- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Numbers we cannot talk about
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > I know that Standard mathematical axioms yields lots of interesting > > results, but when it talks of the infinite and we are dealing > > with a practical subject like cryptography or even physics it > > should not be taken too seriously. (With respect to uncountable sets.) > > Some of the applications of these theories are very relevant. For > example, a theorem that proves that it is impossible to write a program > that would determine if any other program would stop or loop forever, is > very relevant and interesting. Absolutely, something does not have to be practical to be interesting, Igor`s example of Cantors double slash argument (useful for example in AI research) is something that seems very abstract until we find a use for it, and most abstract mathematical concepts and theorems of this kind do eventually come into use by some other class of scientists. 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"

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[NOISE] Re: Dr. Vulis' social engineering experiment
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:35 PM 1/20/97 -0800, Toto wrote: > In short, I believe that if the issue of free speech is not one of >the central issues on the CypherPunks list, then the list is merely >one more heartless, unfeeling extension of the Great Machine which >is grinding inexorably forward toward the day when we will all have >its numbers tattoo'd on our forearms. That machine will be the SIXTH model made by a little firm on the thirteenth floor of an office building. It will operate on several thousand 6X86 processors. It will operate either on MSDOS 6.0 or UNIX V6R4, depending on how soon it is completed. And it won't be our forearms, we can cover those with sleeves. It will be our brow. (please excuse the spelling).

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Re: Dr. Vulis' social engineering experiment
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:35 AM 1/21/97 -0500, Jane Jefferson wrote: >Governments, however, are made up of the very same people who claim >to require these rights to privacy. Those people create, codify and >enforce the laws. The problem is that the people who find themselves in >this position of power are not always the most moral or concerned with >the best interest of the majority. > >And fiendishly, it is the very chaos and anarchy and random chance >espoused by proponents of the cypherpunk philosophy that allows these >people to gain this power, unchecked! > >Thus, the real problem ends up being not "how to control the government >so that the government doesn't control us", but "how to deal with the >government when it goes into control-freak mode". That it will go into >such a mode is a given -- based on human nature and history. This is >a fundamental cycle of evolution and human behavior. We have to face >the fact that humans are predators, and as long as we are, the >cycle of this behavior will continue. Also, remember, that those people willing to put up with the responsibility of leadership are more often more extreme control freaks than the rest of the population. Persons asked on the street if they wanted to be president of the United States have often said no way, yet every four years we have at least two people willing to put up with the hassle in order to be the most powerful man in the country. What we need is a leader who is willing to put up with it for h[is/er] people/cause, but has no desire to stay any longer than absolutely necessary. Then we need another just like h[im/er] for the next term.

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RE: Dr. Vulis' social engineering experiment
by Blake Coverett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Toto writes: > Just because an individual claims, rightly or wrongly, to be a > big defender of freedom, involving himself or herself in causes > like those of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, does not take > away their right to stomp on anyone who disagrees with them on > their own private list. Of course > To claim otherwise would be as ludicrous as denying the person > running the Anonymizer the right to expose the identities of the > people he feels might perhaps be abusing his private system, or > using it for nefarious purposes, such as hiding their identity > from others. I suspect you intended that to be sarcasm, but to be honest I wouldn't have caught it at all if I wasn't already aware of your views in this area. The person hosting the Anonymizer *does* have the right to do exactly this. I don't believe they would do so, but that is a reputation issue not a question of my rights. If I had entered into a contract with the provider of a service of this nature then I would have a 'right' to expect their contractual obligations to be fulfilled, but that is not the case with the Anonymizer and certainly not with toad.com. regards, -Blake (freedom of the press for those with presses)

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Re: Dr. Vulis' social engineering experiment
by Alec 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:27 AM 1/21/97 -0600, you wrote: :Jane Jefferson wrote: :> :> The heart and soul of the problem is that "sin", "freedom", "good", :> and "evil" are abstract concepts which fluctuate from individual to :> individual. : :An excellent point, Jane. Worth remembering. : : - Igor. Not only from individual to individual. Please consider the changes in the concepts of "sin", "freedom", "good", and "evil" which occur over <italic>time even within the same individual</italic>; to wit the on and off again love affair with our nation's past "enemies; individual responses to drug use especially alcohol; premarital sex (ok for me but not my daughter). This constant flux within both society and individual makes creation and implementation of rules extremely difficult and hazardous. Alec

