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Re: Public vs. Private Munitions
by Erle Greer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:25 AM 7/28/96 -0700, you wrote: >At 7:24 PM 7/27/96, Erle Greer wrote: > >> Theoretically, the government should only be have the resources to >>control commercially-available, public encryption systems. Who is to stop > >While I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a "commercially-available, >public encryption system," I think your point is incorrect. I didn't mean that I think that the govt should be allowed to control. I meant that govt would only be able to regulate commercial and/or public systems. They, of course, would have no say in the specs of my personally-written cryptosystem. >(My confusion is that a commercially-available system is not necessarily a >"public" system, if by public one means public domain. If one means >"published specifications," still not the case. Confusing.) Sorry about the confusion. Although I may have used the two terms loosely, I was trying to contrast commercial and public against something written in secret and not offered for govt approval. >Howver, the government cannot step in and "control" a >commercially-available product, by even the most liberal interpretations of >the commerce clause. "Tim's Pretty Flaky Snakeoil System," for example. I >can announce it, sell it, and the government is powerless to "control" it. >(Even if it were "public.") > >If by "public" you mean an NBS or NIST standard, like DES, then I suppose >the government can in some sense "control" it. (Even this is iffy, IMO, as >I know of no rules saying DES implementations must be approved by NIST or >anyone else.) > >>anyone from designing their own cryptosystem for personal use? If the >>government intercepted a transmission from this private cryptosystem, and >>could not decrypt it, would they assume that it must be considered >>munitions? Similarly, anyone could send uniformly-formatted random garble >>that could also be considered munitions, or at least waste the governments >>processing time. > >Most of the cryptosystems are not under the "control" of the government, >even by the standards of your first definition. Period. RSA is not a >government-controlled system, though it is both "commercially-available" >AND "public" (in that the spec and algorithm are clearly published). > >And the talk about "personal use" is misleading, IMO. It suggests that >government can and should regulate use for "business purposes" but not >personal uses. I disagree with this distinction. Absolutely not! Let me clarify that I feel that the govt should have no part in crypto regulation, be it commercial, public, private, business, etc. >> Why are we so worried about government regulation? Can't we just >>devise our own cryptosystems and just don't sell them or make them publicly >>available? > >You mean the way public key systems in general and RSA in particular were >invented and devised by non-government folks? After some responses and some thought, I have seen the error in my thinking. Having a secret, proprietary cryptosystem would loose the public-key benefit. It would be fine, I believe, for point-to-point communications though.

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Re: Public vs. Private Munitions
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:36 AM 7/28/96, Erle Greer wrote: >At 11:25 AM 7/28/96 -0700, you wrote: >>At 7:24 PM 7/27/96, Erle Greer wrote: >> >>> Theoretically, the government should only be have the resources to >>>control commercially-available, public encryption systems. Who is to stop >> >>While I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a "commercially-available, >>public encryption system," I think your point is incorrect. > >I didn't mean that I think that the govt should be allowed to control. I >meant that govt would only be able to regulate commercial and/or public >systems. They, of course, would have no say in the specs of my >personally-written cryptosystem. Your clarification does not improve things. The notion that the "govt would only be able to regulate commercial and/or public systems" is wrong. (There may be a very few situations involving product safety, fraud, etc....many of us disagree with even these interventions, of course.) Think of it this way: "govt would only be able to regulate commercial and/or public word processors." The government has no authority to "regulate" word processors, commercial or otherwise. >>(My confusion is that a commercially-available system is not necessarily a >>"public" system, if by public one means public domain. If one means >>"published specifications," still not the case. Confusing.) > >Sorry about the confusion. Although I may have used the two terms loosely, >I was trying to contrast commercial and public against something written in >secret and not offered for govt approval. The United States government does not receive software submissions "for govt approval." I really think you need to look into what the role of the U.S. government actually is, with regard to programs. (It is always important to remember that there are no laws whatsover about the types of software individuals or businesses may use, save for some specific laws about such things as racial discrimination, sexual harassment, taxes, etc. But no laws about crypto, word processors, etc. And the government has no "Sofware Approval Office.") I guess we will have to agree that we are unable to find a common basis for communication. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" 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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Public vs. Private Munitions
