- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Minority vs. majority
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:40 PM 6/8/96 EDT, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: >ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes: >> You haven't seen _real_ corrupt officials. :) > >Jim - could corrupt gov't official hide behind anonymity too? >E.g., a particularly obnoxious gov't regulation being issued from >behind anon remailer? Regulation issued? Sure. Regulation _enforced_? Far more difficult! Maybe even impossible, when considered over the entire population. I've been considering this for a long time, and I came to the conclusion that you really can't enforce regulations dictated by a small fraction of the population onto the large majority. Enforcing a regulation costs effort. (money? time? people?) People are not going to put in this kind of effort unless they feel strongly about an issue. It would be possible for a large majority to enforce a standard of behavior on a tiny minority ("rules" against theft and other common crime) but this will work only if the average individual is willing to donate money to see those general rules enforced. Over time, few people will donate money to see victimless crimes (drugs, gambling, prostituion) enforced, for instance. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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1000 Shares
by karri19＠idt.liberty.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1000 SHARES Warren Buffett, the worlds greatest investor said---"buy a business, not a stock" ---and--- "is the business simple and understandable?" Some savvy investors have made their fortune, or at least a lot of money by buying into a company in it's early stages of development, before the general public discovers it! They have found and then invested in a company they believe in and watched it grow over time. Did you hear about Novell stock when it was only $2.25 a share, or Xerox at 50 cents? How about Wal-Mart, Telefono de Mexico or Toys r Us? Not likely, small or micro-cap stocks are almost totally invisible until it's much too late for the average investor. We would like to send you information on a micro-cap company in its early stages of development. Simple business --- we refurbish AT&T telecom equipment and sell it overseas to emerging third world economies such as Belarus, Philippines, South America and Russia. This stock is still trading under $1 with very strong upside potential as the company develops its customer base in the multi-billion dollar overseas telecom business. Contact us today to have a free corporate profile on this exciting company faxed or e-mailed to you. Please e-mail your request to: karri19(a)idt.liberty.com This is not a solicitation to buy or sell securities, but for information purposes only. Investing in securities is speculative and carries a high degree of risk.

