November 2015 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Value of Earth Human Life
by coderman 04 Nov '15

04 Nov '15

for a US citizen: $7.9mm to $9.4mm for a Russian citizen: $40,000 to $2mm other legal precedent: ~$200,000-400,000 each earth human. for an AP target? should there be a "minimum kill price"? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

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Re: [Cryptography] Happy Birthday, No Such Agency!
by grarpamp 04 Nov '15

04 Nov '15

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 5:06 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote: > Signed into existence by Presidential Decree in 1952 (same year I was > born!), even the name of the NSA for a secret for years. Who gives a fuck? If you can't resolve your issues and cooperate globally openly without resorting to dirty tricks, opression, subjugation, murder and more, what the fuck does that say about you? It's the 21st century, we're supposed to be better than that.

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Re: [Cryptography] Clipperz
by grarpamp 03 Nov '15

03 Nov '15

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:29 AM, Stéphane Mourey <stephane.mourey(a)impossible-exil.info> wrote: > Has anyone tryied Clipperz (https://clipperz.is) ? > In any case, have you an opinion to share about it ? If they're pushing their miracle crypto code down into your browser for execution, then it's garbage. So are all other self proclaimed centralized corporate crypto services that do the same thing, or force you to use their special client. Because someday they will either be forced or subverted into pushing bad code and compromising some user, quite possibly you. Come back when you can install and pin down peer reviewed third party crypto code in your browser, or use any client that meets an open API spec they publish. Better yet, support and use p2p storage and messaging instead of central corporate services. Or at least do it locally and store it on a few $5 shells if you need it online. > Clipperz... "knows nothing about you and your data" Nothing? Really? I'll bet anyone on these lists .1337 BTC they do.

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Re: Shiny stuff and designer societies
by Shelley 03 Nov '15

03 Nov '15

On October 28, 2015 5:01:18 PM Zenaan Harkness <zen(a)freedbms.net> wrote: > On 10/28/15, Shelley <shelley(a)misanthropia.org> wrote: > > > Ever heard of voluntary simplicity? It's a concept I have embraced for all > > of my adult life. I don't have much money because I don't want it. I > > I support and respect your choices. > > I say money is not something a sane person should want or not want, > for itself. Money is a tool in our present "reality". > Sane...yes. Well that explains the Wall St vultures, then! > I don't "want any money", but I do want to travel here and there and > connect to the internet to type with you. At the moment I need certain > amounts of money to facilitate achieving these things. Right, and I do understand that. While I truly wish we lived in a world where could trade and barter for everything, the ISP and utility companies want actual payment for services ;) As was mentioned, nothing is pure or perfect. Doing the best we can, which will be different for everyone, is the goal. Some people really need to have a car. I don't, so I do not. A friend and I do our grocery shopping together. He has a car because of work; I very often take care of his cat. I'm not going to pretend that I can walk or bike home with an armload of groceries and 13 kg of cat litter, lol. We get to catch up and the chore of shopping goes by quickly. > > I don't have a TV - stopped watching 30+ years ago as a teenager as I > found so much awesome stuff to read and learn, including the > creativity I felt when learning to program a computer. Doing for the > sake of enjoyment - climbing a tree was as enjoyable as typing in the > next BASIC program, or some years prior, collecting a large pile of > golden treasure grass (hay). > Right on, Zenaan! (Sounds like we're about the same age, too.) It's been about as long since I watched tv on a regular basis as well. For my few indulgences, like The Walking Dead (yep, vegan pacifist likes zombie apocalypse. Hannibal, too! Save the animals, Eat the Rude :D ), I go watch with friends. More fun that way anyway. I, um, may have downloaded Mr Robot. Shhh. > > My conscience won't allow me to mindlessly consume at the > > expense of the planet and other people. > > A good thing of course. Perhaps a maker workshop within your travel > capability would appeal to you? > There are several hacker spaces and maker spaces in my city, and many informal gatherings. I'm very fortunate :) > ... > >> Preparing my own food is a waste of time, other people are cheaper, mass > >> production is cheaper, I'm very mediocre at cooking. > > > > It is not ANY of these things. Use that time on the bus to learn how to > > cook basic stuff! Cook on the weekend while hanging out with > > friends/family or rocking out to music and make your lunches and dinner > > main dishes for the entire next week. How is that not saving time, money > > and being good for your health? > > Is the essence of your point to "be mindful" - whether travel, food, > things? It is remotely conceivable to me that being mindful might > possibly contribute to a fuller and more meaningful and relaxed > existence. > Well, yes. Being mindful isn't always easy, but does lead to a more fulfilling existence. It's more of... just trying to be a decent human, as I see it? We're all stuck on this rock spinning in space. We may as well be decent to each other, things seem to be better that way. What other rational choice is there? Arbitrary boundaries of countries are drawn and redrawn like a game of Risk played in a dorm room, and with far less care; they mean nothing, in the humanistic sense. We're all in the same damn boat. We sink or swim, together. Note: boundaries of other countries never seem to matter to the jerks who run mine, for a much different reason. I am sorry, world. More than I can convey. So, yes. I feel that all of our choices have a global impact, one way or another. I try to tip the scales in favor of the greater good, when I can. > > > Wouldnt want my "fuck" counter to push me higher on the offensiveness list > > ;) > > Oh, yes, you, would :) > Z Well, fuck. Ya got me :p -S

