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Tim May 1992 Post on Future of Cyberspace/Cryptology/Digital Money/Transnationalism
by John Young 26 Dec '18

26 Dec '18

Tim May 1992 Post on Future of Cyberspace/Cryptology/Digital Money/Transnationalism ---------- Source: <https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2013-September/000741.html>https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2013-September/000741.html From: tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 11:06:29 PDT To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Some (Pseudo)Random Thoughts Message-ID: <9210141805.AA04539(a)netcom2.netcom.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Some thoughts on the recent meetings and what we're doing: 1. The importance of trading physical goods in the Crypto Anarchy Game. This, in my view, has been given undue and misleading importance. Physical goods are inherently easy to trace through remailers (via sniffers, radioactive tracers, weight of packages, and many other physical cues), are hard to store physically (imagine getting 100 parcels for later remailing), and, most importantly, have none of the "envelope within envelope within...." protection accorded to the bits of a cryptographic remailing, or DC-Net, system! The elegance of cryptographic protocols is lost with physical goods. Furthermore, physical delivery of any good, whether drugs, stolen missile components, antiquities and art items, whatever, is fundamentally a hard problem to solve...smugglers and thieves have been dealing this since the beginning of time. Stings can be easily arranged, delivery is not anonymous (one merely watches who takes delivery, or who opens a train station locker, etc....this is all SOP for narcs and counterespionage types), and a raid on a remailing entity will result in confiscation of the physical goods and (likely) prosecution of those caught holding the stuff. (Raiding a bit remailing entity produces only random-appearing bits...granted, the authorities may well outlaw bit remailing, or use the RICO and conspiracy/sedition laws to prosecute, but that's another topic.) Our recent emphasis on physical goods, and all the ideas pouring in on what other kinds of "contraband" besides drugs can be used, is misleading. None of the richness of the cryptographic world is faithfully preserved. I urge we get back to our roots and deal only with things that can be expressed purely in bit form. 2. The "colonization of cyberspace" does not mean there is no interaction with the physical world, of course. But that interaction can be mediated with money made by converting information or digital money into physical money. Several methods for this conversion path can be considered: -Alice sells information in the cyberspace domain for the equivalent of, say, $30,000. She converts this to "real" dollars by using an escrow entity which hold both sides of the transaction until it's completed. They then mail the information to the purchaser and send an ordinary check "for services rendered" to Alice for $30K. She reports it on her taxes, probably as a "consulting fee" (for which essentially no government supervision currently exists, nor is likely to....), and the conversion has taken place. (Note: there are still elements of trust involved, notably involving the escrow agent, but trust works pretty well for many things, especially when reputations are at stake. Understanding how real businesses depend on reputations is a missing part of modern cryptology analyses of transactions...the protocol analyzers and number theorists almost never take into account how reputations work in the real world, But I digress.) -Alice and Bob trade information such that Bob gets the information worth about $30K, as above, and Alice gets another piece of information she can use in the "real world" that is worth about $30K. This might be stock tips, or, better, information she can turn around and sell in the "open market" of a service like AMIX! There are lots of wrinkles, inefficiencies, etc., to be worked out. -And then there is digital money. You all know about this, or should. David Chaum, DigiCash, blinded notes, credentials, etc. The handout for the first meeting had a glossary of terms. (IMHO, we should be spending more of our time at our meeting discussing this, and less in playing more interations of the Game.) The fascinating novel "Snow Crash," by Neil Stephenson, makes a mistake in having Hiro Protagonist a very wealthy man in the Metaverse (Stephenson's term for the virtual reality cyberspace) but a very poor man in the Real World. Information _is_ money. Information is liquid, flows across borders, and is generally convertible into real money. (One simple conversion strategy, alluded to above, is for Alice to sell her information for, say, $500K, and then to receive a "consulting contract," perhaps called a "retainer," of $50K a year for the next 20 years. Her retainer is fully legal, is perhaps handled through cut-outs who specialize in this kind of thing, and is a low-risk way to "launder" money from cyberspace into the real world. I have a lot more to say on these schemes, perhaps later.) 3. Are we emphasizing "The Game" too much? If the goal is to produce a paper-based game, similar to "Monopoly" or fantasy role-playing games, then I suppose more practice is needed. But I'm not sure how worthwhile it is to try to design such a game. (Those who wish to should do so, then commercialize it, and become the Avalon Hill of crypto games!) If the goal is educational, for newly interested folks, then I also question how much more effort should be put into it. The ideas of anonymous remailers, of digital money, etc., are, I think, gotten across in the first 60 minutes of the game, especially if some of the formalism is first explained (as it was at the first game, where digital mixes, tamper-resistand modules for implementing mixes, the "Dining Cryptographers Protocol," and digital money had all been freshly covered, so participants were putting the theory to test). I found the first game was instructive, the second much less so (and _not_ because of the focus on drug selling...that was a relatively minor issue). My impression is that many of the newcomers--and they should jump in here with their own reactions (too bad we don't have hypertext links!)--didn't really know how remailing mixes work, how digital psueodnyms can protect privacy in transactions, and how the "Game" was intended to exercise these concepts. 4. We need to talk about the charter or purpose of the "Cypherpunks" or "Cryptology Amateurs for Social Irresponsibility" (CASI--Eric Hughes's term) group. -Is it mostly educational? -Is it a lobbying group, as are EFF, CPSR, and the like? -Is it to produce remailers, digital money, and other programming? -Is it subversive? Now clearly we can't say it's subversive (any bets on who's gatewaying these messages to Other Listeners?). But we also don't want to skew things toward "YALG" (Yet Another Lobbying Group), nor do we want to be a spoon-feeding educational group for people with a casual (and transient) interest in crypto stuff. 5. There have have been several messages so far about worries about the legal implications of these topics, about how some corporate-affiliated subscribers will desubscribe "real fast" if certain discussion trends continue, and so on. Now we can't please everybody, but maybe we ought to talk about this sensitive issue soon, and _in person_. Since it relates to our charter, Point 4 above, I recommend we do this at our next meeting. I'd favor that over another iteration of the Game. In conclusion, we are in at the beginning of Something Big. While I'm somewhat skeptical about the claims for things like nanotech, I see this whole cyberspace/cryptology/digital money/transnationalism ball of wax being _much_ easier to implement. Networks are multiplying beyond any hope of government control, bandwidths are skyrocketing, CPUs are putting awesome power on our desktops, PGP is generating incredible interest, and social trends are making the time right for crypto anarchy. I look forward to hearing your views. -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | PGP 2.0 and MailSafe keys by arrangement.