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:24 PM 7/27/96 -0500, Erle Greer <vagab0nd(a)sd.cybernex.net> wrote: > Theoretically, the government should only be have > the resources to control commercially-available, public > encryption systems. [...] > Why are we so worried about government regulation? > Can't we just devise our own cryptosystems and just don't > sell them or make them publicly available? Theoretically, the First Amendment says you can say or write anything you want. In practice, the Supremes have said it means far less than that; during some of their worst years they approved convicting people for speaking against the draft because it interfered with the US ability to conduct a war it hadn't yet gotten into, and they've generally held that commercial speech doesn't rate the same protection as political speech. Feh! Theoretically, on the other hand, the US Government has the power to regulate interstate commerce. (A bad idea, in my opinion, though taking that power away from the states was clearly good.) In practice, the Supremes have let the Congress get away with all sorts of abuses, like banning a farmer from growing grain on his own land and feeding it to his own hogs, and banning citizens from growing or manufacturing their own drugs because it's difficult to tell whether a given bunch of drugs was really grown in the state it's in or bought from out of state. Various government officials have taken the position that giving a university class on encryption is restricted by ITAR; Dan Bernstein's lawsuit against them is off to a very good start. This isn't even distributing products - this is discussing math. It's potentially illegal for me to even write the evil equations in this mail message, since it's going to foreigners. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # Dispel Authority!

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Re: Twenty Beautiful Women
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:54 AM 7/28/96, Mike Duvos wrote: >ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes: > > > Also, I would appreciate if someone specified what exactly > > the goal function is. > >Me too. > >This is an interesting problem, vaguely reminescent of the pie >judging contests commonly used as examples of non-parametric >statistics. Given two pies, (or two women), a judge can >subjectively order them by tastiness, (or beauty), but there is >no concept of an continuous metric in which the ratings of >particular items are embedded. You're both reading far too much into this problem. David S. specified "beauty," the personal judgment of the chooser. No deep philosophical meaning. Perhaps an equivalent formulation will make this clearer: One is passing through a town with 20 gas stations, with gas at various prices. The stipulation is that one cannot turn around. Once a gas station has been passed, there's no turning back. So, what is the best strategy for finding the lowest gas price (or shortest lines, or cleanest appearance, or brightest sign, or whatever one wants to analyze). Or even by the most beautiful girl standing in front, to return us to the original statement. So, you see, the problem is well-defined, with an elegant solution. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" 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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: WaPo on Crypto-Genie Terrorism
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 27 Jul 96 at 19:21, John Young wrote: > The Washington Post, July 27, 1996, p. A22. > Speaking in Code on the Internet ... [Editorial] Some bothersome things about this editorial... [..] > security of their data. They also see it as a market in > which the United States maintains a comfortable lead, one > that is threatened if domestic encryption makers can't sell > their products elsewhere. The makers argue that foreign > encryption software will rush in to fill the gap, doing > nothing about the uncrackability problem -- indeed, making > it worse. The administration in turn is pursuing a wider IMO, the US does not have a comfortable lead. It's already falling behind considering some of the stronger crypto programs available (at least as freeware) are made outside the US. Many of the stronger algorithms were invented outside of the US (IDEA for instance). [..] > with wiretapping. Mr. Freeh, testifying at Thursday's hearing in > favor of an optional key escrow plan, noted that the point is not > to prevent all copies of uncrackable code from going abroad -- that's > clearly impossible -- but to prevent such high-level code > from becoming the international standard, with architecture > and transmission channels all unreadable to world > authorities. To software companies and Internet users who So why should criminals bother with using standards if they are readable by authorities? > have been clamoring for the right to encrypt as securely as > possible, Mr. Freeh and others argue, "the genie is not yet > out of the bottle" on "robust," meaning uncrackable, > encryption. Are they going to magically