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Re: Report from Germany on "backdoor" net-censorship
by um＠c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[German institutions' cancelling pornography, violence and Nazi propaganda on Usenet will certainly have large international impact. Thus I strongly suggest that you ask <summa(a)eco.de> for an official translation. I cannot guarantee for this rough translation to be correct. -- Ulf] From: summa(a)eco.de ("Harald A. Summa") Press Release, June 5, 1996 Internet Media Counsil presents fist measurements for Voluntary Self-Control [Voluntary Self-Control is the doublespeak term for censorship on pornography, violence, etc. It is, of course, not voluntary. um] The leading Internet Serive Providers, on whose initiave the Internet Medienrat, have deciced to found the Internet Content Task Force (ICTF) for the purposes of Voluntary Self-Control. The ICTF will introduce technical and organizational measurements to put up effective control against contents harmful to minors and national-socialist propaganda material. As a first step, the ICTF occupy itself with the News service, and later with other forms of content transport in the Internet as well. The Internet Content Task Force will supply a news server specificially configured for purposes of self-control at DE-CIX, the national data exchange point of the Internet Service Providers. Proof of origin of critical articles will be processed by the server, archived in a data base observing privacy laws, and stored at a central facility. Furthermore, sample news articles will be suject to detailed legal evaluation. Should this result in suspicion or proof of transportation of illegal contents, the ICTF can launch various steps to work against propagation of these contents. For example, it can arrange for blocking of complete newsgroups or retrospect "Cancel" of articles already transmitted. ICTF can direct possible criminal investigation with help of its data base. Criteria for the ICTF's proceed will be developed, evaluated and continuously updated by the Internet Medienrat. As an independant gremium, the Internet Medienrat tries to achieve a social consensus in the use of online media without government [sic! um] censorship. The formation of the Internet Medienrat, which is currently preparing its working basis, is being pushed ahead by Prof. Goetze, COE of Springer Verlag Heidelberg, and eco Electronic Commerce Forum e.V. It will present its members and organization to the public on September 19, 1996. >From govenment side, the Internet Medienrat is supported by the Federal Ministry of Economy. Min. of Economy Rexroth: "I appreciate the German online industry's initiative to found an Internet Media Counsil as a gremium of Voluntary Self-Control." Background Information on the Internet Content Task Force (ICTF) The problem of protection of minors and of spreading national-socialist ideas in the new media - especially on the Internet - is currently being discussed intensively and controversially. Meanwhile, politics and investigation authorities have begun to proceed against the distribution of illegal contents the the Internet. In the past weeks, the press has been reporting intensively about investigations against large service providers. However, the current legal situation gives few starting points for coordinated proceeding. Lawyers cannot even agree on who can and should be punished for distributing contents relevant to criminal law on the Internet. Depending on standpoint and interests, even noted criminal lawyers hold different views. Some do not consider distribution of pornography and national-socialist writings in electronic form punishable at all, others even want to hold service providers responsible for mere transportation of data. Mediating opionions imply that only the author of the message be punishable. The only strong fact in the complete discussion is that the matter -- as always in difficult dogmatic questions in penal law -- will finally be decided by courts. It is also a fact that the true authors of illegal messages -- especially those with an especially high criminal energy -- can be determined only with great difficulty, so that the threat of punishment insofar is void. The solution to this problem is being complicated by the continuing political discussion and superposed by other question complexes. For example, the states regard new media as an extension of their traditional radio regulation competence. They are trying to ensure future influence by an extensive interpretation of the constitutional regulation of competences and the laws and state treaties based on it. The draft State Treaty on Media Services that applies to the whole field of Internet and online services is one result of these reasonings. To create facts in this field, the state treaty shall be passed soon. Lead by the "Future" Ministry, the federation is also working on legal framework for new information and communication services to comprehensively cover the subject. The Ministry of Interior on its side is concerned with restricting Freedom of Communication with priority. This activity has already resulted in the novel Wiretap Law and the Telecommunication Surveillance Decree. Further laws, especially a ban on crytography, are planned. On the European level, a working group initiated on the last G7 conference, is trying to achive international consesus. Legal clarification, which is strictly needed but with still open result, is faced by fear of censorship and too wide-reaching government interference. Since a long time, the leading German Internet Service Providers have been trying to solve the now openly visible conflict betreen the "Information Police State" and the "Anarchy in the Net" as feared by politics. Thus they have propagated founding a Voluntary Self-Control and initiated the formation of an Internet Medienrat. As a further buiding stone, the Internet Content Task Force (ICTF) is now being put to existence. This shall also work against the impression that the main purpose of the Internet were distributiong extremist and pornographic contents. At least this was the result of numerous -- often badly researched -- reports in the recent weeks. They did neither differenciate between the Internet services (Mail, News, WWW, Chat and others), nor present the relation of doubtlessly useful and the less desired contents. ICTF now turns towards the problem in a much more refined way. There, it first will occupy itself with the currently probably most critcal part of the Internet, the so-called News service. The special problem of the News service is that information can be distributed world-wide, yet anonymously. This is different of at least fundamentally more difficult in other parts of the Internet, so that the volume of critical content in the News is comparably high. The ICTF will register the information availible on the origin of news and store them in a data base as to make it possible to determine who has sent an article or disguised the real author's identity, in retrospect. The data base will be kept observing privavy laws and third parties' protection-deserving interests [the Privacy Law puts limits on databases with "protection-deserving" personal information, um]. To avoid abuse, the data will regularly be exported to hard storage and deposited with an attorney. Furthermore, the existing or newly created newsgroups will be classified, so that groups serving to distribute exclusively or predominantly illegal contents can be excluded from further distribution. Sample investigation of articles and analysis of articles as necessary will also make it possible to limit the transportation of individual articles. Founding the ICTF, the Internet Service Providers accept part of the responsibility in forming a modern information society. It is clear that preventive action on a national level cannot stop illegal action on a global level. Thus, the ICTF is a model for similar initiatives in other countries, and is to be seen as an appeal to politics to make their contribution to solving the problem. Currently, the ICTF is the only perceptible approach to respect the need for "Law and Order" and yet leaves the new medium Internet with the freedom needed for futher prosperation. On the other hand, national legislator's attempts to solve the problem on its own will hardly solve the problem, but put severe damage to the economic site Germany. For one thing is clear in the virtual worlds of communication networks: Borders lose their importance, and location is no longer an issue. There is nothing to prevent an enterprise from moving its online activities to a country with less bureaucrary and legal restrictions. First tendencies for migration are already percepted. The Internet Content Task Force is supported be the following Internet Service Providers: CERFnet GmbH, Heidenrod ECRC GmbH, Muenchen, EUnet Deutschland GmbH, GTN GmbH, Krefeld, ipf.net GmbH, Frankfurt, IS/Thyssen Internet Service GmbH, Hamburg, Point of Presence, Hamburg, nacamar GmbH, Dreieich, NTG-X/link GmbH, Karlsruhe, roka GmbH, Duisburg, seicom GmbH, Pfullingen, spacenet GmbH, Muenchen. Further information can be obtained from: eco Electronic Commerce Forum e. V. c/o Harald A. Summa Schaeferkampstr. 19 44287 Dortmund Tel: +49 (0) 231 44 79 49 Fax: +49 (0) 231 44 81 35 E-Mail: summa(a)eco.de http://www.eco.de/ or attorney at law RA Michael Schneider Dickstr. 35 53773 Hennef / Sieg, Tel: +49 (0) 2242 9270-0 Fax: +49 (0) 2242 9270-99 E-Mail: Michael.Schneider(a)Anwalt.DE http://www.anwalt.de/ +++ eco - Electronic Commerce Forum e. V. c/o Harald A. Summa Schäferkampstr. 19 44287 Dortmund Tel 0231 / 44 79 49 Fax 0231 / 44 81 35 Email info(a)eco.de +++

