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Fw: Cypherpunks FOIAs [was Re: The Cypherpunk's 1995 Archive has been forged, and what are we going to do about it? (was:Re: Could someone add news of Cypherpunks Archive...]
by jim bell 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

On Monday, November 25, 2019, 10:52:43 AM PST, jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com> wrote: My comments inline: Jim Bell On Monday, November 25, 2019, 08:48:49 AM PST, coderman <coderman(a)protonmail.com> wrote: ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ On Monday, November 25, 2019 6:34 AM, jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com> wrote: ... Can I see the denial decision? >the denial using Glomar exception is here: https://cdn.muckrock.com/foia_files/2019/02/11/1-29-19_MR67282_REJ-G_106095… This document doesn't say why the Glomar exception is applicable. It does not even include the term "Glomar". Frustratingly, in this PDF format I cannot select and copy text. Why??? The relevant claim seems to be in Paragraph 4 of that cited letter: "We have determined..." Some PDFs are easily selectable and copyable. For example, look at: http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Judicial-Watch-v-De… Why is this copyability not true of the PDF from Muckrock, above? Note a relevant part of that cite, section (2)(b) on page 34: "b. Defendants fail to demonstrate that all 52 records reasonably could be expected to cause identifiable or describable exceptionally grave damage to the national security. Even if Defendants could show – which they cannot – that each and every record pertainsto one or more classification categories, Defendants fail to demonstrate that the disclosure of all 52records “could reasonably be expected to cause identifiable or describable damage to the nationalsecurity.” EO 13526, § 1.4. In addition, because the records have been purportedly classified asTOP SECRET, the type of identifiable or describable damage must be “exceptionally grave.” EO13526, § 1.2. In an attempt to support Defendants’ claim that the release of each and every recordreasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security,Director Bennett describes two types of records: (1) Harm to National Security from Release ofImages of bin Laden and (2) Harm to National Security from Release of Information pertaining toCIA Intelligence Activities and Methods. " [end of quote] Similarly, as to the FOIA for Cypherpunks emails, it is extremely hard to justify withholding material that was previously publically disseminated, by people who knew and intended to do precisely that, and yet say something like: "reasonably could be expected to cause identifiable or describable exceptionally grave damage to the national security. How would the (re-)disclosure of these Cypherpunks emails, which were originally disseminated to thousands of people, including (presumably) foreigners, result in "identifiable or describable exceptionally grave damage to the national security"? The simple answer is, 'No way in hell!!!'. That response was deliberately wrong. In addition, the Paragraph 5: "In addition, this Agency...". Those laws need to be checked. >> But you might want to look into the twin legal concepts "Collateral Estoppel" and "Res Judicata". They are confusingly so similar that many lawyers don't know the difference This is still true. A re-filing might be better done in another person's name, to ensure that the concepts of "collateral estoppel" and "res judicata" aren't used to reject the claim a second time. >i should note that none of these requests have gone to litigation. the FOIA process handles appeals internally, and after an appeal is refused, contesting before a judge in court is possible. I don't know the rules for the precedents on FOIA requests. In ordinary Federal Court cases and appeals, any precedent from other Appeal Circuits can be citeable, but generally precedent from the specific Circuit (1-11 and DC; there is also a Federal Circuit for patents) is strongly preferred. (that includes the concept of being 'binding'. If a precedent is 'binding' a judge is supposed to be required to follow it.) And, can a person who filed for a FOIA in Massachusetts appeal to a a District Court in a different Circuit? Doesn't sound likely. Given that recent case out of the Northern District of California, it seems likely that a better tactic would be to have somebody else file essentially the same FOIA application in the Northern District of California, citing that precedent, and then have the right to appeal the agency's denial(s) to that California district. However, I see no reason that both tactics could not be pursued, in parallel. Except, that the last time I heard of what it was, a District Court docket fee was $350, but it might have changed. Getting a waiver of the docket fee ("In Forma Pauperis") might be possible, but it might merely be in a form which delays the payment, not completely waives it. It would also be useful to pre-load the FOIA requests with arguments as to why things like the Glomar exception shouldn't apply: The Cypherpunks mailing list was never "secret"; it was always open to anyone who wanted to subscribe to it; everyone who posted to it knew that their postings would be sent to hundreds (eventually thousands) of subscribers. In principle, any person who wanted a copy of the entire (or a portion) of the Cypherpunks email database could have 'easily' achieved that by simply subscribing to it: It certainly isn't clear why the collection of Cypherpunks emails, all of which were public and moreover were fully intended to be public, would be a 'matter of national security'. Make them WORK for the exceptions! And, if re-filed in the Northern District of California, cite that as relevant precedent. Jim Bell