erase all copies of strong software that is already currently available? (Side note: the Pacifica news report on Friday notes that while Freeh gave his testimony, over 100 copies of PGP were downloaded from MIT's site.) [..] > Encryption, if widely used, could conceivably ease some > privacy problems concerning who gets to see personal and > financial data on individuals -- though such data usually > are vulnerable to being dug out of storage rather than > intercepted in transmission. But neither is it clear that And evidence cannot be encrypted. You cannot encrypt an airplane full of cocaine or an unusually expensive car baught by money from drugs, espionage, etc. Nor can you encrypt bomb-making materials, nor conversations in a room (from your mouth to a telephone receiver). Nor will encryption do anything about informants inside the communications loop. etc. etc.... > the encryption enthusiasts' desire for free development > should take precedence over the tracking of terrorism. At It's not clear that terrorism can be tracked, even if it's unencrypted. The OK and WTC bombings were apparently not encrypted, and there's some allegations that the authorities had advanced warnings of the latter. > the very least, Congress should be exceedingly cautious > about getting out ahead of administration concerns on > controls that, once lifted, are hardly reversible. The controls haven't done much to prevent free software from being exported. They only control commercial sales of software (and hardware). Particularly absent in the WaPo-ed is that many do not trust the authorities (in the US and elsewhere)--particularly the FBI, which has a long history of extra-legal surveillance. Rob --- No-frills sig. Befriend my mail filter by sending a message with the subject "send help" Key-ID: 5D3F2E99 1996/04/22 wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com (root@magneto) AB1F4831 1993/05/10 Deranged Mutant <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a message with the subject "send pgp-key" for a copy of my key.

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Re: Lynx...
by Remo Pini 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Sun Jul 28 12:28:37 1996 well, you could turn off all those things in netscape anyway... - --------< fate favors the prepared mind >-------- Remo Pini rp(a)rpini.com PGP: http://www.rpini.com/remopini/rpcrypto.html - ------< words are what reality is made of >------ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMftA1RFhy5sz+bTpAQG6SwgAlvNbuuCfTSuQZQ/+JNuAMuaWb03arq9f JWDH7VsoX23KNMkUSZlXiRxq3vDIR8clVfXx+j6Gwpy+vGZhC7YhTIcIutZEYh2z tpjjC1ySw92gxs7Rxm8h0IGnZIT6N8Tak070/Qc8hgWIEvHqQZHkv5UjydoSTCW7 rRcVM/mvF4x1MQrgX6NK+DRf7+1uOQFLQkbBv63sIRZeRKj/5v8u126lDShT+LOO 73S6LH7wZ6AiLEB09O2ay4v3IFJbdcLgmQGItrHn8j7v5pUf/E3MMb5TI61jj7a7 vqlin7elVIX1HXLMuvhWAfkhhISuj5YDhsChoNWDWgP1R0XnjtxfRA== =lUu/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Security debate after Olympics bombing
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, at least some people have the right idea. -Allen >Experts point out differences in Atlanta, TWA incidents > _(c) Copyright Nando.net_ > The Associated Press > WASHINGTON -- With nerves already on edge after the suspicious downing > of TWA Flight 800, the bombing at the Olympic Games in Atlanta on > Saturday renewed concerns about U.S. safeguards against terrorism. > But analyses by security experts drew important distinctions between > the incidents, and politicians cautioned against measures that would > limit liberties. > Investigators have not officially determined what caused the Flight > 800 tragedy, but if the jetliner was brought down by terrorists it was > a relatively sophisticated operation. > By comparison, the device in Atlanta was easy to make and detonated in > an easily accessible place. "I don't believe that a pipe bomb would > have taken down that TWA plane," said a Treasury agent, who requested anonymity. > Another federal investigator noted differences between the Atlanta > attack and Middle Eastern terrorists who often use high-powered truck > bombs. And domestic militia groups tend to focus on government > buildings, not crowds. > James Alan Fox, the dean of Northeastern University's criminal justice > school and a student of criminal behavior, said there are basically > two motivations for bombers: revenge and attention. > "The desire to make a statement can be that of a well-organized > terrorist group that uses the victims as pawns to advance their cause, > or it could be someone who is just interested in feeling important," > he said. > Given the recent rise of violent anti-government groups, Fox > speculated that a militia sympathizer might use such an event to grab > the spotlight. > "Through an amateurish bombing like this, he can feel like he's part > of the movement," Fox said. "He can elevate his sense of importance." [...] > And building one is almost as simple. "If you don't know how to do it, > there are any number of books available ... that will teach you > explicitly, step-by-step, how to manufacture the device," Vitch said. [...] > House Speaker Newt Gingrich stressed that security was already high at > the Olympics, and cautioned against adopting a "police state" > mentality. > "If a terrorist is nutty enough, there's always an opportunity for > tragedy," he said, appearing after Nunn on CNN. "A free people can't > back down."