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The Star Online: Is quantum computing a cybersecurity threat? - Tech News
by jim bell 26 Dec '18

26 Dec '18

The Star Online: Is quantum computing a cybersecurity threat? - Tech News. http://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2018/12/26/is-quantum-computing-a-…

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Re: cypherpunks Digest, Vol 66, Issue 55
by morlockelloi＠yahoo.com 26 Dec '18

26 Dec '18

Mr. May was amiable in person and exhibited high integrity. My take is that he detected the plague of identarianism early on, before many did, and had instinctive revulsion to it. Too bad so few did the same. > From: John Young<jya(a)pipeline.com> > Subject: Re: Timothy C. May tribute - TDS â#1Timothy C. May Fan Siteâ > > Tim relished hurling offensive language in the way Trump (and a slew > of others) do against herdish PC. But he does not curse and spout > vulgarities as if linguistic propriety enhances credibility, hard to > imagine him bragging of grabbing pussies.

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2019 Predictions Thread
by grarpamp 26 Dec '18

26 Dec '18

Here is yearly thread to make the predictions for 2019 before it arrives and starts becoming true or false...

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Cryptography national rules and freedom
by Jan Dusatko 26 Dec '18

26 Dec '18

Dear, I would like to apologize for this e-mail, may you can help me. Because I collecting detailed data about national restriction of cryptography (under term cryptography I mean software, hardware, devices, algorithm - almost everything), could you take a look on questions bellow? Do any of you have answer of those questions? You can contact me directly or by this mailing list. 1) What is name of national authority responsible for cryptography and computer security and could you provide their web pages? 2) Do national authority do restriction/recommendation for cryptography used and is this recommendation available on web? 3) Do you have cybernetic law or its equivalent (EU2015/1535)? This mean any law, describing critical and important infrastructure, recommended rules and responsibility. 4) Can person do develop, personal use, sell or buy cryptography? Do you have a restriction/recommendation in law? Can you provide me link to this law? 5) Can private organization do develop, use, sell or buy cryptography? Do you have a restriction/recommendation in law? Can you provide me link to this law? 6) Can state organization do developing, use, sell or buy cryptography? Do you have a restriction/recommendation in law? Can you provide me link to this law? 7) Do your country have any other restrictions related to cryptography, like penalizing of VPN usage, prohibiting secure messengers … and so on? Also, in case that you have friend around Europe, mainly from EU (28 states), EU cooperative (16 states) or NATO (29 states), their response will be welcome also. I plan to create map, describing cryptography freedom mainly in Europe. Also, list of contacts for national authority, related laws and basic rules. In case that you have any points about, do not hesitate and please contact me. Comments are welcome. I have been inspired by map created by Bert-Jaap Koops on http://www.cryptolaw.org/cls-sum.htm, but this map has been updated in 2013 last time. More, this map needs more details. Regards Jan -- Jan Dušátko Tracker number: +420 602 427 840 e-mail: jan(a)dusatko.org GPG Signature: https://keys.dusatko.org/E535B585.asc GPG Encrypt: https://keys.dusatko.org/B76A1587.asc