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More on LolitaWatch
by Declan B. McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.internetworld.com/iw-online/July96/news.html CDA Watch: DoJ Proposes Tagging Underage Users According to the press release, Nubility Inc. had released LolitaWatch, a network utility that detects "nubile young teens" online by checking for the federally mandated "age bit" in TCP/IP packets. But like the original novel, which parodied an older man's lust for a lascivious teen, LolitaWatch is a hoax, designed to illustrate the dangers of attaching age information to this workhorse Internet protocol. The proposal for an age bit is a serious one. Advanced during the Philadelphia court challenge to the Communications Decency Act (CDA), it's part of what American Library Association (ALA) attorney Bruce Ennis calls the Department of Justice's (DoJ's) "efforts to redefine the way the CDA is written." [...] If the high court strikes down the CDA, Congress will try again. Jack Fields (R-Texas), chair of the House telecommunications subcommittee, said in May: "We should be ready with a response--[pornography] is a real problem. I have a six-year old and I get concerned about that. I want a real solution that works. The CDA was driven by emotion and not by real policy." Forty years ago, media hype gave Lolita a reputation as an obscene novel and prompted the French, Argentine, and New Zealand governments to censor it. But Vladimir Nabokov's work contained not one explicitly sexual passage. Without reading the book, customs agents never knew that it was a sad parody of an old man's fantasy lust for a young girl. The Net censors seem to have found in the Internet a modern Lolita--which they understand just about as well as the 1950s customs agents understood Nabokov. --Declan McCullagh

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Obscenity checkpoints
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Maryville-Alcoa (TN) Daily Times, June 3, 1996. `Calvin' Decals Catching Some Heat Auto displays may be deemed `obscene' By Justin Cress Tennessee motorists might need to be more discriminating in the future about the statement their automobiles are making. A recent warning issued to a South Carolina woman for displaying an "obscene" bumper sticker has caused some controversy about that state's obscenity laws. Decals portraying Calvin, of Bill Waterson's popular "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, urinating on assorted objects of ridicule are sweeping the Southeast. The decals' increased visibility prompts the question: Is it obscentity or simply bad taste? Patti Redden of McConnells, S.C., was surprised to find, while being stopped at a highway patrol checkpoint, that the reproduction displayed in her rear window was considered offensive and illegal according to state ordinances. Her version depicted the letters "IRS" receiving the Calvinesque treatment. Like South Carolina, Tennessee's obscenity laws prohibit the use of "patently offensive" stickers, window-signs, or other markings on a motor vehicle. An opinion handed down in 1989 by the state defines patently offensive as "that which goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in describing or representing such matters," especially when pertaining to excretory functions. Sharon Curtis-Flair, public information officer of the Tennessee Attorney General's Office, expects to see renewed interest in the state's laws. "We went through this before in 1988 with (another questionable bumper sticker)," said Curtis-Flair. "The law has really not been tested yet. It's just never been challenged." (...)