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Re: Internet blamed for pipe bombs
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:36 7/28/96, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: >> Across the country, latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, >> Tobacco and Firearms show a 20 percent jump in pipe bomb incidents >> between 1990 and 1994. > >[...] > >> "We've been incredibly busy," said sheriff's bomb technician Judd >> Holiday. "As crime in other categories is dropping, this is going up." The friendly Anarchist's Bookstore in San Francisco sells several books on building bombs. No Internet connection required. I would like offer another possible explanation for the increase in pipe bombings. The People are getting frustrated and a pipe bomb can be very useful device releasing one's frustration. [No, I do not approve of pipe bombing civilians]. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November. Vote Harry Browne for President.

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War of Words
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Financial Times, July 27/28, 1996, p. XVIII. War of words over the facts By Peter Aspden It must be tough to return from a spell of duty as a war correspondent to a gentle, civilised, country such as Britain. One minute you are witnessing the most unspeakable atrocities committed in the name of politics, religion or just for the hell of it; the next, you are listening to heated debate over the future of the rugby Five Nations Championship. It does nothing for your sense of perspective. Martin Bell, who covered the Bosnian war with such distinction for the BBC, left the stench of the Srebrenica mass executions to breathe the irrelevant odours of Euro-scepticism and National Lottery-mania over the media airwaves. It shocked him to the core, as he revealed in a recent speech: "I ask myself: is this my country? Is it even my planet?" Bell's exasperation has led him to question the model of balanced, dispassionate, objective journalism which has been the bedrock of BBC -- and indeed most serious newspaper and broadcasting -- journalism. He now calls it "bystander journalism". "What I believe in now is what I prefer to call the journalism of attachment, a journalism that cares as well as knows." Predictably, this has set alarm bells ringing. Traditionalists fussed over their hallowed dictum -- facts are sacred, comment is free -- with scarcely a pause for reflection. It is precisely when issues take on a tragic, awful dimension, they argued, that one needs to stick to the facts of the matter. There is no room for sentiment on the front lines. But Bell's point is well made. The trouble with facts, or at least those which are given privilege by traditional journalism, is that they are hard, cold, numbing. If, while reporting on Srebrenica, one talks about diplomatic initiatives, talks about talks, United Nations troop movements, one soon loses one's audience. It is a lesson which even academics, those ultimate upholders of cool objectivity, have come to appreciate. I remember the American philosopher Richard Rorty beginning a lecture on human rights to Oxford University students with a harrowing account of a Bosnian Moslem having his penis bitten off. The atmosphere became electric, no mean feat for the Sheldonian Theatre. We probably would not hear of such incidents in a normal news account from Bosnia; we certainly would not see anything related to it, on grounds of poor taste. But the sexual sadism which is a component of virtually every ethnic cleansing campaign there has ever been is a fact, too. Not a cold, hard fact, but one which has the power to move people. Therein lies its strength. It is not as if the media show any consistency here. On certain occasions, they are only too willing to allow news reports to emote. When we see an interview with a distressed relative whose family has been wiped out or gone missing, we are meant to feel for them. And the police exploit that feeling: they hope that public compassion will turn to solid leads. The facts here are heart-wrenching. But, more importantly, they are facts with which we can identify. It requires little imagination to see ourselves in the wretched situation we watch on the small screen. We know what it is like to lose a loved one, or we feel we know. What we find difficult is to move from micro to macro. What happened at Srebrenica, like what happened at Auschwitz and Belsen, is almost unimaginable. And faced with the