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tor stinks, take #376032
by Punk-Stasi 2.0 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

https://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/cache/sniper14.pdf " extremely low cost - highly destructive denial of service attack used to anonymously disable arbitrary Tor relays" even more interesting : "adversary can quickly, efficiently, and perfectly identify all guards of hidden service H. Moreover, the discovery process looks fairly innocuous to H, which only sees a series of normal rendezvous requests. Of course, all such requests are to the same rendezvous point, the connections may appear abnormally fast, and no data is ever carried on the circuits. If stealthiness is a goal, the attack could be mounted from client with normal rendezvous point selection, at a slower rate, and including some typical data requests as cover. This would come at the cost of some speed and efficiency. Note also that Øverlier and Syverson [34] describe a less-efficient method of guard identification that depends on performing traffic correlation that is less precise but is more robust to countermeasures." the reader should put 2 and 2 together and consider what can happen once the guards for a 'hidden service' are found.

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Cryptocurrency: How Crypto Applies to the Sovereign Individual (Book)
by grarpamp 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

https://news.bitcoin.com/how-bitcoin-applies-to-the-sovereign-individual-th… https://www.amazon.com/Sovereign-Individual-Mastering-Transition-Informatio… How Bitcoin Applies to The Sovereign Individual Thesis Just before the internet became a massive display of human ingenuity and networking, a few individuals anticipated the emergence of tools that would help progress the end of politics and the nation states. 22 years ago, much like Nostradamus, Isaac Newton, Gerald Celente, and Carl Jung’s forecasts, a book called “The Sovereign Individual” predicted the growing autonomy of the individual but also noted the development of the world’s largest economy flourishing in cyberspace. Cryptologic Methods Will Fundamentally Alter the Nature of Interference in Economic Transactions Since the inception of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin, many people have come to believe that cryptographic technology is meant to progress freedom and liberty by separating money from the state. The concept is similar to when the church was separated from the state but when the power of the church dissipated, the nation states quickly took its place. Cryptocurrencies now provide the means to transact financially without a middleman and this removes the great wealth of power from the state’s arsenal. More than two decades ago, the cypherpunks started spreading the seeds of crypto-anarchy after envisioning that the internet would help remove the parasites that stem from governments. What’s the Sovereign Individual VC thesis? - Cryptocurrency (decoupling of money & state) - Defense companies (unbundling state monopoly on violence) - Charter cities (markets for governance) - Influencer economy (trust shifting from institutions to individuals) “Just as the technology of printing altered and reduced the power of medieval guilds and the social power structure, so too will cryptologic methods fundamentally alter the nature of corporations and of government interference in economic transactions,” cypherpunk Timothy May wrote in 1988. Humans have always tried to predict the future and forecasting trends has been popular since medieval times. People predicted the world wars decades beforehand, global economies collapsing, and monumental events that have changed society a great deal years before they happened. Most people know about the cypherpunks from Silicon Valley and the great crypto-anarchist manifestos that were published at this time. In addition to these new philosophers, in 1997 two well-known investment advisors and authors, James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg, published a book that also predicted a huge change coming to society over the next century. Within the book of forecasts, the two authors of “The Sovereign Individual” predicted the coming of cryptocurrencies and economic realignment. Rees-Mogg and Davidson’s book does not specifically mention Bitcoin, because it was published 12 years prior to the cryptocurrency’s inception. However, the predictions do note the coming existence of an uncontrollable “cybercash” and that with technology “we will see the growing autonomy of the individual and taxing capacity will plunge by 50-70 percent.” “[Society will] develop what promises to be the world’s largest economy by the second decade of the new millennium,” The Sovereign Individual states. If we were to look at the invention of Bitcoin as being part of the Sovereign Individual’s timeline, we can see that things are just getting started. The cryptoconomy, for instance, is a $200 billion dollar economy that is not backed by a sole individual or endorsed by a corporate entity. Governments do not support the electronic borderless money, and ever since it was created the nation states have met the technology with adversity. How the Information Age and Bitcoin Resets the Odds The open web has allowed online economies to flourish and financial epicenters like New York and technological regions like Silicon Valley have no hierarchy over the internet’s borderless and faceless power. Governments feel threatened by these technologies and The Sovereign Individual’s predictions suggest that the nation states will push back just like the church did. At the time, during “its predominant institution, the church, saw its monopoly challenged and shattered — authority that had been unquestioned for centuries was suddenly in dispute,” Rees-Mogg and Davidson’s book highlights. The Sovereign Individual’s timeline predicts the next millennium will be very similar. With economic tools like cryptocurrencies and other forms of technological advances like autonomous software, drones, defense groups, meshnet technology, Tor, VPNs, and influencer/gig economies, society can begin to remove the bureaucracy from their everyday lives. Davidson and Rees-Mogg’s novel states: We believe that change as dramatic as that of five hundred years ago will happen again. The Information Revolution will destroy the monopoly of power of the nation-state as surely as the Gunpowder Revolution destroyed the church’s monopoly — Like the late-medieval church, the nation state at the end of the twentieth century is a deeply indebted institution that can no longer pay its way. Its operations are ever more irrelevant and even counterproductive to the prosperity of those who not long ago might have been its staunchest supporters. The Future Is Now Right now, many people believe we are entering the initial phase of change that books like The Sovereign Individual predicted decades ago. On page 160 of the book, the two authors stress that as commerce takes hold on the internet “it will lead inevitably to cybermoney.” This new form of money Rees-Mogg and Davidson explain will “reset the odds, reducing the capacity of the world’s nation-states.” “Unique, anonymous, and verifiable, this money will accommodate the largest transactions. It will also be divisible into the tiniest fraction of value. It will be tradable at a keystroke in a multi-trillion-dollar wholesale market without borders.” It is interesting to watch the forecasts written years ago come to fruition and especially ones that are changing society for the better. The advent of Bitcoin and the economy behind the thousands of digital assets out there shows that a massive transformation is indeed happening right now. Past predictions from the cypherpunks and books like The Sovereign Individual may help us understand why. Moreover, failing economies and protests worldwide clearly indicate the demand for freedom is just getting started.