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Re: Why PGP isn't so ubiquitous (was NRC Session Hiss)
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:43 PM 6/3/96 -0700, Joel McNamara wrote: > (I'm sure the name "wizards" is trademarked by MS, so they won't be called > that). You are free to use the word "wizard" provided that they look, feel, and work much like what Microsoft calls a "wizard" -- see the Microsoft UI guidelines. This demand by Microsoft is pretty reasonable. Now if it had been Apple or lotus they probably would have declared that you could not write anything that looked, felt, or worked much like a wizard. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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Gore opposes unwarranted'' Internet censorship
by Joseph M. Reagle Jr. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sounds good but I had to laugh when I heard it... is he at odds with other members of the administration, or is this rhetoric? > CAMBRIDGE, Mass (Reuter) - Vice President Al Gore said >Friday society should not resort to ``unwarranted censorship'' >on the Internet as an overreaction to protect children from >objectionable material in cyperspace. > In a commencement address at the Massachusetts Institute of >Technology, Gore said government had to assist parents in >protecting their children from exposure to such material. > ``But let me also state my clear and unequivocal view that a >fear of chaos cannot justify unwarranted censorship of free >speech, whether that speech occurs in newspapers, on the >broadcast airwaves -- or over the Internet.'' > ``Our best reaction to the speech we loathe is to speak out, >to reject, to respond, even with emotion and fervor, but to >censor -- no. That has not been our way for 200 years, and it >must not become our way now,'' he said. > In February, President Clinton signed the Communications >Decency Act, which bans making indecent material available to >minors over computer networks. > The American Civil Liberties Union and the American Library >Association have filed suit in a Philadelphia court challenging >the law as unconstitutional, saying it would stifle a broad >range of speech. > In his address at the MIT, Gore stressed the gulf separating >society and science, a theme students had suggested in e-mail >messages to the vice president. He said new technologies >initially break down stable patterns and ``then new ones emerge >at a higher degree of complexity. > ``Societies are vulnerable to misinterpreting the first >stage as a descent into chaos and then overreacting with the >imposition of a rigid, stagnating order,'' Gore told the 2,000 >graduates in an outdoor ceremony. > > > _______________________ Regards, Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present. - Albert Camus Joseph Reagle http://farnsworth.mit.edu/~reagle/home.html reagle(a)mit.edu E0 D5 B2 05 B6 12 DA 65 BE 4D E3 C1 6A 66 25 4E

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Kahn's "The CodeBreakers"
by Brad Shantz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

C-Punks, Just as an interesting side note..... I got lucky this weekend and found a First Edition copy of David Kahn's "The Code Breakers" at a little bookstore in Port Townsend, Washington. WHAT A SHOCK!!! Anyway, I snagged it for $25.00. The cover has been laminated (library style, not card style) and it is in excellent condition. For those wondering what the significance of Port Townsend is...well, there is none. It is, however, the location of Fort Worden which is where "An Officer and a Gentleman" was filmed. (Major piece of military history, isn't it?) Anyway, if any one is looking for a copy, mine is not for sale, but the owner of the store said that she has seen copies come through every now and again. (Not necessarily First Ed's) If you are interested in getting in touch with the store, let me know. Please use my work address, brads(a)trisource.com Brad Shantz TRIsource Windows Development Services 2825 Eastlake Ave. E. Suite 100 Seattle, WA 98012-3062

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Re: Anti-Scientologists
by Rich Burroughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 05:37 PM 6/10/96 +0200, someone wrote: [snip] >Declan wrote: > >> Truth #2: Cults can exist in the absence of a charismatic leader. > >Would you describe Christianity as a cult? If not, why not? So we're going to argue about whether the word "cult" should apply to CoS?? Okay, how about this: it's a _religion_ that uses deception, mind control techniques, and criminal activities to attempt to get as much possible money from as many marks^H^H^H^H^H worshippers as possible, and goes to extreme lengths to silence its critics. Is that better? Hubbard started CoS because he was getting too much heat over the quackery and pseudoscience in "Dianetics." I'm going to start a religion, too, called the Church of the Shell Game. Don't you call it a cult, or I'll be real mad! Rich -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMbx6cYT0GKfZRA/9AQFUTwP+ODigyynDs76o039u/SgxP5K54LSOjsh+ AoKWi81U/cHwPABNZ+fhoP+Hcpd21m4mycWRcFoMwW/VC1xfuEYaCRrqhUlJy5oe EMYlHNbZQ/klZPBnZkfBZSJFApWpeZTfsaAPKnzwtEGJVTGd0GtdnUe8X2mfCJHJ Hc5gmTmyQvA= =RZOB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ______________________________________________________________________ Rich Burroughs richieb(a)teleport.com http://www.teleport.com/~richieb See my Blue Ribbon Page at http://www.teleport.com/~richieb/blueribbon New EF zine "cause for alarm" - http://www.teleport.com/~richieb/cause

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Re: Report from Germany on "backdoor" net-censorship
by jaed＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:10 PM 6/9/96, Ulf Moeller wrote: >Furthermore, sample news articles will be suject to detailed legal >evaluation. Should this result in suspicion or proof of transportation >of illegal contents, the ICTF can launch various steps to work against >propagation of these contents. For example, it can arrange for >blocking of complete newsgroups or retrospect "Cancel" of articles >already transmitted. Um. Does this ICTF understand the implications of sending forged cancel messages outside its own server, when the cancels are based strictly on disapproval of the content? Do they realize what the consequences will be for carriage of traffic from their node? Is Germany about to become known as "Cancelbunny Nation"? >Internet Media Counsil presents fist measurements for Voluntary >Self-Control This is a wonderful type in the fifth word above... ;-) -- The Internet interprets the US Congress as system damage and routes around it. - with apologies to John Gilmore

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