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Re: Dr. Vulis' social engineering experiment
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:35 AM 1/21/97 -0500, Jane Jefferson wrote: >Governments, however, are made up of the very same people who claim >to require these rights to privacy. Those people create, codify and >enforce the laws. The problem is that the people who find themselves in >this position of power are not always the most moral or concerned with >the best interest of the majority. > >And fiendishly, it is the very chaos and anarchy and random chance >espoused by proponents of the cypherpunk philosophy that allows these >people to gain this power, unchecked! > >Thus, the real problem ends up being not "how to control the government >so that the government doesn't control us", but "how to deal with the >government when it goes into control-freak mode". That it will go into >such a mode is a given -- based on human nature and history. This is >a fundamental cycle of evolution and human behavior. We have to face >the fact that humans are predators, and as long as we are, the >cycle of this behavior will continue. Also, remember, that those people willing to put up with the responsibility of leadership are more often more extreme control freaks than the rest of the population. Persons asked on the street if they wanted to be president of the United States have often said no way, yet every four years we have at least two people willing to put up with the hassle in order to be the most powerful man in the country. What we need is a leader who is willing to put up with it for h[is/er] people/cause, but has no desire to stay any longer than absolutely necessary. Then we need another just like h[im/er] for the next term.

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Re: Newt's phone calls
by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> wrote in article <5bp18k$1cc(a)life.ai.mit.edu>... > GSM encrypts only the links to the station - the traffic goes in the > clear through the station. Plus A5 (crypto algorithm used in GSM) is > weak, 40 bits of effective key space. > > It could be worse to have poor crypto, than no crypto, I disagree for two reasons, first there is a big difference between having poor locks and no locks. Most locks can be picked by an expert, they are effective against many theifs however. Second if everyone in the world was using 40 bit email encryption it would prevent most of the "promiscuous" interception of communications. The danger in weak crypto is thinking that it is strong crypto. GSM is weak crypto but stops the type of snooping the Martins engaged in. If you know not to talk about something secret on one then low crypto is better than having a signal anyone can pick up on a device from radio shack. Phill

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Re: Keyword scanning/speech recognition (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 17:11:24 -0600 > From: Rick Smith <smith(a)sctc.com> > > simultaneously. Ahhh. The joys of microcoding for a 74S181 ALU. Now there is a blast from the past. I was working at UT Austin in '82 on my EE. I had to work part-time at the school for a non-classified project for the DoD (only way they would let students work on projects on the main campus). We were building a non-Von Neumann RTL (mono-bus computer) based router for the ARPANet using the 181's clocked at 40MHz (fastest they were reliable at) as the ALU's behind the registers. Couldn't find a way to saturate the machine (had 64 serial ports driving 64 Z80's @ 4MHz sitting on the RTL bus as addresses registers) on I/O. One of the guys working on the project was taking an electronic music class from one of the members of Journey (who was teaching a 1 time 1 semester class on electronic music) so we ended up using it as a synthesizer. Worked damn well. Don't know what the DoD did with it afterwards. Thanks for the reminder of some fond memories. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Re: Keyword scanning/speech recognition (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 17:11:24 -0600 > From: Rick Smith <smith(a)sctc.com> > > simultaneously. Ahhh. The joys of microcoding for a 74S181 ALU. Now there is a blast from the past. I was working at UT Austin in '82 on my EE. I had to work part-time at the school for a non-classified project for the DoD (only way they would let students work on projects on the main campus). We were building a non-Von Neumann RTL (mono-bus computer) based router for the ARPANet using the 181's clocked at 40MHz (fastest they were reliable at) as the ALU's behind the registers. Couldn't find a way to saturate the machine (had 64 serial ports driving 64 Z80's @ 4MHz sitting on the RTL bus as addresses registers) on I/O. One of the guys working on the project was taking an electronic music class from one of the members of Journey (who was teaching a 1 time 1 semester class on electronic music) so we ended up using it as a synthesizer. Worked damn well. Don't know what the DoD did with it afterwards. Thanks for the reminder of some fond memories. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Seismic Crypto
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a NYT report today on a "mysterious" blast in the Australian outback in 1993, there's mention of "seismic weapons" and research on them by Nicholas Tesla in the 1930s. Would any of our weapons connoisseurs have more info on what these are and how they were supposed to work? Electrical, chemical, nuclear? That Aussie blast has still not been identified except that it was something in the nuclear weapon, earthquake or meteorite range. The Arum sect, which owned 500,000 acres in the viciniity, was a suspect for a while but later cleared, although it was looking into seismic weapons. Will send the story: WHA_the Or read it at www.nytimes.com

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