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information imbalance - The Rise of Plitical Doxing [ bonus points for contrast with AP! :]
by coderman 03 Nov '15

03 Nov '15

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-rise-of-political-doxing Last week, CIA director John O. Brennan became the latest victim of what's become a popular way to embarrass and harass people on the internet. A hacker allegedly broke into his AOL account and published emails and documents found inside, many of them personal and sensitive. It's called doxing—sometimes doxxing—from the word "documents." It emerged in the 1990s as a hacker revenge tactic, and has since been as a tool to harass and intimidate people on the internet. Someone would threaten a woman with physical harm, or try to incite others to harm her, and publish her personal information as a way of saying "I know a lot about you—like where you live and work." Victims of doxing talk about the fear that this tactic instills. It's very effective, by which I mean that it's horrible. Brennan's doxing was slightly different. Here, the attacker had a more political motive. He wasn't out to intimidate Brennan; he simply wanted to embarrass him. His personal papers were dumped indiscriminately, fodder for an eager press. This doxing was a political act, and we're seeing this kind of thing more and more. Lots of people will have to face the publication of personal correspondence, documents, and information they would rather be private Last year, the government of North Korea allegedly did this to Sony. Hackers the FBI believes were working for North Korea broke into the company's networks, stole a huge amount of corporate data, and published it. This included unreleased movies, financial information, company plans, and personal emails. The reputational damage to the company was enormous; the company estimated the cost at $41 million. In July, hackers stole and published sensitive documents from the cyberweapons arms manufacturer Hacking Team. That same month, different hackers did the same thing to the infidelity website Ashley Madison. In 2014, hackers broke into the iCloud accounts of over 100 celebrities and published personal photographs, most containing some nudity. In 2013, Edward Snowden doxed the NSA. These aren't the first instances of politically motivated doxing, but there's a clear trend. As people realize what an effective attack this can be, and how an individual can use the tactic to do considerable damage to powerful people and institutions, we're going to see a lot more of it. On the internet, attack is easier than defense. We're living in a world where a sufficiently skilled and motivated attacker will circumvent network security. Even worse, most internet security assumes it needs to defend against an opportunistic attacker who will attack the weakest network in order to get—for example—a pile of credit card numbers. The notion of a targeted attacker, who wants Sony or Ashley Madison or John Brennan because of what they stand for, is still new. And it's even harder to defend against. What this means is that we're going to see more political doxing in the future, against both people and institutions. It's going to be a factor in elections. It's going to be a factor in anti-corporate activism. More people will find their personal information exposed to the world: politicians, corporate executives, celebrities, divisive and outspoken individuals. Of course they won't all be doxed, but some of them will. Some of them will be doxed directly, like Brennan. Some of them will be inadvertent victims of a doxing attack aimed at a company where their information is stored, like those celebrities with iPhone accounts and every customer of Ashley Madison. Regardless of the method, lots of people will have to face the publication of personal correspondence, documents, and information they would rather be private. In the end, doxing is a tactic that the powerless can effectively use against the powerful. It can be used for whistleblowing. It can be used as a vehicle for social change. And it can be used to embarrass, harass, and intimidate. Its popularity will rise and fall on this effectiveness, especially in a world where prosecuting the doxers is so difficult. There's no good solution for this right now. We all have the right to privacy, and we should be free from doxing. But we're not, and those of us who are in the public eye have no choice but to rethink our online data shadows.

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Re: Meet the U.S. Defense Firm Supplying Iran’s Internet
by Razer 03 Nov '15

03 Nov '15

On 11/02/2015 09:25 AM, Georgi Guninski wrote: > On Mon, Nov 02, 2015 at 08:08:19AM -0800, Razer wrote: >> <html> >> <head> >> >> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> >> </head> >> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> > Add 1000 troll points for html only. Yeah well, I use Tbird and I cleaned up the copy/paste as well as I could... You should have seen the formfield/social button mess. RR Ps. I checked for <script tags. There weren't any.

