- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Snake Oil on the Water...
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:27 PM 6/16/96 -0700, Rich Burroughs wrote: >For those people who want to use PGP with Pegasus, there's a >nice little plug-in for Pegasus called PGP JN, by John Navas, >which allows you to choose to encrypt with PGP (you need to >have a copy) instead of the Pmail crypto. It has a few small >drawbacks, IMHO, but I found it much easier to use than PGP >shell interfaces that require cutting text to the clipboard >first. It is very nice with one major drawback. It does not support conventional cryptography with PGP. This means that it is absolutly useless for use with nyms. (Which is one of my main uses for PGP in the first place.) Other than that... --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon

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UK users about to get clippered
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If you live the UK, brace yourself for HMG's "Clipper" annoucement later this week. Look particularly carefully at the escrow agencies. - Remailereuters

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Re: PBS show
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Received: from toad.com [140.174.2.1] by alcor.process.com with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 13 Jun 1996 14:15 -0400 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA03979 for cypherpunks-outgoing; Thu, 13 Jun 1996 09:36:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.pacifier.com (root(a)mail.pacifier.com [199.2.117.164]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id JAA03971 for <cypherpunks(a)toad.com>; Thu, 13 Jun 1996 09:36:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ip9.van1.pacifier.com (ip9.van1.pacifier.com [206.163.4.9]) by mail.pacifier.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id JAA22527; Thu, 13 Jun 1996 09:36:13 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199606131636.JAA22527(a)mail.pacifier.com> X-Sender: jimbell(a)mail.pacifier.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 09:35:16 -0800 To: tcmay(a)got.net (Timothy C. May), cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: jim bell <jimbell(a)pacifier.com> Subject: Re: PBS show Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Precedence: bulk Jim Bell wrote: >But the Apple II WAS a toy! Non-detached keyboard, poor placement of reset >key, upper-case only, 40-character wide display, odd microprocessor, VERY >SMALL capacity floppies (which were very slow as well), as well as a hostile >legal situation regarding the building of clones. Hell, they even objected >to other companies building boards which plugged into the bus! The reason for the 40 column screen was quite simple - many customers did not want to shell out a few hundred dollars for a monitor, and instead installed a cheap RF modulator and used an old TV for a screen. The resolution of a TV is inadequate for 80 coumn text (think about the smallest easily readable text you've seen on braodcast or cable). The Apple ][ did not include the RF modulator because it wasn't FCC certified with one - but every dealer also sold $20 modulators tailored for the machine. With the unshielded plastic case, I could wipe out any other TV within 30 feet - a significant distance for a NYC apartment dweller, which I was at the time. While it was not the first machine I programmed (the PDP-8e has that dubious honor, circa 1971), I learned a lot from my Apple ][. Among other feats, I added lower case support to Apple Kermit, and implemented Life in 6502 assembler using HIRES graphics. Peter Trei trei(a)process.com Peter Trei Senior Software Engineer Purveyor Development Team Process Software Corporation http://www.process.com trei(a)process.com

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Re: Remailer Operator Liability?
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>(anyone know who came up with the term "email >exploder" that the Court used instead of "mailing list"?) Brendan P Kehoe's "Zen and the Art of the Internet" (1993) discussing mailing lists says (p11), "Any mail sent to that address will "explode" out to each person named in a file maintained on a computer at ..." I have seen it used elsewhere as well. Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | The Internet may fairly be | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | regarded as a never-ending | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | worldwide conversation. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Re: Remailer Operator Liability?
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:45 6/17/96, Duncan Frissell wrote: >At 08:43 AM 6/17/96 -0400, Declan B. McCullagh wrote: > >>I believe we used the term "email exploder" instead of "mailing list," >>particularly in cross-examination and closing arguments, to convey the >>idea that such a device is often used for conversation, not just one-way >>communication. > >Was this term invented during the hearings or has anyone heard of it before? I have heard of it before. I believe "mail exploder" is a rather old term. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Disclaimer: My opinions are my own.

