think it is the difference between determining factors: when it is the individual themselves who decide to employ the tool for whatever reason they have to either use it or not at their discretion, or when the circumstance seems to dictate for the person what they must do - that they must go to desperate means to ensure privacy, from a perceived threat which demands that they hide their communication. One of the important issues regarding the use of encryption is not necessarily whether it is used or not as a matter of course, but rather the controversy over the source of the permission to use it as well as the imposed obligation to participate in self-incriminating applications of it. i.e. do individuals have the sovereign right to use tools which result in a division between public & private existence, or are they obligated to keeping their lives accessible to intervening governing agencies? To me a cumbersome tool would require sufficient cause to use it. However, I would appreciate its existence in case of emergency, if there was no better one available, and I would protest the idea that it was anyone else's prerogative to decide for me when it was an appropriate occasion to do so. Is crypto only a toy with destructive implications for governments & societies, or a tool of subjugation with destructive implications for individuals? If only cypherpunks or only government officionados made the decisions about it the answers would be easier to predict. But they are not the only ones involved, and it is my understanding that not all future developments will be determined on this list. Blanc

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Re: In Search of Genuine DigiCash
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:45 PM 8/27/94 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >Eric Hughes says: >> >If there were already a fully identified digital money system, >> >> Is there one? >> >> I don't think there is any digital money system at all, neither >> anonymous nor fuly identified. >> >> There certainly are digital funds transfer systems, almost all fully >> identified. These are not digital money systems, although they may be >> precursors. > >The U.S. banking system is largely a "digital money system" in the >sense that the bulk of the money in the system is represented in book >entry form in computer systems and has no other existance. I suppose what I meant was is there any fully identified offline digital cash system in the literature. I haven't heard of any from secondary sources, like around here, or from my cursory reading of Schneier, for instance. The penalty for imprecision on a mail-list of scientists is blown bandwidth. My apologies. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

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