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Cryptocurrency: Countries Spooling Up Their Own, Act Now
by grarpamp 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-china-aims-to-replace-cash-with-the-digita… https://beincrypto.com/sweden-central-bank-outlines-6-step-digital-currency… etc Many countries banks and gigacorps are now spooling up their own centralized fake crypto issuances. This presents a serious risk to further adoption of real distributed privacy uncensorable transaction mineable etc... cryptocurrencies. Entire crypto community must rise together and denounce all such centralized coins, including scrapping all centralized shitcoins now extant for ultimately being nothing more than Fiat by a different name and entity.

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I stand with the Hong Kong protesters
by Ryan Carboni 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

I stand with the Hong Kong protesters, they are openly defying the authority of an illegitimate puppet regime. Hopefully they will succeed at their task The idea a person could be free and go about their business is repugnant to any tyrant, Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com) Secure Email.

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Re: BBC News: Queen Hind cargo ship carrying sheep overturns off Romania
by Rob Avina 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

> > Message: 4 > Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2019 05:25:33 +0000 (UTC) > From: jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com> > To: CypherPunks <cypherpunks(a)lists.cpunks.org> > Subject: BBC News: Queen Hind cargo ship carrying sheep overturns off > Romania > Message-ID: <370751492.3159471.1574659533852(a)mail.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > That's very baaaaahhhhdddd! > > Queen Hind cargo ship carrying sheep overturns off Romania - > https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50538592 > > Calling it now, this was Jim's first test of his new Assassination Polledics for the uninitiated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polled_livestock >

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Internet Grand Plans
by grarpamp 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/nonprofit-community-stands-together-p… https://contractfortheweb.org/ https://iapp.org/media/pdf/resource_center/giovanni_manifesto.pdf Many more you could list. Lot of grand plans popping up lately. Beware such benevolence.

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Tim berners Lee plan
by jim bell 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

World Wide Web inventor launches plan to 'prevent digital dystopia' https://mol.im/a/7715657 via http://dailym.ai/android

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BBC News: Queen Hind cargo ship carrying sheep overturns off Romania
by jim bell 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

That's very baaaaahhhhdddd! Queen Hind cargo ship carrying sheep overturns off Romania - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50538592

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"Geofence Warrant".
by jim bell 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

https://www.yahoo.com/news/accused-bank-robber-claims-police-194521509.html… - The 24-year-old man allegedly robbed a bank at gunpoint in May and made off with nearly $200,000. - To solve the case, police requested the location data of everyone in a 150-meter radius of the bank within an hour of the robbery. Google complied. - As police narrowed down the suspect, they asked for more specific information, until they finally arrested their primary suspect. - Police used a relatively new and highly controversial tactic known as a "geofence warrant." About 15 years ago, while in prison, I met a retarded Mexican who had been convicted of robbing a bank. He had just been granted relief on an appeal, and was apparently going to be given a new trial...or released. Turns out that he had been "casing the bank" in the line, but got cold feet, and decided to leave. 20 minutes later, someone else robbed the same bank, but he was arrested and identified as the robber. How did they get the conviction? The prosecution lied about the time stamped on the video evidence, making the jury think he was guilty. His conviction was overturned when the appeals court was made aware of this prosecution subterfuge. Jim Bell

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