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Blowfish Reliability
by Computer Virus Help Desk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Can anyone say with any degree of certainty what resources it would require to crack a file encrypted with 160 Bit Blowfish? Many Thanks! CVHD

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Pathfinder's New Look
by design＠pathfinder.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Pathfinder Member: We're excited to announce a major redesign of Pathfinder, your home on the Net, and invite you to come and check it out at http://pathfinder.com! The NEW look of Pathfinder is our response to your feedback. We've made it FASTER LOADING, EASIER TO NAVIGATE and added even more DAILY and INTERACTIVE content. And, we've taken advantage of the latest technologies like Java to make your Pathfinder experience more informative and fun. Whether it's up-to-the-minute news and weather, the latest sports scores, stock quotes or today's celebrity gossip - you can now find it all at the click of a mouse. If you don't see what you're looking for just click on the SEARCH button and we'll help you find it - if it's on Pathfinder or somewhere else on the Net. When we launched in October 1994, Pathfinder was considered a ground-breaking effort on the Web. Today, Pathfinder is a true super-site, containing more than 150,000 web pages from over 90 of the biggest names in news, information and entertainment - names you trust like Time, Money, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, People and Fortune. Much more important than our size, however, is our loyal base of Pathfinder users. With your help and support Pathfinder has grown from just a large web site into a vibrant virtual community of members and ideas. We'd be very interested in your feedback on our new look - just click on the "Welcome" banner at the top of the homepage and you can send us all your thoughts and ideas. And, if you find you have any questions while visiting Pathfinder, be sure to check out our new online HELP area. Sincerely, Marie Blue Director of Consumer Marketing P.S. Stay tuned for details on our exciting new product, PATHFINDER PERSONAL EDITION. It's a fully personalizable and customizable online news and information service plus - get the information you want, when you want it! See our homepage for more information.

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Re: IP: Wired News: Y2Kaboom?
by Matt Elliott 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:20 PM -0500 11/16/98, Declan McCullagh wrote: > The fact that one entity is enaging in appropriate behavior does not excuse > the rest. I think it is appropriate. Take "Believer" to court and hope I don't happen to be sitting on the jury. Matt <mailto:melliott@ncsa.uiuc.edu>