unimaginable, we go cold. This applies to news reports as well as the self-defence mechanisms of our fragile emotions. One cannot countenance sitting down after dinner in front of the television to hear of such brutalities, let alone see them. But that is no excuse. The trouble with cold facts is that they harden, while all the time we should be being tenderised. And then we fall to that terrible disease of fattened western sensibilities, "compassion fatigue". We should listen to Martin Bell. He knows a thing or two about human behaviour which most of us choose to exclude from our worldview. We should have heard more from him on the horrors of Bosnia, and less on the grotesquely inadequate responses of our gentle, civilised countries as they sought to respond to the unthinkable. [End]

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Schelling Points leads to interesting family investment opportunities
by Ian Grigg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi Tim, you said: > The _costs_ of extending beyond the Schelling point boundaries > is deemed to be too high, and the boundary persists. This reminds me of the transactional theory of business units. Working from memory, the optimal size of a business unit is positively related to the cost of the transactions conducted between units, other things being held constant. Thus, in a place where it is "expensive to do business" the dominant form of company will be large. Conversely in a cheap business environment, small companies will predominate. This notion spurs one to examine the transactional costs and to decide (or not) to lower them... The interesting part for your family context is that falling transaction costs have purportedly produced a shift away from large companies to smaller units. Those falling costs are in the sphere of digital communications, other technology, and regulation. If such were to apply to the context of families, upbringing children and education in general, one might predict that the size of the family should shrink. In a sense we might have already seen this. The extended family is really just a memory for most westerners, but is still the norm in poor countries. And I guess we have seen a strong increase in the number of single-parent families in most western countries. One would then be lead to ask, if you are proposing that Internet technologies in general and crypto in particular are influences on the Schelling points related to the family rights set, can this result in smaller family units? That is, the cost of providing (net) education falls, and the ease of crypto communication allows children to grow up as individuals in the big wide Inter-world rather than the shoolyard. If I were permitted to ramble without judicious limit, I would talk about the economic unit becoming a single person, and that person becoming responsible for their own success, regardless of their age. In this view of the future, a child is an economic unit, and is responsible for his own education, and thus must learn for the future. Obviously there is a bootstrapping problem here previously known as birth, and this could be addressed by well-meaning investors purchasing educational rights to a mother's future child (in effect, buying an unborn baby). The child then becomes the ward of the investor, who attempts to raise the child to produce the maximal return. Of course, in order to eliminate the distorting effects of love and child-like whims (I don't want to log into teacher today), there would have to be a free market for raising rights, based on caveat emptor examination of progress. Thus would be exist an informational approach to encourage the child's attention to books, and of course, towards a successful career as an investor in the youth of tomorrow. This would also allow specialisation of investment, those that concentrate on the early years, those on the teens and those that reap the final rewards of first productive working years. The arisal of these strata would lay to rest for ever that old saw of the economists by showing that there is no market failure in education, and thus no need for regulation. And in answer to those anticipated questions from concerned parents, no, I don't have any children, and yes, in the new world, senior citizens can contract to investors to provide granny services, so that they won't be unemployed. But perhaps I should really have placed a judicious limit on my ramblings :-) -- iang iang(a)systemics.com

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