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Shiny stuff and designer societies
by Lodewijk andré de la porte 03 Nov '15

03 Nov '15

New threat, this is offtopic. So I think people took my meaning wrong. I meant to say "don't hate people for behaving as the system rewards them to do", and then to ask "what kind of system would make people behave as you like?". 2015-10-27 21:47 GMT+01:00 Shelley <shelley(a)misanthropia.org>: > > Suggestions, in no particular order: I feel like you are ignoring the cost of time, underestimating people's expenses, and arbitrarily hate cars and meat. > - Don't buy the newest iCrap (or car or tv) every time they shit one out: > you *don't * need it, I assure you. > For most "the latest iCrap" is not a significant expense. 200 euro's a month or so (phone + laptop) is quite doable, especially given how much time one spends with iCrap devices. Resale value is nonzero, too, so really, quite doable. > - Learn how to fix and repurpose things. Take good care of your things so > they last longer. > I know how to fix/repurpose most things. Actually fixing things often doesn't compare favorably with just buying a new one - time spent at 10 euro's per hour makes most repairs very borderline effective. > - Freecycle, trade with others > Trade what? I do secondhand shopping and selling when appropriate, that should be good too. > - Shop at second hand and thrift stores for most things. > Do, for the things it makes sense for. It takes more effort as you frequently will not find what you were looking for. (protip: great for amplifiers and speakers) > - Think before you buy. Try to support true fair trade/fair wages and buy > locally whenever possible. Hint: it's usually possible. > Fair trade/wages are determined by the capitalist market, not by me. I'm simply not that arrogant. If you don't believe in markts you have more work cut out for you than just buying fair trade branded products. (Protip: fairtrade is just another way for things to be shiny) Buying local is even more meaningless. If transport costs do not outweigh production costs, go ferry it in from Australia, China, Chile, etc. You're making the efficient choice by doing so. - Use a bike or public transit whenever possible. Get rid of your car and > use things like Zip Car for the few occasions when you need to use a > personal vehicle. Share a car with friends if you truly need it for > kids/work/whatever. > Public transport or Zip Carring add to stress, cost more time, are not reliable and are not portable storage. I'd like an electric car, but the initial purchase is so high it skews things like tax and insurance. Idk why you hate cars so much. They're pretty damn useful, give you lots of freedom and independence, and just help you get around so much better than public transport. Their prices also compare with other forms of transport. (bikes are slow and only really work in villages or compatible cities) > - Prepare your own damn food. Go vegan. > Preparing my own food is a waste of time, other people are cheaper, mass production is cheaper, I'm very mediocre at cooking. Going vegan is an interesting choice, all evidence points to it being much much much better for the environment, etc. but meat is still quite affordable and quite complimentary to meals. If it truly were 100x easier on the environment I'd expect to see that in the price, and I hardly do. I assume there's some sort of sponsoring going on, and until it stops I'll keep on eating delicious and healthy meat. (Hey, you asked for suggestions: these are mine.) Thanks for playing :) Razer mentioned a TV, I don't own one. I have a sizeable monitor. Much prettier than most TVs. I might get a projector someday, it's fun to watch movies together like that. Razer also fuzzes about collectivism vs individualism. They used to have collectivism in many nations. They all lost. I think a society design that involves individual incentives (the best of capitalism; advanced finance, legal persons, markets, competition), global optimization (the best of communism; managed competition, fine tuned production, >designed markets<), and collective ambition (the best of government/academia; being able to strife together and make deep, long term investments) would be ideal.

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62 people pleaded guilty to refusing to divulge encryption passwords
by Michael Best 03 Nov '15

03 Nov '15

Convictions of suspects who refuse to hand over their encrypted passwords have risen sixfold in four years, potentially blocking police from examining their electronic devices. The sharp increase has led to fears that criminals are opting to plead guilty to encryption offences rather than allow detectives to go through their computers and phones, which could lead to more serious charges and longer sentences. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article4603026.ece Gareth Corfield, editor for The Register, added "On that RIPA stats story, it's been fed to The Times as part of the Snooper's Charter PR push from stats not previously made public."

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slow strangulation of the state, instead of violent phase transition out of state
by coderman 03 Nov '15

03 Nov '15

On 11/1/15, intelemetry <intelemetry(a)openmailbox.org> wrote: > ... > I would suggest you consider the countereconomics work of SEK (e.g. > agorism) and Vaclav Benda. Benda is an interesting case because he did > his work on parallel structures while under the Soviet Union. > > The conclusion was that -- in the presence of an oppressive state -- a > robust solution was an overlay of private and hidden societies as > opposed to direct overt warfare with the state. supplant the state with multiplicity of better mechanisms, and through this usurp the power and authority of the state, until nothing left but hollow fictions of formality (of former state).

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Such a democratic American
by Zenaan Harkness 02 Nov '15

02 Nov '15

"Ukrainian Wikileaks: McCain and Saakashvili are plotting to shoot down American plane in Syria to blame Russia [transcript]" http://fortruss.blogspot.ru/2015/10/ukrainian-wikileaks-mccain-and.html Can someone who reads Russian please let us know the dates on this conversation - the article has a date, and I can see a date on the Ukrainian wikileaks page but I cannot tell when this conversation happened. I would like to know if it was before MH-17 or in recent times. Thanks, Zenaan

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