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Re: pretty good reputation
by Vipul Ved Prakash 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Deranged Mutant wrote: > > first, i would like to make it clear that i have no personal grudges against > > I never thought you did... That was simply to ensure a flame free discussion. Almost anything I talk about on my local bbs echos (back in India) turns out to be a flame war, specially if its related to _touchy_ software like PGP :) > > pgp, i have some interest in reputation systems which i am trying to pursue. > > since pgp tries to model a reputation system and is being used world-wide, > > i am using pgp as a model for discussion. > > That's the point, though. PGP *does not* try to model a reputation > system. When you sign keys, you only attest that you are sure that > that key belongs to the person whose name is on it. A signature says > *nothing* about a person's reputation. > This is meant to be used separately by each user of PGP. If Alice > knows Bob personally, then she knows how trustworthy Bob is when he > signs a key, in relation to her. This is not meant to be shared with > anyone else, and has no meaning to anyone else except Alice. in that case if alice receives a key signed by bob, she would know the key is good. and there is no need for the two other fields. infact the reason why i felt pgp is trying to model a reputation system if because of these two fields that carry trust values. > You can't set up a global web of trust. It's computationally > infeasable, esp. with contradictions, to resolve. It's also > meaningless. Say Alice trusts Bob. Bob trusts Carol. Carol trusts > Don. Should Alice trust Don? No... subjective factors like "trust" > don't commute. this is precisely what i wanted to know. can there be a model wherein one can compute a trust-like parameter? if yes in what ways should this parameter be modified and qualified. or conversely what kind of qualification/modification is required for computing trust? > > copule of things you mentioned are intresting. in a reputation system the > > trust parameters are fuzzy and there are lot of layers (since we > > are talking of a web of users), so we can't mix it with the liar paradox. > > Yes we can. There's been work done with the Liar paradox using fuzzy > logic. Also other work in repuation webs ("Say the president of a > company asks all his vice presidents for their opinions about each > other, so he can appoint a successor. How does he resolve > contradictions, when all he has are their opinions about each > other?"). lets say a reputation system involves alice, bob, carol and don. Computing trust parameter with respect to each other can lead to situtions where alice trusts bob x% and has y% proof that he is a liar, after considering all other relations. If this x% > y% she'll believe him, if not she won't. thats why i feel the liar paradox doesn't really pose much of a threat. > > as far as halting problem goes, again can we reduce a reputation system to > > halting problem? Infact alonzo church and some other scientists made > > symbolic equivalents of turing's machine which could determine the broad > > limits of automatic computation. is there any research being done on reputation > > systems that involves church's thesis? > > I mispoke slightly: I mentioned the halting problem in terms there > being non-computable functions. There are people on the list (and > elsewhere) who don't have an inkling about the halting problem, and > propose security/reputation systems that fly in the face of it. > > I've been working on a proof or discussion of a "Very Generalized > Halting Problem" that basically says that you can check that > something is "not x" from a set of tests to see if that something is > not "x"... if it fails at least one test, you know it's not "x", but > if it doesn't fail any, because such a set must be incomplete > (Goedel's Theorem...), you are never sure that it's "x". > > How this relates to a reputation system? If you set up a global > reputation network where people tag each other in degrees of trust, > you try for completeness and end up with . People will > contradict each other and there will be no way to resolve it. Alice > says Bob is trustworthy to a degree, and Bob says Carol is > trustworthy to a degree, but Carol says Alice is untrustoworthy > (rates Alice lower). There will be inconsistency only if trust/untrust values are absolute. that is you either trust someone or you don't. i am talking of a system wherein trust values lie between 0..1 which are derived from a set of tags. in that case bob alice trusts bob x% bob trusts carol y% and carol trusts alice z%. if z < x, z < y simply implies alice trusts bob, bob trusts carol more than carol trusts alice. so the system will be relative rather than absolute. a person who is trusted by more people will carry greater weight and people trusted by him will carry higher weight too. this way snoopy who is not trusted by many people will automatically have a weak relationship with others. > There's the other point that someone else on the list (Perry?) brought up: > if people publicly rate each other, there may be social/political > pressure to give some people lower or higher ratings. again these ratings will be decided in a web rather that on one-to-one basis. that way the social/political pressure can be reduced though not completely eliminated. > And again, being a private rating system means 1) I don't offend > anyone since no one else knows how I rate them, and 2) there are no > contradictions because I am not relying on other's ratings to > determine how I rate them. > > BTW, some work using fuzzy logic in terms of how people rate each > other is being done at the Group for Logic and Formal Semantics at > the University at Stony Brook (in Stony Brook, NY). I went to school > there and still help out in the Philosophy Department and the > G.L.F.S. with some programming etc. It isn't exactly the same as > ratings systems, but its close enough. if any research work is freely available i'll be really interested. best, vipul.

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RE: Non-Lethal Terrorism
by .. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

if you get the opportunity, check out the beyond 2000, nextstep and invention shows on the discovery channel. albeit, they may be a bit dated, the stuff is often enlightening. tuit, r&d of stunguns, dazzlers, flypaper, tanglers and lo-grade chemical agents has been underway for some time in labs arouns the world. lethality is not as popular as it once was. some of these devices do, however, work through excruciating, if nondamaging, pain. tony ---------- From: John Young[SMTP:jya@pipeline.com] Sent: Saturday, June 15, 1996 10:33 PM To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Non-Lethal Terrorism NON-LETHAL TECHNOLOGIES Military Options and Implications Report of an Independent Task Force http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~jya/nltech.htm (47 kb) Beware snooping, consider using the anonymizer at: http://www.anonymizer.com ----- Or, if http fails, NLT_ech to <jya(a)pipeline.com>

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