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Cypherpunks was demon seed of Trump
by John Young 25 Dec '18

25 Dec '18

Cypherpunks Spawn Google Hits, December 25, 2018 Trump 1,480,000,000 Bear Market 734,000,000 Bitcoin 639,000,000 Bull Market 302,000,000 Crypto 170,000,000 Mueller 148,000,000 WikiLeaks 29,300,000 Assange 20,300,000 1. The spawn of the devil. 2. A person that does things that are really evil. Imprisonment and forced impregnation of a woman by an artificially intelligent computer.

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[OT] Anti Racist Jokes
by Cecilia Tanaka 25 Dec '18

25 Dec '18

# Why is a racist like a bad dog? Both mark their territory with shit. # A fat racist and a skinny racist jump off a cliff. Who wins? Society. # How many Nazis does it take to change a light bulb? 100. 1 to change the bulb and 99 to deny it ever happened. # What do you call a racist abortion centre? Crime stoppers. # What’s the difference between a racist and a bucket of sludge? The bucket. # What’s the difference between a ghost and a racist? One is a sheet-wearing spook who tries to scare people out of their homes, and the other one is a dead guy. -- "The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented."

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Merry Christmas
by rooty 25 Dec '18

25 Dec '18

Sent from androidee k mail

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USA colleges rejuvenating: Appeals Court: Colleges Must Censor, Block Online Services If They Offend Someone - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 24 Dec '18

24 Dec '18

Snowflakes rejoice and SCOTUS here we come after this Appeals Court ruling that University of Mary Washington has failed to censor "possibly students at the university, but no one is sure" from using Yik Yak, some location-based pseudonymity app. Hey, what good's a court (((they))) can't game? [ For 'intolerant Marxist' values of "they". ] Appeals Court Rules Colleges Must Censor, Block Online Services If They Offend Someone https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-20/appeals-court-rules-colleges-must… … Here’s some background: A location-based social media app called Yik Yak used to exist. It let users post things anonymously in a given geographic area, such as around colleges. Unsurprisingly, a lot of people posted boorish and offensive things. Even less surprisingly, people with fascist tendencies demanded their universities identify and punish those people. A feminist group at UMW took this to the next level by filing a lawsuit last year alleging the public university failed to protect them from a “sexually hostile environment.” Also named as a defendant was the university’s former president Richard Hurley, who allegedly retaliated against the plaintiffs ...by publicly defending the school against the students’ claims. I’m not kidding. The lawsuit’s other legal reasoning was not particularly convincing. The plaintiffs said UMW should have shut down Yik Yak by banning the app from the campus network. This would not have stopped anyone with a data signal from using the app. Which is basically everyone. A federal judge knocked down the lawsuit a year ago, saying that implementing the plaintiffs’ demands “may have exposed the university to liability under the First Amendment.” It wasn’t even clear the university had control over the people posting on Yik Yak, since they could have been members of the broader Fredericksburg community in the vicinity of the university, or just visitors passing through, or students communicating off-campus. Assumed but never demonstrated in the lawsuit: whether the speech at issue in Yik Yak was unprotected under the First Amendment. You’d think this would be the first thing the 4th Circuit would nail down. Nope! As analyzed by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the Richmond, Virginia-based appeals court completely ignored the legal status of the very speech at issue. That was the focus of a friend-of-the-court brief filed by FIRE and other free-speech groups earlier this year. They argued that not only were the “yaks” cited by the plaintiffs “crude and offensive” at worst, and nowhere near unprotected “true threats,” but that their cited case law only applied to K-12 contexts. The university did everything short of violating the First Amendment rights of other students to assuage the concerns of the plaintiffs, the brief argued: It was anything but “deliberately indifferent,” the threshold for private damages under Title IX. The 2-1 majority took 57 pages to showcase its willful ignorance of First Amendment law, not only describing the yaks as “harassing and threatening” but explicitly rejecting a narrow remedy for the alleged problem …

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is this Rayzer? Antifa leader smiles for camera - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 23 Dec '18

23 Dec '18

Pic not attached. It's in the article. Spoiler alert, "ethnicity" may not mean what you think :) BUSTED! Antifa Leader Revealed! Can You Guess the Ethnicity??? https://dailystormer.name/busted-antifa-leader-revealed-can-you-guess-the-e…

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